Meeting of the Clans, Nipigon, 1931

The meeting of the Klans (Clans), Nipigon, Ontario
Photo by E.C. Everett ECE 54-2

Men of the Birch-Bark Canoe - the Ojibway

THE VANISHING HUNTER-MEN – THE OJIBWAYS

Men of the Birch-Bark Canoes and the Outpost Camps of the Far-Lands

(written circa 1909 likely published in the Globe, Toronto; author unknown; photographer presumed to be C.W. Jeffreys. From the ephemera files of C.W. Jeffreys sent to the Nipigon Historical Museum.)

Any man who has never been North knows little or nothing about it.

There are the vanishing tribes – the Ojibway;  there are the men of Wabigoon and of Temagami;  the hunters and the traders and the trappers of old – they that once were underlings to the great Company – The Hudson’s Bay.

 Time was when these people were the lords of the North.

They were the makers of commerce.

Ships that came into Hudson’s Bay; York boats on the rivers; the long-oared rollicking boats with the chansons of the crews;  the fires by night and the silent dip-dip by day; the long portages – they the red-shirted ones, the half-breeds, boys of the fur brigade that came before the bushwhacker and the courier de bois with red sash and sheepacks;  and these also were second in time to the primeval hunter-man.

Those were the ancient trading days;  and it seems that now it’s just about over; for the furs this year were mighty scarce and the packs very small and the long canoes rode light on the rivers from post to post down from the Mettagami and Abittibi to Moose and York and Churchill. But the Indians, the Ojibways must be kept somehow;  the makers of language and of poetry, and the rugged background of our civilization which is still creeping up over the hunt-grounds. Five dollars a year for every man, woman and child; the white man pays it; the inspector of agencies and his clerk and his crew – holding court in the open air as they did this summer of 1909,  whence these many splendid pictures.  And did you ever behold more beautiful pictures of a vanishing people, taken by one who knows them well;  shambling and nomadic and colourful?

From Camp to Camp and from camps to outpost and from there by the rivers to the posts of fur where the gatherings of the tribes were held;  they fetched with them the strength and the smell of the back-places;  the camps and the canoes, the spruce and the skins; but they all wanted the white man’s “sooneahs” – which is the word for money on the rocks of North Ontario and on the prairies of Saskatchewan and Alberta and far up into the foot-hills.

Passing out of this pageant of the Ojibway; the Indian of Hiawatha.  He has seen the coming of the fur brigades – the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North – West Company who fought like wolves on his hunt-grounds.  He has seen the second era of commerce;  the great lumber companies that stripped off the whispering pines where the big moose ran.  The houses of the overlords, the factors, still stand by the rivers;  but the Factor is not so busy as once he was.

Hard-fisted old Scotchmen most of these factors;  knowing the Ojibways whom they govern like children; speaking their language.  Now the third act in the civilization drama is beginning to raise the curtain.  It is the railway.  Two railways are running through the Ojibway hunt-grounds.  The snort of the steam-shovel instead of the cough of the moose;  the thud of dynamite and the rumble of gravel trains.  The Ojibway is not in love with the fire-wagon.  He sits in his bark canoe and thinks it a strange thing.  Maybe he knows that this thing with the banner of black smoke is the last act in his play.  Railway and Ojibway – not meant to go together.

Canoe for him; the river and the moose-run.

For he has never ridden a horse, this Ojibway of the hinterland.  In all the camps of the moose-hunter – not a horse unless some half-civilized hunter has got hold of one for haulage work and for hire.

This makes the great difference between the bush Indian and the plains-man;  between the back-country moose-runner, and the Crees and the Blackfoots who hunted buffaloes horseback and on the prairies.  The Cree would be a dead mand without his pony.  The Ojibway would be useless without his canoe.  Each has made the way his own fashion;  each at the outpost doing his own work in the world of fur.  The man on the Saskatchewan never saw a birch-bark canoe – unless by some chance he drifted down the water highways of the far to York Factory and to Moose;  away from his inland river to the meeting- place of the birch-bark canoes that went down loaded to the brim with packs of fur and came up freighted with goods.

