The Fur Trade

Fort Coulonge Trading Post on Lake Coulonge

The original New France trading post, circa 1653, at Fort Coulonge, became a North West Company post by 1795 and was located on the northeast shore of Lac Coulonge, near the mouth of the Coulonge River, close to present day Davidson, PQ.

Picturesque Lake Coulonge, in this stretch of the Ottawa River, is a widening of the main channel about two kilometers in length with the granite walls of the Laurentian Mountains coming right down to its northern  shoreline.

“The first trading post on the Upper Ottawa River was established by Louis D`Ailleboust, Sieur de Coulonge and Argentenay, third Governor General of New France. He came to Canada in 1645 to worked with Maisoneuve in the building of Montreal. By 1653, Louis’ interest in fishing and the fur trade led him to establish the trading post on the Ottawa river, west of the mouth of the Coulonge, which bears his name. This post became the North West Company in 1795, by 1802 was privately held by a company called XYZ and finally in 1821 was owned and operated by the Hudson’s Bay Company until 1855 when the trading post was no longer operational. ” – from the Chutes Coulonge Park  website.

In this Parks Canada paper The Fur Trade In Eastern Canada Until 1870 by Norman Anick (1976), he chronicles the trading posts of the Ottawa Valley-Lake Temiscaming Area. Our excerpt below starts on Page 139. Wonderful first-hand comments.

Ottawa River 1793-1821

There are no accounts of the posts on the Ottawa River for three decades after Alexander Henry’s 1761 narrative. In 1793, John McDonnell followed the same route westward as Henry. He mentions no trading post until he reached the Portage des Chats. “Just below” the portage, there was “a pretty farm which was formerly a place of some trade.” No post had yet been established in Lac des Chats. The next settlement which he sighted was Fort Coulonge, which he described as “a sorry hut, situated near the foot of the Mountains.” The last one he saw before reaching Sault Ste. Marie was Riviere Dumoine.

Daniel Harmon relates, in his diary for 1800, that the North West Company had “a small establishment” at the Chats. The only other post in operation which he notes is Fort Coulonge. ~ At Grand Calumet Portage, he saw a house which formerly had been active in the trade, but had been closed for several years, as those who had hunted there had gone further north.

Between 1801 and 1805, the North West Company and the short-lived XY Company actively competed along the Ottawa River.

In 1802-03, the principal establishment of the XY Company was the “Chat”, likely at Portage des Chats, owned by Alexander McKenzie. J.B. Grout was its master. Its chief competition came from the North West Company post, Fort Coulonge. In December 1802, McKenzie sent a Mr. Delaunay to Grout in order to enable him “to make a small establishment” at the Grand Calumet, or in the “Chenaux;” Delaunay had “orders to bend his force upwards towards Fort Coulonge.” If the Nor’Westers had “no establishment at the Calumet (which Peyette informs us they have), then Delaunay must go to Fort Coulonge, or even further up, and get every information in his power where the Indians hunt.” Delaunay was to be sparingly supplied and never given more than two kegs of rum at a time, because he was “addicted to drinking.” Two men, John Rich and William Gibson, were to accompany him.

It is not certain whether Delaunay established himself at Grand Calumet; it is certain that he did not at Fort Coulonge. Fort Coulonge experienced a lucrative trade in 1802-03, prompting McKenzie to write in September 1803 to D. Cameron, who was in charge of the Chats, that he had no doubt but that a number of Packs will be made there (Fort Coulonge) this year but if it were possible I should prefer a settlement at Riviere Dumoin because 1st that they are too well arranged at the former place and that it is not far from Lac Ronde where we are sending goods at present under the care and management of Frans Albert who has direction to send his people that way in the course of the Fall and Winter 2 and it will divide their force and weaken them at Fort Coulonge and placing us in a situation to share in the Hunt of the Timiscaming Indians.

Cameron was left to decide whether the establishment should be at either Rivière Dumoine or Fort Coulonge, and a Mr. Payette was selected as its master. The site selected was Fort Coulonge.

