Lake Superior and The Canadian North West
In 1765, Henry acquired a license to trade in the Lake Superior region. Combining British capital with French Canadian experience, he formed a partnership with Cadot. For the next few years Henry was able to maintain a complete monopoly over the Lake Superior trade and without competition he was able to charge exorbitant prices. There he also came into contact with the Frontiersman Robert Rogers, though Henry reported that Rogers never paid him for certain services rendered.
In 1767–68 he wintered on the Michipicoten River and entered into a partnership with Sir William Johnson, the Duke of Gloucester and others, forming a company to mine silver found in copper ore on the shores of Lake Superior. The expenses involved made the venture unprofitable and the company wound up its affairs in 1774.
In 1775, Henry took four large and twelve small canoes to explore the territory northwest of Lake Superior. Henry, Cadot, Peter Pond, the brothers Thomas and Joseph Frobisher then began to challenge the Hudson's Bay Company. Their group, with forty men, stopped at Cumberland House and afterwards built a trading post on Amisk Lake, the first post to be built north of the Saskatchewan River. In 1776, Henry set off by foot to Fort à la Corne, following the Saskatchewan River, and having satisfied his curiosity secured some furs from the Assiniboines. He then purchased 12,000 additional beaver skins from a trip up the Churchill River from the Chipewyans, and some of his last packs were forcibly acquired from Robert Longmoor, an agent for the Hudson's Bay Company. Laden with furs, Henry returned to Montreal and gave the governor, Sir Guy Carleton, a large map of the western region through which he had travelled.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Henry The Elder
Famous quotes containing the words lake, superior, canadian, north and/or west:
“His education lay like a film of white oil on the black lake of his barbarian consciousness. For this reason, the things he said were hardly interesting at all. Only what he was.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We’re definite in Nova Scotia—’bout things like ships ... and fish, the best in the world.”
—John Rhodes Sturdy, Canadian screenwriter. Richard Rossen. Joyce Cartwright (Ella Raines)
“The English were very backward to explore and settle the continent which they had stumbled upon. The French preceded them both in their attempts to colonize the continent of North America ... and in their first permanent settlement ... And the right of possession, naturally enough, was the one which England mainly respected and recognized in the case of Spain, of Portugal, and also of France, from the time of Henry VII.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)