Simpson on the Beaver

A misty night on the Pacific Ocean.

“At noon on Monday, the 6th of September, we embarked on board of the Beaver steamer, Captain McNeill, leaving Mr. Hopkins in temporary charge of Nisqually along with Mr. Heath. Starting under a salute of seven guns, we pushed along against a strong breeze, till we anchored about five in the afternoon, to enable the engineer to repair some damage which the machinery had sustained; but, the job being completed by nine, we then steamed on all night.”

And so begins Sir George Simpson’s journey to the northwest coast, where he planned to visit all the posts on the coast, and to view the good work that Chief Factor John McLoughlin had done. He would also visit the Russian-American Company headquarters at Sitka, and deliver to them their new employee, Nicolas von Freymann. The above quote was taken from Simpson’s book, An Overland Journey Round the World. I believe when he began his journey north, he had no real criticism of McLoughlin’s work. But certain conversations changed his mind, it seems. 

So who are the men he is discussing in the above paragraph? Captain McNeill was Captain Henry William McNeill, now captain of the Beaver. Mr. Hopkins was his secretary, Edward Martin Hopkins, and Mr. Heath was William Heath, second in command of the Beaver under McNeill. Chief Factor James Douglas was also aboard the Beaver — and so, too, were John Rowand, of Edmonton House; Rowand’s son, Dr. Alexander Rowand; and a Russian named Nicolas von Freymann, who Simpson was delivering from London to Sitka for the Russian American Company. 

It is known that the Beaver was in poor condition at this time: in fact, it had been at anchor for almost two years in front of Fort Nisqually, undergoing repairs (likely to its engines). Its boilers were also close to being worn out, although the engineers claimed the ship had two good years left before replacement of the boilers was required. One of the reasons that the boilers needed replacement so often was that the HBC men used salt water in them, which corroded the iron the boilers were built of.

On what must be Tuesday, September 7, 1841, Simpson wrote in his book, An Overland Journey:

About seven in the morning we passed along the inner end of [Juan de] Fuca’s Straits, the first of the numberless inlets of this coast that was ever discovered by civilized man. The neighbouring country,  comprising the southern end of Vancouver’s Island, is well adapted for colonization, for in addition to a tolerable soil and a moderate climate, it possesses excellent harbours and abundance of timber. It will doubtless become, in time, the most valuable section of the whole coast above California.

As a foul wind and a heavy sea prevented us from making more than two miles and a half an hour, we resolved to wood and water behind Point Roberts, near the mouth of Frazer’s River, a stream which, after traversing New Caledonia on its way from the Rocky Mountains, falls into the Gulf of Georgia, in lat. 49 degrees…

In regards to Vancouver’s Island, Simpson had not visited the place, but other HBC men had done so. In summer 1837, Captain William McNeill explored the four possible harbours on the south end of Vancouver’s Island for McLoughlin, and was impressed by what he then called Camosun Harbour. Then, in December 1839, John Work and William McNeill took Chief Factor McLoughlin to view Camosun Harbour for himself. McLoughlin told Simpson he was not impressed with it, and that it was not suitable for the purpose. He thought that was the end of the conversation. But in 1841, Simpson heard  Captain William McNeill’s description of Camosun Harbour, and he remembered. 

Simpson also had good reason to know about the Fraser River, as he had descended a good part of that river in 1828. His story (or at least the New Caledonia to Fort Langley section of it) begins here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/two-canoes-nineteen/ In his book, Simpson said this of his adventurous descent of that river: “Frazer’s River had never been wholly descended by whites previously to 1828, when, in order to explore the navigation all the way to the sea, I started from Stuart’s Lake with three canoes. I found the stream hardly practicable even for any craft excepting that, for the first twenty-five miles from its mouth, it might receive large vessels. This river, therefore, is of little or no use to England as a channel of communication with the interior; and in fact, the trade of New Caledonia, the very country which it drains, is carried on overland to Okanagan and thence down the Columbia.” 

The story continues: “Behind Point Roberts,” Simpson wrote, “there was a large camp of about a thousand savages, inhabitants of Vancouver’s Island, who periodically cross the gulf to Frazer’s River for the purpose of fishing. A great number of canoes assisted us in bringing over wood and water from the shore, some of them paddled entirely by young girls of remarkably interesting and comely appearance. These people offered us salmon, potatoes, berries and shell-fish for sale.”

