In 1819, James Douglas arrived in Lachine, and joined the Fort William brigade. There he travelled in a fragile birch-bark canoe used by the French Canadian Voyagers. Fort William was the North West Companies Main Depot, where the canoes took men and supplies to the fur trading posts in its empire.
In the summer of 1820, Douglas was transferred to Ile-a-la-Crosse, on the Church Hill River in Northern Saskatchewan. Here Hudson's Bay Company Traders were also active in the area, and there were bitter struggles between the two company's as well as the Crees and the Chipewyans First Nations who hunted near the Fort.
June 1825 Douglas's contract was renewed for three years. That summer he was in charge of Fort Vermilion on the Peace River
In
1825, at the age of 21, James was sent across the rockies to Fort St. James,
the headquarters of the new district of Caledonia. Fort St. James was established
in 1806 on Stuart Lake in what is now the northern interior of British Columbia.
William Connolly, father of his future wife Amelia, had been appointed chief
Factor there.
Connolly took Douglas with him in 1826 on the annual journey with the packs of furs from New Caledonia to the headquarters of the Columbia Department at Fort Vancouver. Douglas took his first boat passage down the rivers to Fort Alexandria on the Fraser, then rode with the pack trains to Fort Kamloops and on over the main brigade trail down the Okanagan Valley to the Columbia River, where the convoy took the boats for the last lap of the five weeks journey.
Fort Journal records that in the summer of 1827 he was sent to establish a trading post on bear lake, and successfully traded nine packs of beaver and twenty-three and a half pounds of castoreum, a substance obtained from the beaver glands used in medicine and cosmetics. After returning from that, William Connolly put him in charge of the vitally important fishery.
After encountering some trouble with the Carrier Indians of the Fort St. James region, Douglas was transferred to Fort Vancouver under Dr. John McLoughlin.
Douglas was to spend more than ninteen years at Fort Vancouver. James Douglas got a promotion to chief trader in 1835, and chief factor in 1839. Douglas and McLoughlin became good friends, and shared the "Governor's Mansion" - the residence of the Chief Factor McLoughlin and his family.
In 1842 Douglas accompanied Simpson to Alaska to negotiate with the Russian American Co.
During this time, the British Hudson's Bay Company interests were threatened by the northern expansion of American settlers. Dr. McLoughlin resigned, and James Douglas took his position. Douglas anticipated the eventual loss of Fort Vancouver among other HBC property once the final boundary was drawn at the 49th parallel.
In 1843 Douglas began to construct a new Company depot named "Victoria", for the new queen of England. Douglas had a new brigade trail blazed on British Territory from New Caledonia to Ft. Langely on the lower Fraser River, and Fouglas and his family moved across Puget Sound in 1849. On January 13, 1849, Britain leased leased Vancouver Island to the HBC for 10 years, and James Douglas moved to Victoria to become the Chief Agent for the Hudson's Bay Company. Douglas replaced Richard Blanshard as Governor of the Vancouver Island Colony in 1851. In addition to his duties as governor, Douglas was also the HBC Agent for the Vancouver Island Colony as well as the Agent of the Puget sound agricultural company.
but also the HBC agent for the Vanocuver Island colony as well as the Agent of the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company on Vancouver Island and in the territory of the United States. Blanchard had appointed a legislative council in 1851 and in 1856, Douglas was instructed to establish an Assembly for the island.
There was only about 200 people living in or near Fort Victoria in its early days. This number increased to 800 in just eight years. Worrying that it might loose its property, the Hudson's Bay company asked for sole possesion of Vancouver Island, which gave it the right to colnise. At first the Hudson's Bay Company wasn't to concerned about colonizing, in fact wanted to use it as a place for retired Company employees and their families. But gold fever was to hit the fraser, and the quite wilderness colony of Vancouver Island was turned into bustling city overnight.
In 1858 Douglas was appointed Governor of the new colony of Vanouver Island at Fort Langely.
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CLASSROOM SUGGESTION: |
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SOCIAL STUDIES 9-10: |
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Ask students to create maps illustrating the fur trade routes in early Canada. What were the factors in deciding to locate the trade posts? How did geographical features have an impact have on routes and settlements? How did the fur trade effect the lives of Aboriginal peoples? Give students topographical maps from one area of the fur trade, and get them to chart their own exploration routes. Have them justify their decisions in relation to direction, watersheds, elevation, etc. How do the students maps compare with the routes taken by explorers? |
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