he world. All
the resources of a powerful and well-organized corporation were at his
disposal, and his own reputation for rapid travelling gave assurance
that on the actual journey not an hour would be lost. A fortnight's
sail brought him from Liverpool to Halifax, and thence he journeyed by
steamer to Boston, by rail to Nashua, by coach to Concord, and by
sleigh to Montreal. The portage railway from St John to Laprairie was
on his route, but it was not open in winter.

From Montreal Sir George and his party set out on May 4 in two light
thirty-foot canoes, each carrying a crew of twelve or fourteen men. At
top speed they worked their way up the Ottawa and the Mattawa out to
Lake Nipissing, {110} and down the French River into Georgian Bay.
They camped every night at sunset, and rose each morning at one. Their
tireless Canadian and Iroquois voyageurs worked eighteen hours a day,
paddling swiftly through smooth water, wading through shallows, or
towing the canoes through the lesser rapids, or portaging once to a
dozen times a day round the more difficult ones. Each voyageur was
ready to shoulder his 180 pounds, strapped to his forehead, or to ferry
passengers ashore on his back. They reached Sault Ste Marie on May 16,
only to find Lake Superior still frozen. They picked their way very
slowly through the opening rifts along the shore, made the Company's
post at Fort William in eleven days, exchanged their large canoes for
smaller craft, and paddled and portaged through the endless network of
river and lake to Fort Garry, which they reached on June 10,
thirty-eight days out from Montreal.

[Illustration: Sir George Simpson. From a print in the John Ross
Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library]

From Fort Garry a fresh start was made on July 3, on horseback, with
baggage sent ahead in lumbering Red River carts. Past Fort Ellice and
Fort Carlton, they pushed on with fresh supplies of horses at the
topmost speed that the limitations of their convoy of carts would
permit. Band after band of Plains {111} Indians, adorned with
war-paint and scalp-locks, crossed their trail, but mosquito and
sand-fly proved more troublesome. The travellers passed a band of
emigrants making slowly for the Columbia, and everywhere found
countless herds of buffalo. In three weeks from Fort Garry they
reached Fort Edmonton. Here forty-five fresh horses were in readiness
for riding, pack-horses took the place of carts, and the jo