Simpson to Fort Durham
Fur trade warehouse at Fort Langley, the same as found in any fur trade fort
“This very neat establishment was planned in 1837, by Mr. [Duncan] Finlayson, of Red River,” Simpson said of Fort McLoughlin in his book, An Overland Journey Round the World. Finlayson “left the place in an unfinished state to Mr. [Donald] Manson, who in his turn, had certainly made the most of the capabilities of the situation.” By this time, however, Manson had left the fort, which was now in the hands of Charles Ross, an HBC Chief Trader who, it appears, was not in good health. It was June, 1844, when Simpson expressed the concerns he had with Ross’s health when he visited Fort McLoughlin in September, 1841: “I am exceedingly happy to find that you were in better health & spirits than when I had the pleasure of seeing you at Fort McLoughlin,” Simpson wrote, “when I was exceedingly anxious about you, and was really glad when information reached me that you had got over the nervous state in which I was sorry to see you when we last parted.”
Also, from Simpson’s book, we learn that Ross’s wife, “a Saulteaux half-breed from Lac la Pluie, lately displayed great courage.” During her husband’s absence from the fort, some First Nations men who were trading in the store with her son “drew their knives upon the boy. On hearing this, the lady, pike in hand, chased the cowardly rascals from post to pillar, till she had driven them out of the fort. “If such are the white women,” said the discomfited savages, “what must the white men be?”” (Note that Charles Ross’s wife, Isabella Mainville, was not a white woman, but Métis.)
We determined that Governor Simpson arrived at Fort McLoughlin on September 15, 1841, but we do not have the date he left that place. He writes: “About ten in the morning, we left Fort McLoughlin, passing through Millbanke Sound, Grenville Canal, Chatham Sound and Pearl Harbour. After four in the afternoon, we reached Fort Simpson, under the charge of Mr. [John] Work. This establishment was originally formed at the mouth of Nass River, but had been removed to a peninsula, washed on three sides by Chatham Sound, Port Essington, and Work’s Canal. Fort Simpson is the resort of a vast number of Indians, amounting in all to about fourteen thousand, of various tribes.” So, if Governor Simpson left Fort McLoughlin in the morning of September 15, he would have arrived at Fort Simpson in the afternoon of the same day. But we don’t know if it took only one day to reach Fort Simpson from Fort McLoughlin, and we don’t know how long he spent at Fort Simpson.
However, we do know that he left Fort Simpson on the afternoon of September 18, and “Came to anchor for the night at the southern entrance of the Canal de Reveilla. Both mainland and islands became more and more rugged as we advanced, rising abruptly from the very shores, in the form of lofty mountains, with the ocean at their feet and the snow on their summits.” I looked up Canal de Reveilla to see where that was, and did not find it in my collection of maps. However, just north of Duke Island, which is itself just north of Fort Simpson, I found Revillagigedo Channel, leading north and west through the islands. Passing Mountain Point, it led to Tongass Narrows and eventually, to Clarence Inlet. And on Wikipedia, I found a good description of the Alaskan Revillagigedo Channel, which extends 35 miles northwest from Dixon Entrance, and was named for the Spanish explorer Juan Vicente de Guemes, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo, viceroy of New Spain, in 1793. And today it is called Revilla Channel: so close enough to what both Captain McNeill and Governor Simpson called it in 1841.
Back to Fort Simpson for a bit: While Simpson was at Fort Simpson (a place that was named for his cousin, Aemilius Simpson), he said this of the trade there:
As Fort Simpson lay within the range of the competition of the Russians of Sitka, who used spirits in their trade, we had not been able here to abolish the sale of liquor; and such was the influence of the simple fact, that several of our crew, though not a drop was either given or sold to them, yet continued to become tolerably drunk by “tapping the admiral.”
So I am presuming by this statement that Fort McLoughlin did not deal in liquor, but that Fort Simpson did. And do you want to know what “tapping the admiral” means? Well, it’s an old story: Admiral Horatio Nelson was killed in the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805, and upon the British victory his body was preserved in a cask of brandy or rum, allowing transportation back to England. On the ship’s return to England, however, the cask was opened and found to be empty of the liquor. The pickled body remained and was removed from the barrel. Upon inspection of the cask itself, it was discovered that the sailors had drilled a hole in the bottom of said cask, and drunk all the brandy or rum with a straw. Whether this story is true or not, and whether or not the story predated Admiral Nelson’s death in the Battle of Trafalgar, “tapping the admiral” came to mean secretly drinking from a barrel of Royal Navy rum or brandy. And if you are interested, there is even a pub in Kentish Town, North London, that is named “Tapping the Admiral.” So, now you know!
So Governor Simpson left Fort Simpson on September 18, afternoon, and the Beaver spent the night at anchor off “Canal de Reveilla.” If you remember, the Beaver is carrying Governor Simpson north to Sitka, via Fort Stikine. Although my previous information had it that Simpson did not visit Fort Stikine until just before he left Sitka for Russia, I find now that he did. The reason? “Since we left Nisqually, Mr. [John] Rowand had been suffering very severely from intermittent fever and sea-sickness. As he had been much worse last night, we wished to leave him at Fort Simpson; but he insisting on continuing the voyage along with us.”
