Christmas in the Fur Trade
The men of the Hudson's Bay Company always found time to celebrate during the holiday season. It wasn't always for Christmas, but there were always drinks to health in the new year. This article, from December 1941 issue of the Beaver magazine, discusses the conditions at various posts during the holidays and how the men celebrated. Click here to view this article in its original format.
CHRISTMASTIME down the years has been celebrated by the men of the Hudson’s Bay Company in many far, strange corners of the continent. It has found some ensconced in the cheery atmosphere of a comfortable fort, some at a lonely outpost in the wilderness, some still travelling on the snowy trail. But few have failed to mark the joyous season in one way or another. To the Scotsman, and the French-Canadian of course, Christmas Day was not as important as New Years. Fort Chipewyan, for example, in 1823 ignored the former but celebrated the latter.
One of these festive occasions was curious, in that the merrymakers drank the health of a queen nearly five months dead. Michael Grimington, in the journal of Albany Factory, James Bay, wrote on Christmas Day 1714: “Wee keep Christmast Day wth. Drinking the Queens Health and the Compies.” Anne had certainly been on the throne when the Company’s ship sailed from London in the spring, bearing Captain James Knight with her royal commission to take over the Bay forts from the French. But she had died on August 1st, and George I reigned in her stead.
Ten years later, at the same post, R. Staunton wrote in his journal: “This beinge Christmas daye the People observed the same as usual in this remote part of the worlde, but not with the pleasure and sattisfactione as if the Companyes ship and cargoe had gone safe home, weh. makes as all feare the worse, not only at this time but all the yeare.” He was referring to the ship Mary, which had been sunk after leaving Albany that fall, with all her rich cargo of furs.
At Moose Factory, the form of celebration varied with the religious scruples of the master. James Duffield, who seems to have been a jolly soul, wrote on Christmas Day 1741: “At noon gave each Mess a bottle of Wine & in the evening a gallon pot of Strong beer to Celebrate the happy time—At 8 saw them all to bed, not forgetting the Conflagration 6 years past.” (This refers to the fire on December 26, 1735, when the fort was destroyed by a fire that started in the “cook room.”) In 1747, however, Christmas at Moose Factory could hardly have been described as merry. “Spent the Day in Religious Exercise,” wrote dour John Potts,“and to prevent hard Drinking I did Read over to them one of the Little Books Your Honrs, was pleased to Send us Last Year: weh. is a Disswasive from the Sin of Drunkenness, I gave them a Little Liqur. in the Evening and at Eight O Clock Ordered all hands to bed and the Lights out.”
Jollity was the order of the day at Albany in 1749: “Having three Fidlers in the Factory,” wrote the master, “viz Geo. Millar, Willm. Murray & James Short, our People celebrated the Evening with Dancing & Singing, and were all very merry: keept a earefull Look out in case of Fire.”
Anthony Henday. on his way home from the Black-foot Country in 1754, ignored Christmas completely— at least in his journal. On December 25 his only entry was: “Killed 2 Beaver. We have a frost in the night & partly gone in the day.” And on New Year’s Day, 1755: “Freezing Weather: Indians killed one Beaver & 2 Waskesew [deer], I wear a Buffalo skin pair of shoes with the hair inwards.”
At Eastmain in 1764 the fun began on the day before Christmas. “Broach’d a Cask of Strong Beer,” reads the journal for December 24, “drank your Honrs. Health & a merry Christmas to all Friends in the Bay.” But no drinking was indulged in on Christmas Day: “Spent the Day wth. sobriety making meery wth. Innocent Diversions.”
Pathetic by comparison is Thomas Stagner’s entry in the journal for 1789 of Manchester House, on the North Saskatchewan. “This being Christmas Morning, our small Stock of Flour, afforded us, a Cake to eat, with a little Tea & Chocolate, (which we all apparently enjoyed very much) no one can know what it is to want Bread, but those who experience it, (which we here, daily do, in this Wild Country; particular Holidays only excepted.)”
