Sir George’s Travels
Image of a birchbark canoe on a Canadian River, from Glenbow Archive, image na-843-14, used with their permission
In 1841, the newly-minted Sir George Simpson travelled from England to Canada, and then on to Red River by the traditional route to Ruperts Land. As we know, that route goes by the St. Lawrence to the Ottawa, and north and then west to the French River and on to Fort William, where Thunder Bay now stands. So let’s see what Sir George had to say of this journey west, and let’s also see how far we will all get.
“On the morning of the 3rd of March, 1841,” he began his journal, “I started from Euston Square by railway for Liverpool, at a quarter past nine o’clock. In addition to my secretary, Mr. Hopkins, I was accompanied by four or five gentlemen connected with The Hudson’s Bay Company’s service, and also by a gentleman in the service of the Russian American Company, on his route from Petersburg to Sitka, whose superiors were thus preferring for him as shorter by thirty degrees of longitude, the breadth of all the rest of the world to that of his native empire. In less than ten hours we reached our port of embarkation, taking up our quarters for the night at the Grecian Hotel in Dale Street.”
So, for the Russians, it was a shorter distance to travel from western Russia to Sitka, on the northwest coast of North America, via to London and then across the Atlantic Ocean and over the entire North American continent to the Pacific, than it was to travel eastward, through the entire Russian territory, to the North Pacific Ocean. It might be that the transportation systems did not exist in Siberia and Russia, as they existed on this continent–or it might just be that because of the HBC, the transportation systems on the North American continent were much better organized than those in Russia. Whatever the reason, the Russian gentleman, Nicolas von Freymann, an officer in the Russian American Company, was willing to travel with Simpson from England to Lachine to Fort Vancouver and on to Sitka, on the Pacific slopes.
As we all know the Sir George in this story is Sir George Simpson, who was knighted by Queen Victoria in the throne room at Buckingham Palace on January 25, 1841. He was a Knight Bachelor, and would from this date be correctly addressed as Sir George (or Sir George Simpson), and his English wife, Frances, as Lady Simpson. The secretary he is travelling with is Edward Martin Hopkins, and he is only twenty years old, I believe. Sir George is losing his eyesight, and he now needs a secretary to read and to write his letters.
The remaining gentlemen on this excursion west were a newly trained doctor, Alexander Rowand, who is of course the son of John Rowand of Edmonton House. He is the reason why John Rowand rode east to Red River in 1841, where he met up with Sir George. The other HBC gentlemen here were Chief Factor Alexander Christie, Peter Warren Dease, and Chief Trader Donald Manson, who was returning from a year’s furlough.
Simpson’s journal continues: “Next day, after an early dinner, we were conveyed in a small steamer from the Egremont Pier to the Caledonia, Captain McKellar, a vessel of 1,300 tons and 450 horse power. At half-past five, the last of the passengers, amounting to forty-four in all, having arrived together with the mail bags, the melancholy signal of the farewell bell was immediately followed by a rush of “friends” for the shore; and in ten minutes more, at the sound of the bugle, the good ship’s paddles were plashing in the waters of the Mersey.” He doesn’t say much about the ocean-crossing, which is good. Presumably the steamer raised her sails once they were clear of the Thames River, but he doesn’t even tell us that much. But Sir George does tell us that the Caledonia sailed through an ocean storm.
About noon on March 18, the people aboard the steamer saw the “dreary shores of Nova Scotia, covered with snow and lined with ice; and by five in the evening, after a run of precisely fourteen days, we entered the harbour of Halifax, amid the hearty cheers of a large concourse of ‘blue noses.'” But they didn’t get off the ship. Apparently travel between Halifax and Lachine was less regular (and less comfortable) than one might have wanted. In fact, Sir George says, “In summer, to be sure, the mails are conveyed so rapidly to Quebec by steam, that the first news from England is received throughout Canada by that route; but during the winter, the bags are dragged over such wretched roads that they (the mails) everywhere meet, as stale news, the letters and journals which have accompanied themselves from England, and preferred the circuitous route through the United States to the straight cut through British America.” After a five hour stop at Halifax, the ship carried on for Boston. After their arrival there, the passengers headed for Canada travelled by railway to a town called Lowell, in Massachusetts, before taking alternate transportation north. They walked. They rode horses. They travelled by sleigh, and they finally walked across the ice of the St. Lawrence River and reached Montreal– but he doesn’t tell us on what date. Needless to say, it was before the 1st day of May, because on that date he set out in the canoes on his way to Red River.