 Canada has never had a finer thing than the birch-bark canoe;  never any birch-bark canoe in the world finer than that of the Ojibways that scudded the rivers of the north land from Lake Superior to Hudson’s Bay.

These men of the birch-bark canoes understand that the modern white man’s canoe is a very fine thing and carries a large load;  but they know also that when a white man’s canoe strikes a rock in a rapid it is a hard matter to repair;  camp all night and half a day perhaps;  but when a bark canoe tore a hole with a load of fur, it was but a little job to haul her out and in twenty minutes with chunk of resin and the “wahtap,” the spruce root, a piece of bark and a bone needle, to make her as good a new again.

The Ojibways do not comprehend why the rivers are not now so full of the birch-bark canoes;  only that the furs are less and the trapping not so good, and that strange men come down the rivers who think more of the rocks than they do of the woods;  and some that think only of a place to build a railway – talking of wheat and ships in the north and all such things that in the days of the great Company were not known where the Ojibway was king.  One of these days we shall have become so commercialised by the railway as to forget the hunters and trappers and traders of the fur-post regime.

Then we shall build Museums.

 

( I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help myself from enlarging that thought! – B)

TREATY DAY WITH OJIBWAYS 1911, part 2

 

Paying Canada’s Rent

By James Henry Pedley

The Globe  Toronto    March 9, 1912  page 2, continued…

During the evening interest centres at the “store”.  Seated on packing box or hard-tack barrel, we talk. The hoarse jabber of the Ojibway speech mingles with the smoother accents of the English tongue as the story of the fire at porcupine is told again. Then the little church bell rings and we hear no longer the Indian voices for our Interpreter on the treaty party is the Anglican Bishop of the diocese, who is calling his flock together for service.  Only once in a long year does a missionary visit this Christian settlement;  it behooves him to use well the time at his disposal for pastoral work.  As we chat, we hear through the wide-open door the strains of “Sun of My Soul,” done into the Ojibway language;  and following at long intervals the deep-voiced “Amen” at the end of the prayers.  When the pipes are out we seek our tents and sleep.

 

The morrow’s sun dawns upon the long-expected pay-day;  an hour before the pay valise has been produced the open space fronting the store is dotted with the squatting figures of the old men and women of the tribe.  In the middle distance the young buck have gathered, amusing themselves with good-natured horseplay until they shall be called forward to receive the money due them.  The majority of the squaws, young and old alike, carry papooses, chubby infants and silent, who lie strapped into their many-hued “kinogins” and never cry.  There are youngsters aplenty, too, rolling in the dirt or playing noisily, getting in everyone’s way, and drawing down upon themselves anathemas from the old men.  Of these last, two are blind and infirm almost to the verge of total helplessness.  One of them has been paddled across by his squaw from his tent across the lake, a long journey for him now;  it is pathetic to see him grope for the hand of the other ancient, and to watch them chuckle as they exchange “ B’ jou’s” with gleaming, toothless gums. This accomplished, the visitor fumbles for his pipe – last solace of lonely old age – and, having lighted it dexterously with the first match, turns his useless eyes toward the table, now becomes the centre of interest.

For Mr. West – representing the Canadian people – has taken his seat, flanked on his left by his clerk, who jealously guards a package containing one hundred one-dollar bills, and on his right by his Interpreter, the Bishop, just come from holding an early morning baptismal service.  At the shoulder of the latter stands the Chief of the band,  a keen-looking young Indian, who will aid in clearing up tangles and settling disputes which may arise;  for the Indian is by nature uncommunicative, and especially so in his dealings with the white man.  The presence of his Chief is as a key to his gates of speech, which would otherwise remain unopened.

