The Bastard of Fort Stikine Read online

  Even when the trough was functional, bathing was rare, laundry was unheard of, and personal grooming was a luxury. Hair and beards grew unchecked, free from the taming influence of combs or razors. Teeth rotted in heads, unbrushed and untouched by fresh fruits and vegetables. Diseased dentition was invariably pulled or chipped out, rum being the sole form of anesthetic. Isolated from what Dr. McLoughlin deemed the “Civilized World,” the men of Stikine grew feral.

  It was a malodorous sinkhole fit for neither man nor beast, and it was certainly no place for a woman — at least not a white woman. The only one to ever set foot in Stikine was the aforementioned Eloisa. As the daughter of Dr. John, sister of Mr. John, and wife of the fort’s first chief trader, William Glen Rae, Eloisa was HBC royalty, but she was technically not a white woman. She was every bit the “half-breed” her brother was, both being the products of a Cree mother. She was taller than a girl ought to be and had grown up in the rough and tumble of Company forts. Even so, nothing could have prepared Eloisa for Stikine. She swore, “It was a miserable place.…There were only flat rocks and no trees around close — within half a mile; just bare rocks.…It was a terrible place.…I did not like it at all; it was terrible.” She was forced to endure that most terrible place for an entire year, beginning in April 1840, when she accompanied her husband as he took command of the newly acquired station. When he was later transferred to a fort in southern California, no one was happier than Eloisa.

  Even filthy water seeks its own level, and the HBC quickly constructed an equally vile mate for Stikine along the fog-bound coastline, a secondary fort they dubbed Tako. Although Tako was better situated in a “landlocked harbor,” it too fell prey to many of the curses plaguing Stikine. Of course, the HBC did not build Stikine — the Russians bear the ignominy for that lapse in judgement — but the Company did go to extraordinary lengths to rent it. In 1834, Governor Simpson decided the Honourable Company needed a foothold on the Stikine River, which was then under the control of the czar, Nicholas I. With flagrant disregard for international treaties, Simpson dispatched Peter Skene Ogden to establish a post at the river’s mouth. Ogden was a brilliant choice to lead the charge, having successfully mounted six forays into the Snake River basin. The man was simply too belligerent for polite society, too fearless to succumb to attack, and too obstinate to fail.

  Ogden met his match in the unlikely personage of Baron Ferdinand Friedrich Georg von Wrangel, an explorer and seaman who was serving as governor of Russian Alaska. Wrangel set up a blockade and fortified a village he named Redoubt St. Dionysius. Ogden, however, refused to back down. Outmanned and outgunned, he held his ground through an eleven-day standoff with the Russians. It was a noble effort, but Ogden was eventually forced to retreat. Dr. McLoughlin later mounted his own wildly unsuccessful ventures into the Stikine area, but each time his men were repelled amidst a hail of gunfire.

  In 1838, the British renewed the HBC licence for another twenty-one years, extending their monopoly in a country fast running out of fur-bearing creatures. The Company’s policy of environmental rape and pillage forced them ever westward in search of virgin lands, and Simpson once again decided their best hopes lay in the pristine wilds of the Stikine River basin. This time, Simpson opted for diplomacy (admittedly not his strongest suit), and the Governor booked passage to Russia, intent on brokering a deal.

  After several days’ wait, Simpson was finally invited to attend a state dinner. He arrived dressed in his finest frippery for his audience with Baron von Wrangel, and was, as always, underwhelmed. Physically, Wrangel was a most peculiar specimen. Eggshell bald and devoid of chin, the baron had cultivated an elaborate system of whiskers to define a face that otherwise threatened to disappear into obscurity. Simpson, a practitioner of brutal honesty, described Wrangel as “an extraordinary looking ferret eyed, Red Whiskered & moustachioed little creature.” The Governor also felt the baron was “stupid to a degree,” although, in fairness, Simpson thought that of everyone he met.

  The two men eventually negotiated a deal, with the Russians agreeing to give the HBC a ten-year lease on their lands in return for two thousand seasoned otter skins per annum and other considerations. Simpson, immeasurably pleased with himself, headed home with a signed contract.