“On the first of May, the season being more backward than usual, the navigation was so far open as to permit the steamers to ply on the St. Lawrence as far as Beauharnois and Chateauguay; and on that day, therefore, the heavy canoes were dispatched for the interior under the charge of one of the gentlemen who had accompanied me from London.” That was likely Chief Factor Alexander Christie, who was heading north and west to take of the charge of the Southern district, which had its headquarters at Moose Factory, on James Bay. This post was reached by travelling up the Ottawa River to the Temiscamingue post, on Temiscamingue Lake (part of the Ottawa River), and following the river on which the post stood west to Lake Abitibi and the Abitibi River, and on to the Moose River, which led them north to James Bay and Moose Factory. This was an old French route used as early as the late 1600s, and it took travellers from the Ottawa River to James Bay by quite a good, short, and efficient short route.
Sir George’s journal continues: ‘In the light canoes I was to have several fellow travellers not connected with The Hudson’s Bay Company’s service. My friend, Colonel Oldfield, head of the engineer department in Canada, was to accompany me, along with his aide-de-camp, Mr. Bainbridge, as far as Lake Nippissing.” Lake Nipissing is on the height of land at the end of the Mattawa River, and there they are on their way to the French River. He continued: “and the Earls of Caledon and Mulgrave were to be my fellow travellers all the way to Red River Settlement, whence they were to proceed to hunt the buffalo.” According to James Raffan, author of Emperor of the North: Sir George Simpson and the Remarkable story of the Hudson’s Bay Company, these two gentlemen were George Augustus Phipps, the earl of Mulgrave, and 29 year-old James du Pre Alexander, the earl of Caledon.
“Under these circumstances our departure excited more than ordinary interest,” Simpson wrote. “Accordingly, on the morning of the fourth of May, many friends of my fellow travellers and myself came out to Lachine to an early breakfast, in order to witness our start for the wilderness. By nine o’clock, our two canoes were floating in front of the house (Hudson’s Bay House, I presume) on the Lachine canal, constructed to avoid the famous rapids of St. Louis downriver from Lachine. Three crews, thirteen men to the one vessel, and fourteen to the other, consisted partly of Canadians, but principally of Iroquois from the opposite village of Kaughnawaga, the whole being under the charge of my old and faithful follower, Morin. To do credit to the concern in the eyes of the strangers, the voyageurs had been kept as sober as voyageurs could be kept on such an occasion; and each one had been supplied with a feather for his cap. This was all very fine; but the poor fellows were sadly disappointed that a northwester which was blowing prevented the hoisting of our flags.
“The canoes, those tiny vehicles of an amphibious navigation, are constructed in the following manner. The outside is formed of the thick and tough bark of the birch, the sheets being sewed together with the root of the pine tree split into threads, and the seams being gummed to make them air tight.” Water tight is probably what he means: and the thin stems of root are called wattap. “The gunwales are of pine or cedar, of about three inches square; and in the lower edges are inserted the ribs; made of thin pieces of wood bent to a semi circle. Between the ribs and the bark is a coating of lathing, which, besides warding off internal injury from the fragile covering, serves to impart a firmness to the vessel.These canoes are generally about thirty-five feet from stem to stern; and they are five feet wide in the centre, gradually tapering to a point at each end where they are raised about a foot. When loaded, they draw scarcely eighteen inches of water; and they weigh between three hundred and four hundred pounds.
“When all was ready, the passengers embarked, the centre of each canoe being appropriated to their accommodation. In the first canoe the two noblemen and myself took our seats; and the second contained Colonel Oldfield, Mr. Bainbridge, our Russian companion, and Mr. Hopkins. At ten minutes before eleven, the men struck up one of their hereditary ditties; and off we went amid the cheers and adieus of our assembled friends.”
So, we see who is here, and who isn’t here. Donald Manson isn’t here: he would have gone on with the Montreal brigade canoes to Norway House to catch the York Factory Express down to Hudson Bay and back to the Columbia district. Peter Warren Dease isn’t here: he retired to Montreal. Nor is Chief Factor Alexander Christie, who had headed off for Moose Factory the day before. The puzzle is that there is one person who is NOT here, that should have been–and that is the mysterious Gaelic-speaking man named Macintosh/McIntosh, who supposedly travelled to Red River with this party. At least I think he went to Red River…one of the two gentlemen above also kept a journal, and he may have mentioned this, although Simpson did not.