A hush, then at a word from the Bishop, a young man detaches himself from one of the groups and saunters forward, tugging at his knot in a bandana handkerchief he carries.  This, opened and unwound, he hands to Mr. West a small blue ticket, which will be found to bear the printed words “The James Bay Treaty,” and in manuscript the number which is his on the official books, and his name, John Wolf.  The books show that last year he was paid twenty dollars, his offspring numbering three.  To find what changes, if any, have taken place during the last twelve months is the task of the Interpreter.  A short colloquy in Ojibway,  then the Bishop turns to announce that although one of the children died – tuberculosis – in the spring, the family still shelters five members, and points in explanation to a papoose which its mother is rocking to sleep nearby.  The birth and death duly recorded, the clerk with ostentation counts out twenty dollars into the father’s hand and sees them folded up along with the blue ticket in the big red handkerchief.  The full-bred Indian, whether from trustful courtesy or ignorance, or both, seldom counts the money we pay him.  Honest himself (and no one is more so than he), he has perhaps not learned, though he has had many an opportunity, that all men are not as conscientious as he is.  Another summons, and another paterfamilias lounges forward, his halting feet and impassive countenance giving one the impression of extreme boredness, but that is the way of his race and must be so interpreted.  The former process is repeated, except that this time it is an elderly man who stands before us and his family has grown up. One of his daughters, moreover, has found a husband since last pay-day with whom she will henceforth be paid.  This worth advances next to receive a ticket (heretofore he has been paid under his father’s name) and to have himself set down as the head of a family.  Pride – the one emotion which the redskin does not blush to reveal –shines from his countenance, and it is with great show of dignity that he takes his eight dollars and bears the sum off to his “woman.”

 

After the family men have all been paid come the widows and the orphans and the lone old men of the tribe.  Here is a woman who last year received twenty-four dollars. But in early fall, as the family journeyed toward the hunting grounds, her eldest son, the provider, was drowned. None of the others was as yet old enough to hunt successfully.   The tubercule germ breeds fast in a stuffy wigwam, and it delights to prey on ill-nourished bodies.  With spring the mother returned from the bush – alone; her hand shook as she took four dollars given her, and hobbled back to sit silent among the jabboring squaws.  Many are the bashful youngsters dragged forward by stern guardians, and made to deliver up the tickets which they hold crushed in tight-clenched hands.  The bush is a cruel dwelling –place, even to the men whom it has reared, and many a father meets his death before his children have learned to know him.

 

Thus passes the afternoon.  There is no hurry, no crowding, no standing in line.  Sunset finds the gathering still intact;  apparently no one has anything else to do, and the day’s warmth is still to be felt.

The clerk calls for another package of bills – the fifth – and is supplied.  A few disputes have arisen from time to time, for no one must be paid twice, and illegitimate children ( of whom there is no dearth ) must not be paid at all.  But there is little or no attempt at deceit, so great is the respect for truth which obtains among these “uncivilized” peoples of the north.  Finally when all have been paid, the Factor, who has watched the proceedings from the doorway of his store, presents the tickets of such absentees as have left them in his hands, and receives the money called for.  Payment for 1911 is complete.  Any who have failed to appear will receive double amounts next summer.

+++

This story of the 1911 treaty-pay came to us from the ephemera collection of C.W. Jeffreys.

TREATY DAY WITH OJIBWAYS 1911

 

Paying Canada’s Rent

By James Henry Pedley

The Globe  Toronto    March 9, 1912  page 2

You have heard of Canada’s duty to herself – and of Canada’s duty to the Empire.

You have gloated over her natural resources, you have debated hotly the question of reciprocity and its probable bearing upon the future welfare of the country.

But was it ever brought home to you, prosperous Canadian, that this Canada of yours is not yours after all;  that it is a leasehold property, leased by the many from the few, and that you pay every year a portion of the rent?

We are but tenants in the land which we so proudly call our own.  Not so many miles to the Northward,  living a simple life in tents and lowly shacks, dwell our landlords.  They are not harsh and overbearing, those owners of our soil;  nay, rather are they humble and submissive in spirit, thankfully accepting from their tenants a paltry handful of crumbs, let fall from the heaped-up table of the land’s fruitage, the fullness of which they were incapable of reaping for themselves.

Among the Cabinet Ministers of the Dominion of Canada is numbered the Minister of the Interior.  From his office at Ottawa he directs those administrative departments which come under his control.  The Department of Indian Affairs is one of these.  It is presided over by a Deputy Minister and carries on its work through the medium of Indian agents distributed throughout Canada, and one of the most important duties of each agent consists in “paying off” the Indians in his district, according to the treaties made at different times in the past between the redmen and the whites.

