Wranglers in the HBC Brigades

The book cover for my book, The HBC Brigades, which will be published by Ronsdale Press in May, 2024

You might find it odd that I use the word “Wranglers” for the men who worked in the HBC Brigades. They look and act like typical “cowboys,” as you will see. And yet the word, Wranglers, is a good description of their employment, as they work with horses, and not cattle. They wrangle their pack-horses across the mountains and through the narrow passes along the trail; they load and unload them every day; they care for them at the posts, and when they reach their destination post (Fort Hope), they ensure that their horses looked after. And that makes them Wranglers and not cowboys, no matter how much more familiar the latter word is to us. 

My book, The HBC Brigades: Culture, Conflict, and Perilous Journeys of the Fur Trade, was published by Ronsdale Press in July 2024. You can order the book through your local bookstore, or via Amazon. For American booksellers, the distributor for Ronsdale Press in the United States is Independent Publishers Group. Thank you!

From the writings of Englishmen who were in the territories at the same time as the HBC men were active, I have descriptions of the HBC Brigades, both as they left their home post, and as they arrived at Fort Langley in the years after 1849. These following descriptions come from John Keast Lord’s book, At Home in the Wilderness: What to Do There and How to Do It. A Handbook for Travellers and Emigrants — published in London by Hardwicke & Bogue in 1876. Keist knew of what he was speaking: he was a Royal Engineer employed in surveying the boundary line with the British North American Boundary Commission. After his Royal Engineer companions returned to England he remained behind, working as a packer out of Forts Langley, Hope, and Colvile for some twenty additional years. Here are a few excerpts from the book. For example, an essential for wranglers, with their Brigade of horses, seems to be the bell mare:

If the number of animals composing [the mule train] exceeds three or four, you must have a bell mare… Experience has taught packers that mules will follow a mare or gelding (the former being always preferred), should it have a bell tied round its next wherever it goes: more than this, at night, when camping, all you have to do is to secure the bell mare, either by hobbling or tethering her, and the mules will very rarely graze further away than they can distinctly hear the bell, which is always tinkling so long as the mare is eating or wandering about. When the bell ceases, in consequence of the mare’s lying down, the mules also lie down and take their rest. When the mare gets up and the bell begins to ring, the mules also arise and again commence feeding. The bell mare always precedes the mule train, and is ridden by the cook as a rule. Her pace regulates that of the train, and must be carefully watched by whomsoever has the charge of the train. 

But I am not sure the HBC men used bell mares: James Robert Anderson, who travelled out in his father’s Brigade of 1849, did not mention a bell mare, and he does say the horses sometimes wandered. Perhaps bell mares did not work as well with horses as they did with the mules that John K. Lord admired and used.

So leaving the bell mares behind, let me tell you next about the magpies, which the HBC wranglers did know about! Magpies were a hazard to all pack-animals, and Lord tells of finding a mule at Sumas Prairie being attacked by magpies. A careless wrangler had not taken care of his animal, and Keist saw

one of our mules on the Sumass prairie, near the Fraser River, rolling madly, but was at a loss to imagine the cause. As I stood quietly watching him he got on his legs, but no sooner was he up than a couple of magpies, which I had not previously noticed, issued from an adjoining bush, swooped down upon the luckless mule, and commenced again what they had clearly just left off, literally, and not in mere figure of speech, to eat him alive. Vain were all the tortured beast’s writhings, kickings, and attempts by mouth and tail to displace the greedy birds; they hung on with a perseverance certainly worthy of a better cause. Rolling was his only chance, but even then his persecutors simply hopped off patiently to bide another opportunity…

A good wrangler takes care of his animals. Lord shot the two magpies and left the mule in peace (at least until the next magpie discovered him). 

As it happens, the HBC horses were branded — or as Paul Fraser of Kamloops said, “Stamped.” How sophisticated their branding iron was, I do not know: the branding irons may in fact vary, as the blacksmith made them. But in John Keist Lord’s time, the branding irons were fairly sophisticated. “The thigh on the near side of the animal is the best place for the brand mark, because it will be the more readily seen; well nigh every operation, such as girthing, roping, mounting, or what not, is usually done on the near [left] side. The branding iron should be made red-hot, and then applied lightly, and kept against the skin after the hair is burnt off sufficiently long to scald it and destroy the roots of the hair, but not long enough to cause a sore, which is sure to slough and in that case might be troublesome to manage.”