The wind died, and the Beaver weighed anchor at about one in the morning of Wednesday, September 8, anchoring that night in what I presume is Blubber Bay, at the north end of Texada Island, which the HBC men called “Feveda.” McNeill liked this anchorage because of the good, hard wood his men found here, “which was both close in the grain and resinous.” One cord of this wood, McNeill claimed, provided as much energy as two cords of wood found in other places along the coast. The gentlemen hunted for deer and fished for dogfish, while the men cut wood for the vessel — a job that took them the entire next day (Thursday, September 9). Here, Sir George Simpson spoke of something that everyone eventually learned about the steamer Beaver — 

As the vessel carries only one day’s stock [of wood], about forty cords, and takes about the same time to cut the wood as to burn it, she is at least as much at anchor as she is under way, a good deal of her delay, however being rendered necessary, without reference to the demands of her furnace, by wind and weather, and also for the purpose of dealing with the natives. Still, on the whole, the paddle is far preferable to canvas in these inland waters, which extend from Puget Sound to Cross Sound, by reason of the strength of the currents, the variableness of the winds, the narrowness of the channels and the intricacy and ruggedness of the line of coast.

And here is something else that is interesting. Simpson said that “We found [Captain George] Vancouver’s charts so minute and accurate, that, amid all our difficulties, we never had to struggle with such as mere science could be expected to overcome, and in justice both to our own navigator, and to one of his successors in the same path, I ought to mention, that Commodore [Charles] Wilkes, after a comparatively tedious survey from the mouth of the Columbia to that of Frazer’s River, admitted, that he had required to make but few and inconsiderable corrections.” When we talk about San Juan Island and the difficulties that the British at Fort Victoria had to claim it as their own territory, the fact that Lieutenant Charles Wilkes explored those islands in 1841 seemed to carry more weight, in the end, than the fact that the British explorer, Captain George Vancouver, had already surveyed these islands in summer, 1792. 

Then, on Friday, September 10, Governor Simpson notes:

Leaving Feveda [Texada] early on the morning of the tenth, we steamed against a strong wind till at dusk we got into the safe harbour of Port Neville. In the course of the forenoon, three villages of Comoucs [Comox] that were opposite to Point Mudge, sent off forty or fifty canoes to us, whose inmates, amounting perhaps to eight hundred of all ages and both sexes, made all sorts of noises to induce us to stop.

Port Neville was named by Captain Vancouver, and is a bay or port on the north end of Johnstone Strait, on the east side of the narrows that form the strait. Cape Mudge is the very south end of Quadra Island, and Comox is across the strait. The Comox chief came aboard, and oh, my goodness! “This was not this grandee’s first trip in the Beaver,” Simpson wrote. “On a former occasion he had made love to the captain’s wife, who was accompanying her husband; and when he found her obdurate, he transferred his attentions to Mrs. Manson, who happened to be on board along with Mr. [Donald] Manson himself, till on being sent by her to negotiate with her husband, he gravely backed his application by offering him a large bundle of furs. On the present occasion, also, this ardent admirer of the fair sex was true to his system, for he took a great fancy to an English woman on board, while at the same time, with more generosity than justice, he recommended his own princess, not to the woman’s husband, but to myself.”

So an English woman was on board the Beaver in September 1841? Who was she? One suggestion might be Edward Hopkins’s wife, Frances Hopkins. But he wasn’t yet married to her, and why would she be here while her husband stayed behind at Fort Nisqually? Who was the woman’s husband, the man who didn’t get offered a princess to bed? Who? Who? Who?

The Beaver continued her journey north through Johnstone’s Straits, the body of water that lay between Vancouver’s Island and Quadra Island. Ripple Rock, the most dangerous navigation hazard on this entire coast for many years, is here. This rock is part of my childhood: In April 1958, Ripple Rock was blown out of the water, and to this day, its destruction is known as the largest non-nuclear explosion ever. How did this happen? Engineers dug a tunnel down and then under the Strait, and up inside the rock, and packed it full of dynamite, and blew it up and it was a spectacular explosion which we watched on television while attending school some three islands away. And everyone was given pieces of the core of Ripple Rock: I wonder how many of these cores actually made it into a museum. Certainly, ours was lost before the family left Cortes Island. (If anyone on Cortes Island asks, I am one of the Pyner kids.)