Not all the Indians in Canada receive “treaty- money” – some tribes, perhaps more sagacious than the others (  although this is open to question ), demanded citizenship and voting rights in return for the sacrifice of their ancestral haunts;  but in the majority of cases the forefathers of the present day Indians gave way before the onward march of a force which they were powerless to withstand and sank their national freedom on a state of dependency.  Exempt from all public burdens, such as taxation, they have given up their individuality and have become mere wards of the Canadian people, virtually supported out of the State Treasury.

In many ways the lot of the Indians is by no means a hard one.  In addition to the four dollars “treaty money” due annually to every member of every band ( I refer now especially to those bands included in the provisions of the James Bay  Treaty ), of whatever age or sex, each Indian receives an elementary education at an Indian school, is supplied with ordinary medicines free of charge, and is given opportunity of consulting a skilled white doctor at least once a year.  He has a reserve to dwell upon in the summer and a hunting ground set apart for his use in winter, and if furs are scarcer now than in the old days they bring a better price, so that the dark-skinned hunter has lost nothing by reason of the changed conditions.  More, he is allowed to shoot almost any animal or bird for food at any time of the year, and should he, despite these privileges, become destitute, it is his right to demand aid from the Government. The prosperity of the individual seems assured, but for the race there is only one outlook, and that is – death.

Under the present system ambition is killed and self-respect is lost, so that the name “Indian,” once calculated to ispire awe or fear, with also a touch of admiration, now incites only feelings of pity or, as often, contempt in the breast of the whiteman who has succeeded him.

“Lo, the poor Indian,” wrote the poet – it was well written.

At Flying Post, a station of the Hudson’s Bay Company, fifty miles north of Biscotasing, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, resides a band of Ojibway Indians, about one hundred and thirty in all. At Fort Metagami, fifty miles to the southeast, there is another band, and every summer Mr. H. A. West, the Indian agent in that district, who lives in Chapleau, draws a thousand dollars from the bank there and makes the trip by canoe to Flying Post and Fort Metagami, paying Canada’s rent in bright new one- dollar bills. With him are a doctor, a clerk, an Interpreter and a cook, as well as four Indians to do the heavy work.  On the fifth or sixth day out the party draws nigh the first post to be visited.

On the last portage a spruce pole is cut, which is set up in the bow of one of the canoes, and to this improvised flagstaff is fastened a weather-beaten Union Jack, a symbol of British might and good-will.  We are approaching a community far off from human intercourse, a place where our visit is a thing long looked forward to and long remembered, so that it behooves us to make some show of ceremony. Our guns ready loaded, we are prepared to make a triumphal entry.  The “flagship” bearing the precious pay-valise, takes a slight lead;  and with long shoulder strokes we drive the two canoes around the last bend and into full view of the post – a cluster of log buildings, flanked by the tents and bark wigwams of the Indians, and far back on the hill a little church.  The wooden buildings in the foreground are the property of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and in a moment, in answer to our first rifle-shot, the Canadian Ensign, its lower corner embellished with the Company’s device, is run up on the flagstaff.  Simultaneously the report of a shotgun reaches our ears, followed by another and another, until it seems as if every gun in camp is pouring forth his quota of noise to swell the tumult.  A moment’s lull to permit the reloading, and now is heard the baying of hounds mingled with the shrill barking of mongrel curs.  The shore is alive with these animals each striving to be the loudest to raise the note of welcome ( or is it the opposite?); wherefore Fred, our French-Canadian cook, is moved to murmur in his quaint near-English, “Ho, de dogs he make saluting too, him,” Again and again as we draw near, and the sound of firing rolls over the water, and our rifle makes answer. And the higher ground is dotted with expectant figures long before we reach the landing.  This is the big event of the year for the dwellers at this post, and our welcome by the portly Hudson’s Bay Factor is both hearty and sincere.  Five minutes later finds us the centre of a dark-skinned group shaking hands promiscuously, and answering the guttural “ B’ jou’s” of the men and women of the band.  All familiarities over, we take ourselves off to our projected campground to superintend the preparation of a camp.

