And here let me correct an error that is sometimes
found even in respectable print - the Company has at all times been
ready to assist scientists to the utmost of its very ample power.
Although jealous of its trading rights, every one is free to enter
the territory without taking count of the Company, but there has
not yet been a successful scientific expedition into the region
without its active co-operation.
The Hudson's Bay Company has always been the guardian angel of the
north.
I suppose that there never yet was another purely commercial concern
that so fully realized the moral obligations of its great power,
or that has so uniformly done its best for the people it ruled.
At all times it has stood for peace, and one hears over and over
again that such and such tribes were deadly enemies, but the Company
insisted on their smoking the peace pipe. The Sioux and Ojibway,
Black-Foot and Assiniboine., Dog-Rib and Copper-Knife, Beaver and
Chipewyan, all offer historic illustrations in point, and many
others could be found for the list.
The name Peace River itself is the monument of a successful effort
on the part of the Company to bring about a better understanding
between the Crees and the Beavers.