  Wrangel was happy to be rid of that woebegone spit of land. From the start, it had proven more grief than it was worth because the region was rife with “Indian trouble.” In 1802, the local tribes seized and burned Sitka, and the situation had deteriorated steadily ever since. As the Russians handed over the keys to the HBC in 1840, race relations at Stikine had reached a boiling point. Wrangel warned Simpson that the “HBC would need more men than they had in order to hold the fort,” but the Governor was deaf to unsolicited advice.

  On June 1, 1840, chief factor James Douglas formally took possession of the Alaska panhandle on behalf of the Company, and in a ceremony bereft of pomp or circumstance, Redoubt St. Dionysius was renamed Fort Stikine. William Rae was given full control of the outpost and its twenty-man complement, and his brother-in-law John McLoughlin Jr. was appointed as his right-hand man.

  William Rae and Eloisa, his wife of two years, set up house in the fort’s hastily constructed main quarters. Her role in the fort’s affairs was entirely decorative, and she was trapped like a jewelled beetle in amber: lovely to behold but of little practical use. She held her nose, and her tongue, in equal measure, and soldiered on as best she could. She turned a blind eye to everything except the liquor. Her father had always preached temperance, and the men’s excessive consumption shocked Mrs. Rae, who claimed to have seen “a big hogs head four feet high…emptied in one day.” She was disheartened to learn her husband was emptying more than his fair share of the kegs, and so Eloisa tumbled into disenchantment, surrounded by hostile forces and repugnant conditions.

  Early in 1841, Rae was recalled to Fort Vancouver and sent on to take charge of the HBC post in Yerba Buena. His departure left a void in Fort Stikine’s power structure, and after much deliberation, John McLoughlin Jr. was promoted to chief trader. The final staffing decision rested with his father, who swore the arrangement bore no trace of nepotism. The good doctor later said he had appointed his son simply because he was the best man available. Although such a glowing assessment would have struck many as preposterous only three years earlier, times had changed, and so had John Jr.

  To everyone’s astonishment, life in the Hudson’s Bay Company agreed with John McLoughlin Jr., and his earliest posting at Fort Vancouver proved to be a turning point in his maturation. Reunited with his parents and a brother he never knew, McLoughlin flourished as never before. He applied himself zealously to his duties, bragging to John Fraser, “We are in it from ½ past 6 in the morning till nine at night. I have learned more in the way of transacting business here than I should have done in Montreal in the same space of time. If you were to see our establishment you would be highly delighted with it.”

  His father was cautiously optimistic, seeing positive changes in both his sons now that they were within arm’s reach. Dr. McLoughlin sang their praises in muted tones, saying only that John and David “are as attentive and smart at their work as most young men.” Dr. McLoughlin’s formidable influence stunted his offspring’s growth, but John Jr.’s standing in the Company improved after his transfer to Stikine. He quickly earned a reputation as “a good disciplinarian” and did all he could to dispel Simpson’s entrenched belief that “no half-breed ever amounted to much.” William Rae waxed effusive of his brother-in-law, saying he could not want “a more sober, steady, or better assistant than…John McLoughlin,” and adding he had little doubt McLoughlin would one day rise to full command.

  Rise he did and, as McLoughlin family historian Burt Brown Barker noted, “it must have been a great satisfaction for the family to see John settling down to hard work after the wild life he had led.” His younger brother noticed a discernible shift in McLoughlin following his promotion: “I believe he is well satisfied with h
is situation, being far away from the old Gentleman and near to the Russians, who are full of game and he being master of a post.”

  Not everyone held such a generous view of McLoughlin’s meteoric rise through the ranks. One of his subordinates thought Mr. John “was kind and indulgent to the people” under his command, but only when sober. Others were less gracious, most notably the HBC trader George Roberts, who claimed McLoughlin was still “too young and hot headed for such a service.”