Sir George’s journal continues: “As the wind was high, the waves of the St. Lawrence rather resembled those of the sea than of a river, while, borne on the biting gale, the snow drifted heavily in our faces. At Point Claire, where we dined, we luckily obtained the shelter of a roof through the politeness of Mr. Charlebois, whose wife proved to be an old friend of mine, being a daughter of Mr. [Peter Warren] Dease, the northern discoverer, one of the gentlemen who had accompanied me across the Atlantic. At St. Anne’s rapid, on the Ottawa, we neither sang our evening hymn nor bribed the lady patroness with shirts, caps, &c, for a propitious journey…”
From Lachine, the voyageurs normally paddled their canoes across Lac St. Louis to St. Anne’s convent, where they paused to put in a few coins and receive a blessing. It sounds (not too surprisingly) as if Sir George’s canoes skipped that long tradition, and instead headed across the Lake of Two Mountains to the mouth of the Ottawa River, which would carry them north. Let’s see what happens next. Sir George tells us that “In the Lake of the Two Mountains we found our heavy canoes, now three days out from Lachine, still wind-bound; and after bidding them goodby with our lighter craft and stronger crews, we reached the Hudson’s Bay Company establishment at half past six.” These heavier canoes will be those that left Lachine a day or so before Simpson’s canoes left. Perhaps these are Chief Factor Alexander Christie’s canoes? And I have no idea which HBC house it was they visited, although it appears to be on the shores of Lake of Two Mountains. “On approaching the land, we were saluted by the one cannon of the fort, while Mr. McTavish waited on the wharf to give us a hearty welcome; and on reaching the house, we were kindly received by Mrs. McTavish. After being resuscitated by warm fires and an excellent supper, we spread our bedding on the floor.”
The next morning, Sir George reported that “At the foot of the Long Sault, a succession of rapids about twelve miles in length, we breakfasted. Soon afterwards we reached the Lock of Carrillon, the first of a series of artificial works erected by the government to avoid the rapids in question, passing through the whole, without delay or expense, as part and parcel of Colonel Oldfield’s suite. In the lake above Grenville, into which these works conducted us, we met a steamer gliding so gently and silently along, that she might almost be supposed to have gone astray on these once secluded waters.” The Ottawa River has changed significantly from its early days!
His descriptions of the adventures are very good! “Next morning, after toiling for six hours, we breakfasted at eight, with the wet ground for our table and with rain in place of milk to cool our tea. By one in the afternoon, while attempting to pass close under the Falls of the Rideau, we were swept into the middle of the river by the violence of the current, our gunwales being covered with the foam that floated on the water. These falls are about fifty feet in height and three hundred in breadth, being then more magnificent than usual by reason of the high state of the waters.” The river is changing. The men paddle the canoes past Bytown, a new town situated on the banks of the Ottawa. Opposite Bytown is Hull, “the creation of an enterprising backwoodsman of New England of the name of Wright.” Hull is in modern day Quebec and so on the north or east bank of the river, and Bytown is on the south or west bank and is now the capital city of Canada: Ottawa, Ontario.
But the Chaudiere Falls and Lake still exists at this time, even though all is changed to the south. Here, the bottom of the falls boiled as if in a kettle. Simpson said that the falls “presents a desperate struggle of the majestic Ottawa, leaping, with a roar of thunder, from ledge to ledge and from rock to rock, till at last, wearied, as it were, with its buffetings, it sinks exhausted into the placed pool below.” Sir George’s story continues:
“Up to Chaudiere Lake the canoes were sent perfectly light by water, while the baggage and the passengers were conveyed on wheels to the prettily situated village of Aylmer. Being here rejoined by our little squadron, we encamped up the lake on the grounds by my friend, General Lloyd, from whose hospitable mansion our tea-table, if the bottom of the tent could be deemed such, was provided, not for the first time in my voyaging experience, with the luxuries of milk and cream. Here the bullfrogs, gathering a new vigour from the light of our fires, serenaded us all night to our infinite annoyance. Soon after sunrise we made a portage round Les Chutes des Chats [cats] into the rapids, which terminate the lake of the same name.” You might mistakenly think that this falls was named for cats–but it was not. It was named for the raccoons!
“In the course of the day we had heavy work with a succession of difficult portages, breakfasting on the first and meeting on the second my trusty half-breed guide, Bernard, who here came into my canoe, while Morin was transferred to the other. The last of the series, the Grand Calumet, we were obliged to leave for next morning’s amusement, though it was only half a mile distant.
“Our encampment would have formed a rich and varied subject for a painter’s brush. Our tents were pitched in a small clump of pines, while round a blazing fire the passengers were collected amid a medley of boxes, barrels, pots, cloaks, &c; and to the left, on a rock above the foaming rapids, were lying the canoes, the men flitted athwart their own separate fire as actively as if they had enjoyed a holiday, and anxiously watching a huge cauldron that was suspended over the flames by three poles. The foreground consisted of two or three magnificent trees on a slight eminence; and the background was formed by dense woods and a gleaming lake.”
I like his writing. Or perhaps it is the writing of his secretary Edward Martin Hopkins whose words we are listening to. It does not matter: this manuscript is really well written. I hope you enjoy it, as I do.
So when the next piece of this journal is published, it will appear here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/whatever-i-call-it/
And if you don’t know where this story is leading you, just for your information you will end up here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/rough-notes/
Copyright, Nancy Marguerite Anderson, 2026. All rights reserved.
Again, as always, thank you.
Gordon.