The date is now September 19, 1841. “Next day we passed through the Canal de Reveilla and Clarence Straits, respectively about thirty and fifty-four miles long. On the morning thereafter (September 20 I think), having halted all night on account of the narrowness of the channel, we passed through Stikine Straits into the little harbour of Fort Stikine, where, about eight o’clock, we were welcomed on shore by Mr. McLoughlin Jr.” This is John McLoughlin Jr., son of Chief Factor John McLoughlin, and he is now in charge of Fort Stikine after William Glen Rae was sent down to take over the California post. So, as you see, Simpson did visit Fort Stikine on his way up the coast, contrary to the information I already had. But because the post was so newly purchased from the Russian American Company, he did not inspect it, as he did the other posts. In his book, An Overland Journey, Simpson went on to say:
This establishment, originally founded by the Russian American Company, had been recently transferred to us on a lease of ten years, together with the right of hunting and trading in the continental territories of the association in question as far up as Cross Sound. Russia, as the reader is of course aware, possesses on the mainland, between latitude 54 degrees 40′ and latitude 60 degrees, only a strip never exceeding thirty miles in depth; and this strip, in the absence of such an arrangement as has just been mentioned, renders the interior comparatively useless to England.
After the signing of the Russian American Company agreement with the company, the HBC men on the Liard River, in the interior, were no longer encouraged to find a way into the Stikine River basin from the east. Instead, they moved east toward Frances Lake, and north to the Pelly River in the Yukon. The story is told in the “Journeys” thread.
In 1841, Simpson goes on to describe Fort Stikine: “The establishment, of which the site had not been well selected, was situated on a peninsula hardly large enough for the necessary buildings, while the tide, by overflowing the isthmus at high water, rendered any artificial extension of the premises almost impracticable: and the slime, that was periodically deposited by the receding sea, was aided by the putridity and filth of the native village in the neighbourhood in oppressing the atmosphere with a most nauseous perfume. The harbour, moreover, was so narrow, that a vessel of a hundred tons, instead of swinging at anchor, was under the necessity of mooring stem and stern; and the supply of fresh water was brought by a wood aqueduct, which the savages might at any time destroy, from a stream about two hundred yards distant.” A charming place!
So they arrived at Fort Stikine on September 20, it seems. “As Mr. Rowand continued to get worse, we left him here to recruit his health, being the more anxious to give him the benefits of rest and shelter, as the notoriously vile weather of the winter of the northwest coast commenced today with its deluges of rain. Getting under way about three in the afternoon (September 20), we anchored for the night at the entrance of Wrangell’s Straits.”
September 21. “Next morning we passed through Wrangell’s Straits and Prince Frederick’s Sound, respectively twenty-two and fifty-seven miles long, and halted for the night (September 21-22) at the entrance of Stephen’s Passage. The valleys were lined with glaciers down to the water’s edge, and the pieces that had broken off during the season filled the canals and straits with fields and masses of ice, through which the vessel could scarcely force her way.
“Starting again at five in the morning (September 22), with a foul wind and a thick fog, we ran through Stephen’s Passage; and when the mist cleared sufficiently for the purpose, the land on either side displayed to us mountains rising abruptly from the sea, and bearing a glacier in their every ravine. Earlier in the season these glaciers would have been concealed by the snow; but now they showed a surface of green ice.
“At two in the afternoon we reached Taco, an establishment conducted by Dr. [John Frederick] Kennedy, with an assistant and twenty-two men. Here the little harbour is almost land locked by mountains, being partially exposed only to the southeast. One of the hills near the fort terminates in the form of a canoe, which serves as a barometer. A shroud of fog indicates rain; but the clear vision of the canoe itself is a sign of fair weather.
“The fort, though it was only a year old, was yet very complete, with good houses, lofty pickets, and strong bastions. The establishment was maintained chiefly on the flesh of the chevreuil [deer], which is very fat and has an excellent flavour. Some of these deer weigh as much as a hundred and fifty pounds each; and they are so numerous, that Taco has this year sent to market twelve hundred of their skins, being the handsome average of a deer a week for every inmate of the place. But extravagance in the eating of venison is here a very lucrative business, for the hide, after paying freight and charges, yields in London a profit on the prime cost of the whole animal.”
So, at Taco — or more properly Fort Durham — the men lived on venison, and the skins of the deer they shot or traded for brought in good money in the London market. Alaska’s coastal mule deer are called Sitka Black-Tailed deer, and although they are not as large as the inland mule deer (which also live in Alaska), they are still of a substantial size. Mule deer can be identified by their large ears, their white rump patch, and their distinctive white tail with a black tip.
So, do the dates work? Simpson said that, “Having been detained at Taco from Wednesday afternoon to Saturday morning…” Well, September 22 1841, is Wednesday, and September 25 is Saturday. I would say the schedule is still working!
If you want to hear the stories of Fort Simpson, go here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/fort-simpson-2/
If you want to learn the history of Fort Durham, sometimes called Taku, begin here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/fort-durham/
When the next section of this journal is written and published, I will include it here. https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/fort-durham-to-sitka-beyond/
If you want to go back to Fort Vancouver, where Simpson began his journey up the northwest coast, you can go here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/simpson-at-fort-vancouver/
And if you want to go all the way back to the beginning of this story, which was the result of finding and attempting to identify a document in the BC Archives, go here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/rough-notes/
Copyright, Nancy Marguerite Anderson, 2025. All rights reserved.