How Lewis pioneers helped to build Canada

Now the fruits of that preference have emerged in the form of a book about an intriguing aspect of Lewis history – its role in the development of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Actually, the book is as much about the history of Canada as of Lewis because of the extent to which the Hudson’s Bay Company was integral to that story.

The fact that the very existence of Canada is being called into question – ironically, by the son of an economic migrant from Lewis – is another reason to welcome “Pemmicans and Portages” which sheds light on extraordinary people who left their own island homes.

Angus made a brief visit to Stornoway last week for the book’s launch in the Town Hall which was well attended despite dreadful weather conditions.

Raised in Breacleit, Bernera, he qualified as a chartered surveyor and his professional work over the past 32 years has taken him all over Scotland from his home in West Lothian, while always maintaining close links with the islands.

He says that the starting point for his Hudson’s Bay Company interest was research published by Comunn Eachdraidh Uig more than a decade ago which reminded him that his own great-great-grandfather, Farquhar Macdonald (Fearchair Aonghais Ruadh) from Capadal in Uig, was recruited in 1831 to join the Hudson’s Bay Company. “I found it amazing to have that connection”, says Angus.

Until then, most of what he knew about Fearchair was that “he had been married three times”. His first wife, who died quite young, was from Gisla and it is from this union that Angus is descended.

As the detail unfolded, it turned out Fearchair would have been worth a book to himself. After twice crossing the North American continent in pioneering days of travel, he returned across the Atlantic to find his home village in Uig had been cleared.

Angus’s researches gathered pace during the Covid lockdown. There is, he found, a great deal of material available on-line. “The research material in Winnipeg”, he advises, “is very good for folk who think they have ancestors who worked for the company”.

In its 17th century origins, the Hudson’s Bay Company was a product of imperialism at its most audacious. A Royal Charter simply decreed that the company would have a commercial monopoly over an area of river systems feeding into Hudson’s Bay which included a third of what would become modern Canada.

For two centuries, the Hudson’s Bay Company was effectively the government of this vast territory which expanded coast-to-coast in 1821 through merger with the North West Company.

It was a similar model of empire in action to the East India Company, in which the lines between government and commerce were obliterated. The major difference was that the Hudson’s Bay Company did not have local rulers and vast populations to contend with.

Rather, it was driven by the ambition to open up a sparsely-populated continent to trade; initially in the valuable commodity of fur and developing into a network of trading posts across north America.

There were strong Scottish connections with these activities from the outset and the Hudson’s Bay Company workforce throughout the 18th century was formed largely of Orcadians. In 1799, of the 530 men working for the company in North America, 416 were from Orkney. It was not until the early years of the 19th century that recruitment began in Lewis, at that time a deeply impoverished island under the grip of the Seaforth landlords.

Angus Macdonald writes: “Back in Lewis, the first agency for the company had appeared on a temporary basis in Stornoway in 1810-11 to seasonally recruit men. The first agent of the company was James Robertson who was also the Comptroller of Customs in the Burgh…. July 1811 was a busy month at Stornoway Harbour as three HBC ships sailed from there to the Bay … all had started their journies in Stromness…

“The company agent would be required to search for suitable young men throughout the island and they did so using various means, the most effective of which was through simple word of mouth… The incentive of course was a secure wage and this was supplemented by the best inducement of all; a half year salary advance. For poverty stricken young men, this was like manna to them and their families”.

Uig was the main recruiting ground for Robertson and his successors as agents. Angus Macdonald suggests that the fact it was “the most distant district from Stornoway as the terminal of communication for the wider world” made the offer of an alternative destination attractive. “That coupled with a booming population meant something had to give and the departure of the most able but not always the most willing began to gain momentum”.

For example, “a major intake in 1820-21” included 25 men from West Uig, six of them from Bernera and two from the island of Vuia. “It is interesting to note”, writes Macdonald, ”that the six men from Bernera all came from the townships of Kirkibost and Barragloum that were about to be cleared by Seaforth the following year”. The same impending threat probably played a part in “recruitment” elsewhere.