There was also another post: Cameron was in charge of a post further north than the Chats, but its location is not mentioned. He was instructed not to advance any money because the hunters would then go the Chats. The “Chats” House was at Portage des Chats, and was owned by “one of the Mrs. [sic] M’Kenzies,” of the North West Company. Having been informed by McKay that war had been declared between England and the United States, Hodgson was reluctant to proceed any further for fear that his children would be conscripted into the army. He purchased McKenzie’s establishment for £l,000 and settled there.

George Gladman of Albany visited him two years later on his return to Albanv from London. Gladman twice travelled along the Ottawa River between Moose Fort and Montreal. On his first trip, ascending from Montreal in 1814, the first post he noticed was Fort Coulonge, which he said had four houses. He gives a more detailed account of it on his second voyage, in the winter of 1816, this time travelling from Moose to Montreal. He says he was given a civil reception by a Monsieur Godar, its master. “I engaged an Indian as guide to Chats (Mr. Hodgson’s settlement) and procured Provisions for the day to my people to be paid for….The Canadians have here 1 Horse, 1 Sheep, 1 Pig, 2very small Cattle, all miserably poor but no Vegetable or Provisions except Indian Corn and Salt Pork this a far worse provided post than the Interior ones we have passed, there are two Canadian servant’s about the House, and several Indians.

The Houses are four, a Store, Masters dwelling, Men’s House and two divisions more under the same roof, presume workshops, the fourth is for Cattle and &c and the Hay kept at one end, a piece of open Water opposite the door, and two or three Islands one of which I stopped in July 1814 passing here.” Gabriel Franchêre, who passed Fort Coulonge in the summer of 1814, says its master was Mr. Goddin (undoubtedly Joseph Goddin). Gladman does not mention, on his first trip, the existence of a North West Company house at Lac des Chats. On his second voyage, he remarks that there was an old “Shanty House” there. Nicholas Garry, who was sent by the Hudson’s Bay Company after the coalition of 1821 to survey the company’s fur trading establishments, on June 15 entered Lac des Chats and passed two North West Company trading posts, both consisting of “miserable huts.” The following day, he passed Fort Coulonge, managed by Mr. Goddin, and noticed an encampment of Algonkins near it. There was a North West Company establishment on Lake Nipissing, but Garry did not visit it. He was told that the company also had a post in the village of Lac des Deux Montagnes under the charge of Mr. Fisher (Alexander Fisher), which produced annually packs of beaver, each weighing 90 pounds.

Fort Coulonge Post Master Joseph Godin

Greg Piasetzki, a descendant of Joseph Godin has generously submitted his notes on his ancestor’s work at the Fort Coulonge Post:

“My ancestor Joseph Godin was in charge of the post at Fort Coulonge from about 1796 until 1823.  He is mentioned in numerous documents over this period.  However one document I only came across recently is his petition in 1819 for 1200 acres of land in Westmeath based on his having cleared 50 or 60 acres in Westmeath across from the (then) NW Co post at Fort Coulonge.  He asks that the 1200 acres (20 x 60 acres) include the land he has cleared.  The petition is granted but I haven’t yet traced the land through the land registry system to see if it matches up with the HBC farm.”

Piasetzki has also supplied this transcript of the original 1819 Land Petition by Joseph Godin to the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada  Sir Peregine Maitland. The military townships (found along the St. Lawrence and up into Lanark & Carleton), were labelled so because of the British Crown’s gifting of lands to members of its military to encourage settlement and provide a trained and ready defense. The War of 1812-14 was still fresh in people’s memories. The surveying of the townships of Westmeath, Stafford and Ross in Renfrew County would not be done for another 10 years. Johnstown District at that time took in Carleton, Grenville and Leeds Counties.

1819 Land Petition by Joseph Godin, from original microfiche:

To:  His Excellency Sir Peregine Maitland Knight Commander of the most honourable military order of the Bath, Lieutenant Govern of the Province of Upper Canada, etc,etc, The Memorial and Petition of Joseph Godin of Lake Coulonge, on the Ottawa River, Indian Trader.   

Respectfully sheweth   That your Memorialist has for the last twenty five years occupied a station on the lower end of Lake Coulonge on the Ottawa or Grand River, called Fort Coulonge, situated about one miles above the townships of Hull in Lower, and Nepean in Upper, Canada.            

