A week ago a group of us (four dog teams and a snowmobile) travelled up Stuart Lake to spend a few nights in a cabin about two thirds of the way up the west shorline. Stuart Lake is named after John Stuart who was Simon Fraser's right-hand man when both of them established Fort St. James on behalf of the Northwest Company in 1806. It is a huge lake, over 50 miles long, with several bays and arms, it is large enough to be considered a world of its own, with its own weather systems and all of the vagaries (including overflow and blowing snow) that are an integral part of large lakes.
Our jumping off point was a friend's dog yard on the shore of the lake, the trail ran in part on the lake but with a third of it running through the bush adjacent to the shore. Each of us travelled independently, the plan was to meet up at the cabin sometime before supper. Part of this trail had been used two weeks earlier during the Caledonia Classic sled dog race, but the wind had done a number on the packed trail and many of the trail markers had either been removed or broken....but there was a trail.
For me it was a glorious three hour run up the lake to the cabin, it was a thrilling experience. Whenever I have left Fort St. James on this lake I have felt like I was leaving for the unknown. In reality there are roads up both the west and eastern shores and there is a railway running up the east side of the lake....but the feeling when travelling out on the lake is one of loneliness and raw isolation.
The cabin was great, located on a high bluff overlooking the lake. The dogs were staked out in the trees along the shoreline and it was a very steep climb up to the spacious and well-maintained log cabin...there was lots of room for the five of us. As I looked out over the lake, I couldn't help but think that those early traders had to travel right by this spot as they headed north to conduct their trading activities.
Just north of our location was the trailhead of a portage trail that connects Stuart Lake with another very large lake to the west, Babine Lake. In 1822, William Connolly, who was one of John Stuart's successors as Chief Trader at Fort St. James established a fur trading outpost at the northern end of Babine Lake, known as Fort Kilmaurs. Today this post is known as Fort Babine. The trappers and traders had to travel right by this spot, either by canoe in the summer or on foot or by dog team in the winter.
The people of the Carrier First Nation who live in this territory had perfected the use of snowshoes in the winter. They also had dogs but they weren't sled dogs and there was no indigenous tradition of the use of dog teams by the Carrier people. Their lifestyle was heavily dependent on the huge Fraser River and Stikine River salmon runs. When these fish were caught and dried, they provided sustinence for the long winter months, which were passed in subterranean pit houses. There was very little travel in the winter and because there was little hunting of large game animals, there was no need to haul heavy loads over the snow.
It was the trading company that imported large numers of sled dogs from the Fort Chipewyan (Lake Athabasca) area of present-day Alberta in the mid 1800's, to facilitate their trade and winter communication. However the use of sled dogs in north central British Columbia did not become widespread although the construction of the Collins Overland Telegraph and the Yukon Telegraph Lines did lead to a rejuvenation of the use of sled dogs in this area.
This area was known by the traders as New Caledonia and was among the most isolated parts of the fur trading empire. As a result there were significant problems with both supply and the delivery of the returns of the fur trade to the central depots. From the beginning New Caledonia dispatched its returns and usually received its supplies via the Fraser-Peace-Athabasca-Churchill River route. The returns of the district's several posts (including Forts Fraser, Babine (Kilmaurs), George and Alexandria) had to be pressed and packed and then delivered by sled dogs to the depot of Stuart's Lake (Fort St. James) by the middle of February for checking and then forwarding to the departure point of McLeod's Lake (Fort McLeod) before spring break-up or by the end of February.
The whole process was hampered by the lack of suitable sled dogs in this area. John Stuart, who was factor at Fort St. James in 1821 wrote "It is not too much to say that circumstanced as we are at present, one dog would be of more essential service to the concern of New Caledonia than three men". Later the same year he wrote "but dogs is the most necessary article that can be sent to New Caledonia, they are the tools with which we labour".
It would appear that in New Caledonia in the 1820's a dog's life truly was a dog's life. "Dogs were not infrequently in short supply, dying of starvation in the long, cold winters following the periodic failure of the summer salmon run". Stuart lamented "some of the Company's dogs I apprehend will starve to death and it is impossible for me to save them for want of salmon". This was written a month before the August salmon run of 1820. Dogs were always in danger of being eaten by starving natives or hungry whites. Brigaders not infrequesntly ate dog flesh and horse meat. Simon Fraser testified that dog was a favourite dish of Canadien voyageurs and Canadian boatmen on the Columbia (river) considered it choice food.
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