Angus Macdonald’s own forebear was part of the 1832 intake. At this time, the Company was anxious to recruit “sloopers” to navigate the shallow waters between the headquarters at York Factory and visiting supply ships. “The first Lewismen involved as sloopers at this time were men who had prior experience of sailing and handling small vessels…

“There was a ready supply of these men and the intake included Farquhar Macdonald and Murdo Morrison, both of Capadal, Angus Mackenzie of Laxay, William Maclennan of Valtos and Murdo Murray of Bayhead, Stornoway. For the rest of the year, the sloopers would handle these boats up the western coast of Hudson’s Bay to trade with Inuit in the north. This was necessary as Inuit simply would not take goods to the forts for fear of attack by their enemies”.

Farquhar was soon involved in a longer range assignment, having been dispatched to traverse the uncharted territory in the direction of Vancouver. After five years in the west, he did the same epic journey in reverse, a piece of his own family history which Angus finds “mindblowing” since these 2600 mile journeys were accomplished “long before the days of railroad”, with the aid of canoes and flat-bottomed “York boats” which were designed to traverse the rapids.

While in the west, along with two other Lewismen, Farquhar served as a stoker on the SS Beaver – the first steamship to sail in the Pacific North West, owned of course by the Hudson’s Bay Company to make remote parts of the west coast accessible for fur trading. Then, “bizarrely”, as Angus puts it, he ended his Canadian sojourn “as the head gardener at Fort Vancouver”, running a market gardening operation to feed the local trading population.

But then it was back to the grim reality of 19th century, landlord-cursed Lewis. Having made his way back across Canada and joined a ship which carried Hudson Bay workers to Stornoway and Stromness, Farquhar Macdonald arrived in Uig to find that his home village of Capadal was one of five which had been cleared by Seaforth in 1837 to make way for the sheep farm of Ardroil.

“It adds poignancy to the whole story”, says Angus Macdonald. “After all he had experienced in Canada, he returned to find that his family had been turfed out of their home”.

In the book, he writes: “On returning to Lewis, Macdonald certainly used his experience gained in Canada to benefit the barren, acidic soil he inherited on being sent to the backwater of Gèisiadar.

“The innovative thinking of the Company man was manifest in Farquhar Macdonald by creating arable land” amidst the “rocks and bogs” of his involuntarily “adopted” village.

While some came home to face the hazards of poverty and eviction, many of the Lewismen who were recruited to the Hudson’s Bay Company during the course of the 19th century stayed in Canada.

They married and were assimilated into an increasingly multi-ethnic society. They joined the Gold Rushes and they worked on building the railroads. All of them contributed to building Canada and some of them left lasting legacies.

Angus Macdonald highlights the story of Donald Macleod from Shawbost who obtained a land grant through the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1862 and flourished in business, in his own right. “Companies that Macleod formed included fur trapping, lumber extraction, lumber milling, mining and freighting.

“This incredibly enterprising Siarach formed his own company to produce home reared beef to a wide Canadian market rather than importing from the USA … Donald Macleod was a remarkable man whose legacy is scarcely known today in his native Shawbost and it is not exaggeration to describe him as one of the driving forces in the development of the town of Edmonton”

He adds: “In a similar vein to Edmonton, the birth of the sprawling metropolitan area of Vancouver also owes its very earliest foundation to settlers from Lewis”. Names like Kenneth Morison of Lower Barvas and John Maciver of Knock, Carloway, feature in that episode.

The whole story of how much islanders and other Gaels contributed to the building of Canada is one which is at risk of being under-represented nowadays, not only in Lewis history but also in the story of Canada.

Much has been written but Angus Macdonald is confident there is plenty scope for further research.

He says: “For me it has been a labour of love” – and also a tribute to the great-great grandfather who led a life of adventure which still seems “mindblowing” to the generations which succeed him, nearly two centuries on.

“Emmican and Portages – The Isle of Lewis, the Fur Trade and the Hudson’s Bay Company” is published by the Islands Book Trust at £20.