  McLoughlin was admittedly inexperienced and a trifle too impulsive to lead on his own — even his sister said “he had not been in long enough to be chief clerk.” Fortunately, he did not have to go it alone. Dr. McLoughlin appointed Roderick Finlayson, a “congenial and competent young man,” to serve as his son’s right-hand. Finlayson was exactly the sort of corporate lackey prized by management. He was perpetually fearful and thus easily controlled, and his tolerance of monotony held him in good stead for Company life. He was perceived as honest to a fault; one of his supervisors described him as “Mr. Finlayson, who I am sure could not tell a lie.” Finlayson was unflinchingly sober, pious, and calm, steering well clear of saloons, gambling, and women of flexible morality. He viewed pleasure and its pursuit as a character flaw to be corrected; in short, he was the perfect foil for young McLoughlin, who many feared had not yet abandoned his bacchanalian ways.

  McLoughlin and Finlayson were an ideal team: a fiery and exacting disciplinarian calmed by the temperate breeze of reason. Together they had the fort so well in hand that when Governor Simpson paid a surprise visit in September 1841, even he “formed a favourable opinion of the manner in which Finlayson and McLoughlin were running the establishment.”

  Although Simpson normally left the day-to-day operations of the western forts to Dr. McLoughlin, he could not resist the urge to tinker. Simpson visited both Stikine and Tako during his annual tour in 1841, and “at each stop, Simpson called clerks and factors to account and transferred personnel if he thought it in the company’s best interest.” When the Governor returned to Fort Stikine in October of that same year, he was on the prowl for a suitable replacement for John Rowand, widely recognized as “Simpson’s favourite trader.” Rowand, chief factor at Fort Edmonton, was long overdue for a furlough, although many feared the corpulent trader, who weighed in at more than three hundred pounds, might not live long enough to enjoy it. Simpson wanted Rowand to accompany him on his return journey to Montreal, and so he made a seemingly simple, yet ultimately fatal, decision: George Simpson elected to transfer the capable and abstemious Roderick Finlayson in what became a protracted game of Company musical chairs.

  Dr. McLoughlin did not share the Governor’s enthusiasm, as Simpson’s unilateral exercise in human resources “left John to govern what was reportedly one of the most difficult posts on the Pacific Coast.” John Jr., however, viewed Finlayson’s departure as a backhanded compliment, telling him: “I am sure that all this comes from our having had the Fort in such good order when the great Folks passed.” Within a few short months, McLoughlin had morphed from profligate ne’er-do-well to the sole leader of a nascent fort. His best hope of success lay in securing another assistant equal to the indispensable Finlayson.

  When the moment came to select a junior officer to help govern, decent applicants were thin on the ground. One of the primary (or perhaps only) requirements for the job was proficiency in the English language, which meant the only viable candidate was Thomas McPherson, “a poor soft half Breed Lad who out of charity had been sent to that place to be Employed in the store.” Even the HBC power brokers felt “McPherson was not a fit person to act as second.” Dr. McLoughlin thought the pairing of his son and the “soft and dull” McPherson would spell disaster, for he “knew McPherson to be a lazy Sleepy Drone” and a thief. John Jr. agreed, and he complained to his supervisor that McPherson “will never answer the purpose. He is a fellow that has no education.” Still, Simpson had spoken, and neither McLoughlin was in any position to quibble, so McPherson — vacuous, indolent, and sticky-fingered as can be — got the job. Even in his best moments, John McLoughlin Jr. was cursed by a lack of options.

  Tuesday, June 28, 1842 — Dusk

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  John McLoughlin Sr. was a man of few vices and scant pleasures. “The Dr. never smoked — chewing was out of the question — but occasionally snuffed — but seemed afraid to trust himself.” He also did not trust himself with alcohol, although he did not begrudge others the occasional nip: “Brandy was placed on the table with wine and cigars in the evening, as there was no amusement.” The doctor did not care to mix food and frivolity.

  After the obligatory recitation of grace, Dr. McLoughlin sat down to supper surrounded by his top lieutenants. The only tolerable sound was the scrape of knives on pewter. Conversation was to be kept to a minimum, and the sole permissible topic was work. Once the doctor had cleaned his plate and retired for the evening, the men were free to do as they pleased, within reasonable limits.