New Year’s Day 1797, at Brandon House, on the prairies, was a very festive occasion, marked by fraternization with the Company’s rivals. James Sutherland recorded that: “In the morning the Canadians [Nor’-westers] make the House and yard Ring with salluting, the House then filld with them when they all got a dram each, after they were gone the House filld a second time with Ladys the wives of the Canadians with the Complimentary Kiss of the new year according to their Custom and drest in their wedding garments, and had a dram to give each of them also.”
At Osnaburgh House two years later there was more fraternization with the Nor’westers. “I had the honour of my Neighbours company to dinner,” wrote John McKay on Christmas Day. And he added with a touch of dry Scots humour, “Your Honours has the honour of bearing the expences.”
Towards the close of the struggle between the two great companies, however, there was no such comradeship evident. George Simpson wrote on Christmas Day from Lake Athabaska, near the North-West Company Fort Chipewyan: “This being Xmas day the people had a dram in the morning and were allowed to make holyday. The Gentlemen sat down to the most sumptuous Dinner that Fort Wedderburn could afford, true English fare. Roast Beef and plum pudding and afterwards a temperate Kettle of Punch. McGillivray paid his Friends at the Watch house a visit for about half an hour; they seem to muster unusually strong and I have directed a guard to be kept to night. The weather bitterly cold.”
New Year’s Day started off with a bang: “The festivities of the New Year commenced at four O'Cloek this morning when the people honoured me with a salute of Fire arms, and in half an hour afterwards the whole Inmates of our Garrison assembled in the hall dressed in their best clothes, and were regaled in a suitable manner with a few flaggon’s Rum and some Cakes; a full allowance of Buffaloe meat was served out to them and a pint of Spirits for each man; the women were also entertained to the utmost of our ability. . . . The people have been enjoying themselves with a dance and seem much gratified by the attention paid them.”
The festival board at Albany.
Winthrop Brown.
Two years later, Fort Chipewyan was a Hudson’s Bay Company fort, and the entry for January 1st shows that the festivities were very similar to those celebrated under Simpson at nearby Fort Wedderburn. “The men were invited in and treated with three rounds of liquor and cakes, after which a present of a pint of rum each was given them.”
The winter of 1831-2 found John Work travelling through what is now Idaho. His entry for December 25 reads: “Stormy, cold weather. Being Christmas Day we did not raise camp. Owing to our not having fallen in with buffalo lately many of the people fared but indifferently having only dry meat, and several of them not much of that.”
January 1st was evidently a more important day to the travellers. “This being Sunday,” wrote Work, "and New Years Day neither our people nor the Indians wont in pursuit of buffalo tho’ large herds were to be seen far off. The men and some of the principal Indians were treated with a dram and some cakes in the morning, and a small quantity of rum had been brought from the fort for the occasion. One of the Americans who passed Friday returned yesterday.”
On that same day, in far off Michipicoten post on the shores of Lake Superior, Chief Factor George Keith recorded in more detail the celebrations at his post: “A little preceding Sun rise the Servants assembled in front of the Mess House and honouring us with the customary feu de joie were invited to walk in and were treated with a few Glasses of Liquor (a compound of Brandy &c.) and some flour cakes. This over they retired in excellent humour, carrying a Gallon of Rum/say 1 pint P Com: Labourer 1/2 dr P Mechanick &c. to commence their jollification. The Ladies next came made their curtsies and being ushered into the family Room were treated with a Glass of Wine or something more potent (agreeably to individual taste) and afterwards were indulged with a dejeune a la four-chette. Thus the day passed agreeably to all appearance and without any fracas or material interruption to the conviviality of the period. It is customary to compliment the Men servants with a little Tobacco—say about Vi lb P head— but this will be distributed more seasonably another day.”
But undoubtedly the most detailed descriptions of Christmas celebrations at the posts of the Company were written by the famous author of boys’ books. R. M. Ballantyne, and by Paul Kane, the Canadian artist, whose paintings of the Canadian west over eighty years ago are now so highly prized.