That during that time he has cleared and cultivated on the Upper Canada side of the River, between 50 and 60 acres of land which are now under a crop of wheat, and that, to the best of your memorialists belief the said cleared and cultivated land is situated within the Johnstown District, but has not as yet been included in any particular township.            

That he is desirous of extending his improvements and settling a further tract in the vicinity, the population and cultivation of which would tend make really to attract settlers and promote civilization upon the line of the Ottawa; and should a back communication between the Lower Province and Drummond Island become an object beyond being the route for the Indian trade, it would form a principal link in the chain of such communication.             Under these circumstances your Memorialist humbly hopes he may be considered as entitled to a preference for a grant of land containing his establishment and improvements and in the vicinity thereof. Wherefore your petitioner humbly prays that your Excellency will be pleased to direct a grant to be made to your petitioner, under the usual conditions, of twelve hundred acres of land, to include his improvements and to extend along the Ottawa River and Lake Coulonge, upon a front of twenty acres, and with a depth of sixty acres, or of such other quantity as in such other proportion or direction as your Excellency may seem fit in the Johnstown District of Upper Canada, should the said land so cultivated and improved by him as aforesaid, be found therein, or in whatever other district it may prove to be situated; And your petitioner will ever pray so Joseph Godin

The Reply was not long in coming: – a petition dated 21 Oct. 1819, getting a reply dated 3 November 1819. The answer was positive for Godin.  Dealing with  government today would NOT have such a fast turnaround!

The Petition of Joseph Godin 21st October 1819 From the Honourable William McGillivray Report of the Surveyor General Report by Order of John Brikis(sp?) The situation of the tract herein applied for appears to be at a Trading post called Coulonge on the West side of the Grand or Ottawa River in the Province of Upper Canada and within the tract lately purchased from the Indians [Note by GAP – appears to fall within Treaty 27 signed in 1819] in the Johnstown district, yet is a considerable distance from any Township under order of survey, the nearest to it is the military townships now surveying. M Ridout Survey 3 Nov 1819 If the site of his land when the Township shall be surveyed do not interfere with any claims from the Military Settlement let it be confirmed to him.

Thomas Taylor, the last Post Master at the Fort Coulonge Hudson Bay Post  purchased the Post upon his retirement in 1855.  Taking his first contract with the Hudson Bay Company in 1815, Taylor worked his way up.  “From 1822 – 30 he was HBC Governor George Simpson’s personal servant and accompanied Simpson to the Columbia in 1824-25, to England in 1825-26, and back to the Columbia in 1828-29.”  Taylor died in 1879 in Pembroke and he and his wife are buried at Fort Coulonge.

In New France the heavily laden brigades of voyageurs were a common sight. For nearly 250 years, from the early 17th to the mid-19th centuries, the fur trade was a vast commercial enterprise across the land we now call Canada. The fur trade was nevertheless the economic engine of New France: it underwrote exploration, evangelization, and settlement initiatives.

The fast rhythm of the paddles was the beat of the voyageurs’ music. From Ottawa Waterway Gateway to a Continent by Robert Legget:

“Of such is the singing, in enabling the men to work eighteen and nineteen hours a day, ( in a pinch), through forests and across great bays, that a good singer has additional pay. The songs are sung with might and main at the top of the voice timed to the paddle. which makes about fifty strokes a minute. While nearing habitations, crossing sheets of water and during rain, the song is loud and long.” 

“As but one indication of the early activity of fur trading on the Ottawa, Nicolas d’Ailleboust de Manthet spent the winter of 1694-95 as far upstream as north of Calumet Island, this being the start of Fort Coulonge, one of the oldest of all river settlements. And up and down the waterway, in increasing numbers, went fearless young Frenchmen, soon to be widely known as couriers de bois, braving the dangers of the Indian territories and the search for fur.”

Westmeath Township Paths & Portages Discovered.

From Collections Canada.ca, a wonderful old map: 1836 Blueprint B22 McNaughton Westmeath Map.  This important map, by Dominion Surveyor John McNaughton, shows the Winter Road and also other pathways and labels, with two roads not seen on other documents. It was usual practice that incoming Europeans would use existing native paths and portages, taken by  Indigenous Peoples for generations upon generations.

