usin Prince Rupert.

Governors and chief factors have changed with the changing centuries;
but the character of the company's personnel has never changed. Prince
Rupert, the first governor, was succeeded by the Duke of York (James
II); and the royal governor by a long line of distinguished public men
down to Lord Strathcona, the present governor, and C. C. Chipman, the
chief commissioner or executive officer. All have been men of noted
achievement, often in touch with the Crown, always with that passion for
executive and mastery of difficulty which exults most when the conflict
is keenest.

Pioneers face the unknown when circumstances push them into it.
Adventurers rush into the unknown for the zest of conquering it. It has
been to the adventuring class that fur traders have belonged.

Radisson and Groseillers, the two Frenchmen who first brought back word
of the great wealth in furs round the far northern sea, had been
gentlemen adventurers--"rascals" their enemies called them. Prince
Rupert, who leagued himself with the Frenchmen to obtain a charter for
his fur trade, had been an adventurer of the high seas--"pirate" we
would say--long before he became first governor of the Hudson's Bay
Company. And the Duke of Marlborough, the company's third governor, was
as great an adventurer as he was a general.

Latterly the word "adventurer" has fallen in such evil repute, it may
scarcely be applied to living actors. But using it in the old-time sense
of militant hero, what cavalier of gold braid and spurs could be more of
an adventurer than young Donald Smith who traded in the desolate wastes
of Labrador, spending seventeen years in the hardest field of the fur
company, tramping on snow-shoes half the width of a continent, camping
where night overtook him under blanketing of snow-drifts, who rose step
by step from trader on the east coast to commissioner in the west? And
this Donald Smith became Lord Strathcona, the governor of the Hudson's
Bay Company.

Men bold in action and conservative in traditions have ruled the
company. The governor resident in England is now represented by the
chief commissioner, who in turn is represented at each of the many
inland forts by a chief factor of the district. Nominally, the
fur-trader's northern realm is governed by the Parliament of Canada.
Virtually, the chief factor rules as autocratically to-day as he did
before the Canadian Government took over the proprietary rights of the
fur