To be continued.

This is  a long article, quite detailed and using “non-politically correct language” of the year 1911.

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DESTINATION NIPIGON

I  wrote this a couple years ago using Buzz Lein's timelines of Nipigon's evolution.  Like every other town trying to find a "hook" to bring tourists in, Nipigon goes through periodic "group thinks".

 

DESTINATION NIPIGON

 

The piling, Nipigon River.

NIPIGON.

THAT ALL ENCOMPASSING WORD.

It is the name of Legend.

Famed the world over…

For its BEAUTY, its WILDNESS, Its FISH.

For its POETRY…that sings to us of NIPIGON, of the SILENCE and the SOLITUDE, and the POWER.

 

Those who came here claimed their memories for eternity when they returned to “The WORLD” beyond our shores.

They came.

They saw.

They were conquered by the grandeur of  our NIPIGON.

Our RIVER.

Our LAKE.

 

Be proud of your NIPIGON that you have today.

Be aware of what you have that others don’t.

 

Why not be “NIPIGON”?

Be the place people want to come to , AGAIN.

The RIVER still runs. Tamed by 3 DAMs plus the OGOKI and possibly the Little Jackfish in the future.

DAMs are powerful attractants.

We have 3 on the NIPIGON – Each unique in its setting.

There be those who rail against the loss of the wild rapids and falls and the over-flooding of the Lakes of the NIPIGON. I was one myself when I read E.E.Millard’s Days on the Nepigon of 1917.

The Nipigon Historical Museum has a copy of that. (It is also in the public domain and reprinted on the internet.)

But, our loss has been mitigated – it is preserved in memoirs, journals and photos of the early visitors to NIPIGON. The Nipigon Historical Museum has some of these.

To some it was a journey of a lifetime – others returned year after year.

There was even a saying in the  ‘60’s “If you drink the water of NIPIGON 3 times you’ll never leave.”

I drank first in 1965.

I drank a second time in 1966.

I drank a third time in 1968.

Hello, I am still here in 2013.

The FORESTS still grow – but our Nipigon Mills are no more.

Only photos and memories.

The Nipigon Historical Museum holds many of these.

A lone piling off the site of the Little Mill – artefact of the River Drives of the NIPIGON – never to come this way again.

 Only photos, artefacts and memories.

The Nipigon Historical Museum holds many of these.

Before the TRAINS people came by canoe or boat – steamers or Paddle-Wheel or sail .

After 50 years of being the only way to roll the TRAINS had to share travellers with THE ROAD.  The one ROAD crossing the Nipigon River.

The one road that we still have – now the ONLY way to get to NIPIGON unless by canoe or boat or sail…

But, soon we will have “THE BRIDGE” like no other bridge in Ontario.

The ROCK remains.

Stripped to its bare essentials by the glaciers.

The BEDROCK of the WORLD.

Highway 11 runs beside it.

Highway 17 cuts through it – again, and again and again.

In NIPIGON it is “THE NATURAL EDGE” framing the horizons.

Granite, Marble and Sandstone – and the Red Red Rock.

The Nipigon Historical Museum has some of that.

According to Buzz Lein’s calculations – about 1500 B.C., our view became what you see from McKirdy Avenue.

To drive McKirdy is to drive on the TERMINAL MORAINE.  The oldest glacial beach is just below along the 800 foot contour level.  That’s where the Copper Culture artefacts were unearthed.

The Nipigon Historical Museum has some of those.

Time passed.

The water dropped.

Driving by Cliffside Cemetery and along Front Street puts you on the geological level of the NIPISSING BEACH – dated at 4000 years ago.

The Nipigon Historical Museum is located on that.

Time passed.

The water dropped another hundred feet – or the land rose on the glacial rebound as it is still doing at about 50 cm. per 100 years.

So, the RIVER runs now as it did in 1500 B.C. – except that it is tamed and flooded and diverted – all in the last 100 years.

But, you can still say when you stand on the River shore at the Marina, here also stood La Verendrye.