1.  “Road Operated by the Hudson Bay Company“, which starts at what is now Westmeath Village at the top of the Gore Line and finishes at shoreline on the other side of the Westmeath Peninsula, on what is now Malloy Bay, where the HBC had a post & farm. This would serve to avoid all the Paquette Rapids and be a more direct cross-country route.

2.  A “Trailed Road” which runs parallel to the shoreline  starting at the top end of Winter Road (Greenwood), and goes all the way to the northern end of the peninsula to the Spotswood area where there is a split into two to go to the shore. This makes clear the importance of the river and how the earliest settlers stayed close to this primary means of travel.

3.  Seen before: An unlabelled pathway from Beachburg Village, running northward through The Glen to Bellow’s Bay on the Ottawa shore. This has been named Mast Road in this website.

4. “Fish Point“, situated at the end of what is now Greenway Road in Lacroix’s Bay, LaPasse, has not been labelled on  other maps.

5.  Another unlabelled portage/pathway runs from Malloy Bay on Lake Coulonge to northeast of what is currently the LaPasse Village area. This has not been shown on other maps and would serve to avoid the rapids in the Lacroix Bay area.

Excerpt from “William Logan 1845 Survey of the Upper Ottawa River” writing on Tuesday, 26 August, 1845:

“We have reached Fort Colonge [Fort Coulonge] & I have procured wool cloth on the strength of Sir George Simpson’s 
letter of introduction from a very fair haired young man who said he was a relation of Dr. Trail’s, 
but who resembles Sir George Simpson in the build.”

Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson Bay Company headquartered in Montreal, extended HBC assistance to certain travellers utilizing a letter of introduction “instructing HBC staff to assist the bearer in every possible way.” The fur trade was over by the 1850s as the Indians were no longer finding sufficient numbers of fur pelts each winter.  As the road systems overtook the river as the main transportation route, the Fort was no longer viable as a profitable business. The post was finally closed in 1855 when it was purchased by Thomas Taylor.

This farmland and bush fronted onto the Ottawa, (also called the Grand River in those days),  at a bay in Lake Coulonge that would later be named for its owner Patrick Malloy, the purchaser of the tract from Brissard in June 1855.  Malloy would later sell up and moved to North Dakota, leaving a bay and a sideroad named for him in Westmeath Township.

The land registration listing:  HBC Lands – Registration of Lots., – shows that these lands had first been given by the Crown in 1836 to a Duncan McDonnell and his land patent was registered in 27 February 1836,  then resold to John McNaugton for £500. in May 1836.

The very next month John McNaugton sells it on to the HBC for £338.10.

Duncan McDonnell was the son and heir of the late Lt. Col. John McDonnell who had been given the land  by the Crown, in appreciation for his militia service in the War of 1812-1814. John McNaughton knew the area intimately; as the deputy provincial surveyor he had surveyed most of Westmeath and Ross townships and had acted as Government Crown Land Agent for many years of his career.

J.D. McLean, Reeve of Westmeath Township, writing in 1933:

“Across the Lake (Coulonge Lake), on the Quebec side, about one mile above where Davidson’s Village is now, stands one of the main Forts of the Hudson Bay Company.  They also had a post on the Ontario side, on the banks of the Lake, on what was afterwards known as the Poupore Farm.  During the time the Hudson Bay Co. traded along the shores of the Ottawa River, they cleared quite a lot of land on this farm, and built storehouses – some of the foundations are still visible.

As Mr. McLean piece reminds us, Indians had always lived all along the Lake Coulonge shore. Keith and the late Art Bromley’s father Garnet Jr., as a little boy, had his picture taken with a Chief in full headdress. Garnet Bromley Sr. worked for the HBC and told tales of the Indians encamped in the hills between the Bromley farm and the river – land later owned by the Brown’s and the Dunfield’s.

For reasons unknown the Quebec settlement downriver (now across from LaPasse, Ontario), adopted the Fort’s name to become the Fort Coulonge we know today.