Ballantyne spent Christmas 1843 as an apprentice at York Factory, and has left a long account of it in his first book, Hudson's Bay. It is far too lengthy to copy here, but the following extracts will suffice to give a fail' picture of the celebrations:
“Our Christmas dinner was a good one in a substantial point of view, and a very pleasant one, in a social point of view. We ate it in the winter mess-room, and really (for Hudson’s Bay) this was quite a snug and highly decorated apartment. True, there was no carpet on the floor, and the chairs were homemade: but then, the table was mahogany, and the walls were hung round with several large engravings in bird’s-eye maple frames. The stove, too, was brightly polished with black lead, and the painting of the room had been executed with a view to striking dumb those innocent individuals who had spent the greater part of their lives at outposts, and were, consequently, accustomed to domiciles and furniture of the simplest and most unornamental description. On the present grand occasion, the mess-room was illuminated by an argand lamp, and the table covered with a snow-white cioth, whereon reposed a platter, containing a beautiful fat, plump wild-goose, which had a sort of come-eat-me-up quick-else-I’ll-melt expression about it that was painfully delicious. Opposite to this smoked a huge roast of beef, to procure which one of our most useless draught oxen had been sacrificed. This, with a dozen of white partridges, and a large piece of salt pork, composed our dinner. But the greatest rarities on the board were two large decanters of port wine, and two smaller ones of Madeira. These flanked by tumblers and glasses: and truly, upon the whole, our dinner made a goodly show. . . .
“At the top of the table sat Mr. Grave, indistinctly visible through the steam that rose from the wild-goose before him. On his right and left sat the doctor and the accountant, and down from them sat the skipper, four clerks, and Mr. Wilson, whose honest face beamed with philanthropic smiles at the foot of the table. . . .
Fort Chipewyan in 1941.
Wm. MacFarlane.
“In the midst of our fun, Mr. Grave proposed a toast. Each filled a bumper, and silence reigned around, while he raised his glass, and said, ‘Let us drink to absent friends.’ We each whispered, ‘Absent friends,’ and set our glasses down in silence, while our minds flew back to the scenes of former days. . . . Our sad feelings, however, were speedily put to flight, and our gravity routed, when the skipper proposed ‘The Ladies’; which toast we drank with a hearty good-will, although, indeed, the former included them, inasmuch as they also were absent friends—the only one within two hundred and fifty miles of us being Mr. Grave’s wife. . . .
“Just as we had reached the above climax, the sound of a fiddle struck upon our ears, and reminded us that our guests who had been invited to the ball were ready; so, emptying our glasses, we left the diningroom, and adjourned to the hall.
“Here a scene of the oddest description presented itself. The room was lit up by means of a number of tallow candles, stuck in tin sconces round the walls. On benches and chairs sat the Orkneymen and Canadian half-breeds of the establishment, in their Sunday jackets and capotes: while here and there the dark visage of an Indian peered out from among their white ones. But round the stove—which had been removed to one side to leave space for the dancers—the strangest group was collected. Squatting down on the floor, in every ungraceful attitude imaginable, sat about a dozen Indian women, dressed in printed calico gowns, the chief peculiarity of which was the immense size of the balloon-shaped sleeves, and the extreme scantiness, both in length and width, of the skirts. Colored handkerchiefs covered their heads, and ornamented moccasins decorated their feet; besides which, each one wore a blanket in the form of a shawl, which they put off before standing up to dance. They were chatting and talking to each other with great volubility, occasionally casting a glance behind them, where at least half-a-dozen infants stood bolt upright in their tight-laced cradles. On a chair, in a corner near the stove, sat a young good-looking Indian, with a fiddle of his own making beside him. This was our Paganini; and beside him sat an Indian boy with a kettle-drum, on which he lapped occasionally, as if anxious that the ball should begin.
Bachelor's Hall at York Factory, where Ballantyne spent Christmas of 1843, is the building on the extreme right. The winter mess room, where they had Christmas dinner, was part of a building which stood on the site of the post manager's residence, seen in centre.
A. Harkes.
“All this flashed upon our eyes; but w'e had not much time for contemplating it, as, the moment we entered, the women simultaneously rose, and coming modestly forward to Mr. Wilson, who was the senior of the party, saluted him, one after another! I had been told that this was a custom of the ladies on Christmas-day, and was consequently not quite unprepared to go through the ordeal. . . .