The Beaver reached the narrowest point of Johnstone Strait and was stopped by the tides. Here, the incoming tides from the north end of the island, and those from the south end, meet and cause chaos: tides between these islands can travel at 14 knots! The Beaver anchored for the night as the ship was unable to make its way through the narrows. On the next morning, Saturday, September 11, the men aboard woke up to a heavy fog.  About noon the fog finally lifted and, as the water was calm once more, the Beaver made it to McNeill’s Harbour (now Port McNeill), where they traded with the Kwakiutl people who lived there. Simpson tells us that the men went ashore to cut wood and the Kwakiutl carried the wood aboard the Beaver, and McNeil traded with the Kwakiutl until noon the next day, which makes it September 12, a Sunday. And Simpson’s journal agrees.

Leaving the Quakeolths [Kwakiutl] at one in the afternoon of the twelfth, and passing through Queen Charlotte’s Sound [actually Queen Charlotte’s Strait], we reached, by five o’clock, the harbour of Shushady Newettes at the northern end of Vancouver’s Island, in a heavy fog…. During the night the fog increased to such a degree, that next morning we could not see a hundred yards from the ship. 

For their own amusement they attempted to teach some First Nations people the English language, and found that “the letter R plagued them most, getting the better of them. In fact after all their efforts in working about their lips and tongues in every manner of way; and the nearest approach that they made, amid roars of laughter, to our fellow traveller’s name, was Wowand.” Again, this suggests strongly that John Rowand was here. Simpson went out salmon fishing with a chief and came home at dusk, and so the day ended. What day? I would have said September 13, and I am right. “It was noon of the next day, the fourteenth of the month, before the weather cleared sufficiently for a start,” Simpson wrote, but a missing capote delayed them for about an hour. “We were soon nearly abreast of Smith’s Inlet, where we should have to encounter the unbroken swell of the open ocean for upwards of twenty-five miles.” This open water is Queen Charlotte’s Sound.

Just at this point, to our great mortification, the fog again gathered so thickly around us that we could not see to the distance of fifty yards; and we had, therefore, no other choice than that of endeavouring to regain the safe ground that we had left. But we had hardly put about, when we heard the sound of breakers almost under our bows. “Stop her, and back!” was passed to the engineer; and it was well that a word could do the needful, for a sailing vessel would have been knocked to pieces in less time than we took to return stern foremost into fifteen fathoms. There we remained at anchor till five o’clock, when the dispersion of the mist showed us, that the current must have carried the steamer two miles to the westward of her reckoning. Now that we saw a clear route to carry us away from our imminent danger, we lost no time in getting up the anchor, though, from the defective state of the windlass, twenty-two minutes, an age in our estimation, were spent on thirty fathoms of chain. We proceeded to a secure anchorage under the northern end of Vancouver’s Island, near Bull Harbour, embracing the opportunity of recruiting our stocks of wood and water. 

Although he did not say so, Simpson must have been most impressed with the steamer and her ability to get out of trouble when a sailing ship would have been wrecked. That night the Beaver lay at anchor, and by morning (September 15) the weather was clear. “We entered on our dangerous traverse [of Queen Charlotte’s Sound] at an early hour; and though the haze soon again came in our way, yet, as we saw the Pearl and Virgin rocks to seaward, we held our course, reaching, about half-past ten, the smooth water of Fitzhugh’s Sound…” Fitz Hugh Sound is between Calvert Island and the mainland, and is part of the sheltered water that will lead the Beaver all the way north to Sitka. Simpson’s story continues:

After passing Calvert’s Island, our channel was formed by islands to seaward, and on the other side partly by islands and partly by promontories of the main land. Between these promontories there were generally deep inlets known as canals, one of them being deservedly sacred in the eyes of every Briton, as that arm of the Pacific Ocean, to which Sir Alexander McKenzie, with matchless prudence and fortitude forced his way across a continent never before trodden by civilized man…. We were hailed by a strongly manned canoe with the usual salutation of Ma-ta-hell, Ma-ta-hell, Ma-ta-hell [McNeill; McNeill; McNeill]; but as we were anxious to get to Fort McLoughlin before sunset, we had no time for parlay. About six o’clock we came to anchor at the post just mentioned, distant a few miles from Millbank Sound.

There we are. We are at Fort McLoughlin, and the date is September 15, 1841. 

You may or may not know that my great grandfather, A.C. Anderson, helped to build Fort McLoughlin. Its 5-post-long story begins here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/fort-mcloughlin/ 

When the next post in this series is written and published, you will find it here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/whatever-i-call-it/  

Copyright, Nancy Marguerite Anderson, 2025. All rights reserved.

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