Petty Fur Traders

Although the companies wanted to have complete monopolies on the fur trade, that was not possible because of the numbers of players involved and vast distances. Fur traders, one-man or two-man concerns, operated throughout the Ottawa River Valley. Both the North West Company and the Hudson Bay Company tried to control the traders & stop their operations in the Valley. This excerpt also from The Fur Trade In Eastern Canada Until 1870 by Norman Anick (1976), starts on Page 170 of the paper.

In 1829, Alexander Sherriff  observed that the Fort Colounge HBC’s establishment consisted of  “a double row of neat white washed  buildings and across the river, on the Upper Canada side, a farm of 60  or 70 acres.”    The date of 1829 was well before the farm land on the Upper Canada side was actually purchased in 1836, so the HBC was “squatting” on this land or had some unknown arrangement with the Crown.

The welfare of early inhabitants was always under threat.

Submitted by Catherine MacDonald:   Lisa Friesen from the Hudson’s Bay Archives in Manitoba sent  an excerpt from a letter from John Siveright to James Keith, dated Fort Coulonge, January 2, 1843:

“……Numbers of Children & some adults (Guide Bernard’s son one of the number) have dyed in this quarter of the Small Pox – fortunately the Indians have not come from inland yet & may escape if they will keep away….”.    ( HBC Arch. B.134/c/55, fo. 3 )

The HBC Farm on Malloy Bay, Lake Coulonge

From the Hudson Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, we have this company document of the dealings at the  Fort Coulonge Post:    Hudson’s Bay Company Archives 1821-1855.

The farm across the river from the Post, is well documented in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives and entries were made of the crops grown and harvested. The Upper Canada (Ontario)  farm land was needed to stock the Fort. It is assumed that the land was more suited for cultivation on the south side of the Ottawa River. Much of the supplies sold in the Fort store were grown during the summer at the farm; some livestock, grains, vegetables, hay, and ground flour were all stocked from the farm across the river.  Trading also took place at the south side farm post. During these years the river travel was quite extensive and the lumbering barons were exploiting the endless stands of tall pines. The Fort did a good amount of business with the lumbering shanties supplying necessities. The Deed to the “Governor and Company of Adventurers Trading into Hudson Bay”, Upper Canada HBC farm:  HBC Deed 1836.

The farm consisted of 677 acres in all, in Lots 2 and 3 of the 1st and 2nd Concessions, as stated in the 1836 Deed to this land registered by Land Agent John McNaughton:

“…made between John McNaughton of Bytown in the District of Bathurst in the Province of Upper Canada, Deputy Provicial Surveyor of the one part and the Governor and Company of the Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay acting ,stipulating and accepting by John Severight of Lachine in the District of Montreal and Province of Lower Canada, Esquire, their attorney duly constituted for these presents of the other part; whereby the said John McNaughton for Three Hundred and Thirty Eight Pounds and ten shillings Lawful Money did grant,bargain, sell, transfer, convey, and confirm, unto the said Governor and Company of Adventurers acting as aforesaid……in the Township of Westmeath in the County of Lanark in the District of Bathurst in the Province of Upper Canada containing by measurement Six Hundred and Seventy-Seven Acres be the same more or less Lots Numbers Two and Three in the First and Second Concessions of Concessions fronting on Coulonge Lake in the said Township of Westmeath.”’

The usefulness  of the farm to the Company had diminished and in 1844 the acreage was sold to Louis  Brissard from Grand Calumet; 11 years before the Quebec shore Tading Post was closed.  This  sale for £1,000. made a handsome profit for the HBC and its Governor Sir George Simpson; who was acknowledged to be one of the great businessmen of his time and as a good Scot he never missed an opportunity to make a profit. This document  from 1844,  HBC LandsSale to Brissard 1844  ,  a Memorial registering the sale, sets out the terms:

“Governors and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay…..by Sir George Simpson of Lachine, District of Montreal, Governor of the Territory aforesaid Hudson’s Bay Company of the one part and Louis Bresard of ….in Grand Calumet in the County of Ottawa in the District of Montreal…bargain and sale … being composed of Lots Numbers two  and three in the Forest and Second Concessions fronting Coulonge Lake… for and in of the sum of One Thousand Pounds current money of the said Province of Canada….”