  On this particular night, the room’s suffocating silence was stirred by the arrival of a clerk bearing a message for the chief factor. The steamer Cowlitz had docked at Fort Vancouver’s waterfront that afternoon, and the crew were in the midst of off-loading its cargo. The clerk produced a thick packet of paper marked confidential and addressed to the doctor’s attention. The envelope bore the unmistakable scrawl and seal of Governor George Simpson.

  Two months had passed since Simpson put pen to paper at Fort Stikine, and countless other HBC employees already knew what the doctor was about to learn. He threw the packet aside and finished his meal in peace. A missive from Simpson seldom brought glad tidings, and Dr. McLoughlin was in no mood for more of the Governor’s self-serving edicts and unfunded mandates.

  With his last bite, McLoughlin pushed back his chair, bid his officers a good night, and left them to their own devices. As an afterthought, he grabbed Simpson’s envelope and headed for his room. He would soon have need of the privacy it afforded.

  The doctor cracked the packet’s seal and began with the top document. Simpson’s words leapt from the parchment: John Jr. was dead — gunned down by his own men. The term “Justifiable Homicide” swam before McLoughlin’s eyes, its meaning lost in a fog of disbelief and the anaesthetic effects of shock.

  Raw grief soon gave way to an agonizing round of second-guessing and what-ifs: “Poor john, he had a great deal of trouble the short time he was in this world & if he had remained in Canada this would never have happened.” The doctor was haunted by their final conversation, in which his son swore his future did not rest with the Honourable Company. John Jr. feared if he stayed in their employ, he might never escape his father’s legacy or the perception he was given his job as a birthright. In his last days in Fort Vancouver, as he packed his trunk and prepared to report to Stikine, John told his father “he should Leave the country and go somewhere Else to shift for himself.” He did not live long enough to make good on the promise, a thought that troubled his father.

  Dr. McLoughlin returned to the ceaseless business of the Honourable Company the next morning, present in body but absent in mind and soul. Days passed as his sorrow twisted and burrowed. The true meaning behind the verdict of justifiable homicide dawned with full force, and the doctor could not accept the implications. The Governor’s indifference to the shooting rattled incessantly in Dr. McLoughlin’s brain, and his feelings of rage began to coalesce around a single target: George Simpson. Those in the doctor’s orbit immediately noticed the shift; George Roberts felt “the chary way in which Sir Geo behaved about the death envemoned [sic] the Dr. against him.” It was one thing to lose a son to murder, but it was quite another to have their mutual employer dismiss the death as both insignificant and self-inflicted.

  Simpson’s chary ways went far beyond that tactless letter. He had also manipulated the eyewitness statements, copies of which he included in the packet. Dr. McLoughlin knew the men of Stikine far better than the oft-absent Governor, and he soo
n realized “the depositions were a tissue of lies and exaggerations.” The doctor was certain “many had a motive to falsify” their testimony. There was also no escaping that “some of the most important witnesses…spoke very little English,” and no competent translators were present during their depositions. Dr. McLoughlin’s case against Simpson was building.

  McLoughlin shared his thoughts with anyone who would listen and found he was not alone in his criticism of the witness statements. The doctor’s suspicions prompted chief trader John O’Brien to ask Roderick Finlayson whether Simpson’s affidavits rang true, and Stikine’s former second-in-command was adamant the statements were self-serving perjury. According to O’Brien, “Finlayson also showed me a letter Signed by Thomas McPherson & Countersigned by Mr. C. Dodd & Geo. Blenkinsop in which McPherson States that he did not understand the questions put to him by Sir Geo. Simpson.”

  The Governor’s lack of investigative rigour was equally evident in his decision not to question many of the key witnesses. Simpson did not depose William Lasserte, for example, even though Lasserte was one of the few to have actually seen the shooting.

  Days turned into weeks as Dr. McLoughlin obsessively picked at his wound. He read the depositions over and over, and each time he was left with more questions than answers, and with little faith in the Governor’s slipshod investigation. He desperately needed to escape his grief, and so he transformed emotion into motion. He decided to launch his own inquest and began by questioning the men under his command. At that moment, Urbain Heroux was languishing in the purgatory of Sitka, but McLoughlin still had access to several other witnesses, including Pierre Kannaquassé, who was in his own strange limbo in nearby Fort Nisqually.