THE LONDON COUNCIL 1838
MANY motives had brought about the journey to London. In the first place, Dr. McLoughlin was entitled to a leave of absence. Factors, chief factors, and traders from the St. Lawrence to the Athabasca had taken their turns at a glimpse of the old home in Scotland, or at the familiar hedgerows of some English village. Dr. McLoughlin had never seen the time when he could leave his ultramontane kingdom. From the day he decided to move his headquarters from the restricted grounds at old Astoria to the green, open swell on the north bank of the Columbia, in 1824, scores of hands had been at work building shops, stockades, storehouses, grubbing up trees, and subduing the soil. Then came a reason, and go he must.
Factors in the fur country had said farming was incompatible with the fur trade. From the days of Prince Rupert till that of the Red River settlement every bit of bread had come from England. "Can you raise wheat on the Columbia?" asked the London Directory.
"Oh, no," answered an old Northwester. "It 's a bad and barren land. Supplies must come across the mountains, or be shipped around Cape Horn."
In the north-country, trappers and traders fed, like the Chippewayans, on buffalo, whitefish, and moose. Pernmican hung in rawhide bags around the trading posts.