The HBC wranglers used pack-saddles in the shape of a cross-tree packsaddle, from which they hang their bales of furs by loops. (Lord has an illustration of one of these saddles in his book). He begins the next section of his book with the words, “It may prove interesting en passant, to give a brief outline of the plan adopted by all the far inland fur trading posts, for the conveyance of the year’s furs to this place, at which either a steamer or a batteaux unloads the annual supply of goods sent from England for the use of the traders, and in return takes the peltries traded, back to the central depot.” He is at this time speaking of Fort Hope, of course — a place he often visited with his pack-train. “As a description of one will apply with equal force to all of them, I shall select for description Fort Colville [Colvile], which is situate on the banks of the Upper Columbia, about 1,000 mile from the seaboard.” He continues:

This quaint old place, one of the Company’s earliest trading stations west of the Rocky Mountains, is worthy of a passing description as affording a good example of the fur-trader’s ‘Home in the Wilderness.’ The trader’s house is quadrangular in shape, and built of heavy trees squared and piled one upon another. The front faces the Columbia River, whilst rearward is a gravelly plain which I shall presently have more to say about. The visitor, on entering the somewhat ponderous portals of this primitive mansion, finds himself in a large room dimly lighted by two small windows, the furniture of which, designed more for use than ornament, consists of a few rough chairs and a large deal [wood] table, the latter occupying the centre of the room. Looking beneath this table one cannot fail to notice an immense padlock which evidently fastens a trap-door, and if you happen to be a guest of the chief trader (and here I must add as the result of long experience, that the Hudson’s Bay Company’s traders are the most hospitable, kind-hearted fellows I ever met with), the probabilities are greatly in favour of your discovering the secret of the trap-door, very soon after you enter the room. The table pushed back, the trap-door is unfastened, and the trader descends into a dark mysterious-looking cave, soon however to emerge with a jug of rum, or something equally toothsome…

However, that description of Fort Colvile’s main house has little to do with the HBC Brigades and its wranglers, am I right? So let’s continue with those wranglers, and I will cover this description of Fort Colvile in a later post. It is needless to say, that if you are interested in Fort Colvile stories (and also in an interesting story which took place near Walla Walla) you will download John Keist Lord’s book from the internet.

This is how John Keist Lord describes the wranglers of the HBC Brigades that leave Fort Colvile for Fort Hope every year! 

This journey from Colville [Colvile] to Hope occupies nearly three months for its accomplishment. About the beginning of June preparations commence at Fort Colville for the Brigade. The horses (the Hudson’s Bay Company never use mules) in number about 120 to 150, are brought by the Indian herders who have had charge of them during the winter, to a spot called the Horse Guard, about three miles from the fort, where there is an abundance of succulent grass and a good stream of water. Here the animals are taken care of by the trustworthy Indians until their equipment or ‘rigging’ is ready, which process is at the same time going on at the fort. Here some thirty or forty savages may be seen squatting round the door of the fur-room; some of them are stitching pads and cushions into the wooden frames of the pack-saddles; others are mending the broken frames; a third group is cutting long thongs of raw hide to serve as girths, or to act in lieu of ropes for lashing and tying; and a fourth is making the peltries up into bales, by the aid of a powerful lever press…

The horses are then loaded. (I will cover the parts of the story that are missing in the next post in this series, as Lord’s manuscript has plenty more interesting information). Now it is time for the Wranglers to begin the journey west to Fort Hope. According to John Keist Lord…

When all the animals are packed, each of the hands who are to accompany this cavalcade mounts his steed; then waving their lassoos round their heads, and vociferating like demons, they collect the band of packed animals, and drive the lot before them as shepherds do a flock of sheep. The principal trader, as a general rule, takes command of the brigade, the journey being anticipated by both the master and his men as a kind of yearly recurring jubilee.

Exactly! Certainly to the wranglers it was a holiday — and a holiday they would very much enjoy. For the gentleman, however, it was work, as he had to keep the brigade organized and running. The Trader rode at the head of the Brigade, and likely he wore a beaver hat to show the First Nations that he was the leader. I had a hard time thinking of my great-grandfather, Alexander Caulfield Anderson, wearing a beaver hat, until I realized that when he became the Dominion Indian Reserve Commissioner in 1876, he sported a new suit and a top hat. The culture of the fur trade, twenty years after he had left it behind him. 

There will be another post in this series, and when it is written, I will publish it here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/john-keist-lord/ 

It might not be next week, however, as I will may well be travelling to Fort Langley with the Metis Nations Women’s Group — I hope so, although it might be filled up. I want to see the new York Boat that is there, so I will definitely be taking my camera!

As you see, I now have the final copy of the cover for the book and it is at the top of the page. The book will be published by Ronsdale Press in May (maybe late May, as we are running a little late), and when I have the address from which you can order it, I will add it here: http://ronsdalepress.com/

Copyright, Nancy Marguerite Anderson, 2024. All rights reserved.

• ← The S.S.Beaver sails to the Columbia River
• John Keist Lord →