“This ceremony over, we each chose partners, the fiddle struck up, and the ball began. Scotch reels were the only dances known by the majority of the guests, so we confined ourselves entirely to them.”
Paul Kane’s Christmas Day at a Company post was spent at Fort Edmonton, the headquarters of the Saskatchewan District, in 1847. He writes;
“On Christmas-day the flag was hoisted, and all appeared in their best and gaudiest style, to do honour to the holiday. . . . About two o’clock we sat down to dinner. Our party consisted of Mr. Harriett, the chief, and three clerks, Mr. Thebo [Thibault?], the Roman Catholic missionary from Manitou Lake about thirty miles off, Mr. Rundell [Rundle], the Wesleyan missionary, who resided within the pickets, and myself. . . .
“The dining-hall in which we assembled was the largest room in the fort, probably about fifty by twenty-five feet, well warmed by large fires, which are scarcely ever allowed to go out. The walls and ceilings are boarded, as plastering is not used, there being no limestone within reach: but these boards are painted in a style of the most startling barbaric gaudiness, and the ceiling filled with centre-pieces of fantastic gilt scrolls, making altogether a saloon which no white man would enter for the first time without a start, and which the Indians always looked upon with awe and wonder.
Paul Kane's painting of Fort Edmonton.
Royal Ontario Museum.
“The room was intended as a reception room for the wild chiefs who visited the fort; and the artist who designed the decorations was no doubt directed to ‘astonish the natives.’ If such were his instructions, he deserves the highest praise for having faithfully complied with them. . . No table-cloth shed its snowy whiteness over the board; no silver candelabra or gaudy china interfered with its simple magnificence. The bright tin plates and dishes reflected jolly faces, and burnished gold can give no truer zest to a feast.
“At the head, before Mr. Harriett, was a large dish of boiled buffalo hump; at the foot smoked a boiled buffalo calf. Start not. gentle reader, the calf is very small, and is taken from the cow by the Caesarean operation long before it attains its full growth. This, boiled whole, is one of the most esteemed dishes amongst the epicures of the interior. My pleasing duty was to help a dish of mouffle, or dried moose nose; the gentleman on my left distributed the white fish, delicately browned in buffalo marrow. The priest helped the buffalo tongue, whilst Mr. Rundell cut up the beavers’ tails. Nor was the other gentleman left unemployed, as all his spare time was occupied in dissecting a roast wild goose. The centre of the table was graced with piles of potatoes, turnips, and bread conveniently placed, so that each could help himself without interrupting the labours of his companions. Such was our jolly Christmas dinner at Edmonton; and long will it remain in my memory, although no pies, or puddings, or blanc manges, shed their fragrance over the scene.
“In the evening the hall was prepared for the dance to which Mr. Harriett had invited all the inmates of' the fort, and was early filled by the gaily dressed guests. Indians, whose chief ornament consisted in the paint on their faces, voyageurs with bright sashes and neatly ornamented moccasins, half-breeds glittering in every ornament they could lay their hands on; whether civilised or savage, all were laughing, and jabbering in as many different languages as there were styles of dress. English, however, was little used, as none could speak it but those who sat at the dinner-table. The dancing was most picturesque, and almost all joined in it. . . .
Mr. and Mrs. O. M. Demment's living room at Cape Dorset, Baffin Island, Christmas 1940. (Yes, that's B.P.).
“After enjoying ourselves with such boisterous vigour for several hours, we all gladly retired to rest about twelve o’clock, the guests separating in great good humour, not only with themselves but with their entertainers.”
Christmastime in the North to-day is a much quieter affair. But it does not pass unobserved, and at some of the older posts certain customs survive. At Moose Factory, for instance, on New Year’s Eve, the Company servants fire a feu de joie in front of the post manager’s house, and when he appears in the lighted doorway, they dance a jig or two in the snow to a fiddler’s tune. In the Arctic, where the posts are newly established, the Eskimos are often given a “feast,” and sports are staged for their benefit, including a northern version of football on the ice. At night, the wind may howl outside at fifty below, and the drifts pile high against the house; but inside, the post manager with his wife, and a friend or two, raise their glasses over the gleaming silver in the time-honoured way, to toast each other and their “absent friends.”