When you stand on the dock, you see what the H.B.Co. Fur Traders saw – their dock being in that same location only longer, and the Lagoon held the full flow of the NIPIGON RIVER.

43 years ago when Buzz rounded up the movers and the shakers of Nipigon he had visions of a CULTURAL COMPLEX. A Fur Trade Post, a Logging Camp and a Museum and Archives.

That didn’t happen.

But, we did get the Museum and Archives – opening in 1973-  helped by the demise of the river drives and Domtar relocating their Woodlands Office to Red Rock. That old office was sold to the town of Nipigon for $2 with a Covenant  “To be used as a museum.”

The Nipigon Historical Museum Society set up and ran the Nipigon Historical Museum with a membership of 139 to draw on for staffing until we could qualify for summer student grants.

With the help and encouragement of Jack Stokes, our member of Provincial Parliament at the time, and John Carter, Museum Advisor of the Ministry of Culture, and Ollie Sawchuck, Regional Advisor from Thunder Bay,  the Nipigon Historical Museum qualified for Community Museums Operating Grant status which we held until a few years after the fire of 1990.

In 2008 re re-applied and became a “CMOG” Museum again.

In 2011 and 2012 we were required to submit all our policies for evaluation by the Ministry of Culture etc.

As a result we had to up-date every one to reflect how we meet new criteria and laws – by the 30^th of June 2013

We could not just say we are accessible – we had to describe each feature such as – “ The Nipigon Historical Museum’s front entrance off Front Street is an automatic push-button-to-open door, sidewalk level entrance to foyer with interior door also push-button-to-open.”

The Provincial Government has a set of Standards that all CMOG museums must meet. How we do it is reflected in our Policies to address each criteria of that Standard.

THE MISSION STATEMENT

THE STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

EXHIBITION

EDUCATION AND INTERPRETATION

FINANCE

GOVERNANCE

HUMAN RESOURCES

CONSERVATION

COLLECTION ACQUISITION AND MANAGEMENT

RESEARCH

PHYSICAL PLANT

And all must show our ETHICS, Right of PRIVACY and ACCESS.

TECHNOLOGY  is not yet on their list but I have included a POLICY for our own benefit.

The Government wants to know who is responsible for the implementation of these policies and how we evaluate our activities.

Using Guest Register Comments is not considered an evaluation.

That’s a pity.

When , this June,  the Province’s Chief Museum Advisor from Toronto visited the Nipigon Historical Museum, she commented in our Guest Register.

She wrote, “Fantastic!”

Hudson's Bay Company sign

HUDSON’S BAY HAS BEEN HERE SINCE 1792

From: Times Journal May 13, 1948

 

The Hudson’s Bay Company has been in operation in the Nipigon area since the year 1792 when the first post on Lake Nipigon was established at the Northwest corner of the Lake by John McKay.

John McKay was the son of a family which had been serving the Hudson’s Bay Company faithfully for 130 years.  Four years later after the first post was built in 1796, Jacob Gorrigal built another post on the west shore , near a fort occupied by a group of traders from Montreal.  The new post was known as St. Anne’s Lake House.  At the time, Lake Nipigon was known as St. Anne’s Lake.

When the Hudson’s Bay and Northwest Companies joined in 1821 there was only one post in operation on Lake Nipigon, a post of the Northwest Company.  It was known as Fort Duncan Cameron.  The post is said to have been well-favored by the Indians of the area who came there to trade in great numbers.

Where the community of Nipigon now stands at the mouth of the Nipigon River, there stood a post of the Northwest Company which is believed was established about  the year 1785.  This post was later taken over by the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The Post was called Red Rock Post but the name was later changed to Nipigon.  The post was operated as a fur trading station but in 1938 it was transferred to the retail stores division of the company.

The present store (1948) , occupying a prominent position on Front Street, the main business street of Nipigon, is little reminiscent of the old fur trading days.  The Hudson’s Bay Company store supplies modern merchandise in several lines in a handsome modern structure.

Hudson's Bay Company store sign from Nipigon Store.
circa 1938 -1982
Now on the Nipigon Historical Museum wall

Some dates in this article may be approximate.