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“Canoes in a Fog, Lake Superior” by Frances Anne Hopkins, 1869, from Wikimedia, HERE.
Recently
I was reading Muzzleloader, when I chanced across an article which described
mountain men leaving a midsummer rendezvous in 1832, and which described how “The
first day’s journey was short – about eight miles. Such a brief jaunt was sometimes referred to
as a Hudson’s Bay start”.1
I
had never heard the term a “Hudson’s Bay start”, so I did what I always
do, and did some research and this is what I found.
A Hudson’s
Bay start...
 |
An extract from Policing the Plains: Being the Real-life Record of the Famous Royal North, by Roderick George MacBeth, page 47, discussing the start of an 1874 trek in western Canada.
John Bakeless, in The Journals Of Lewis and Clark,
noted that the expedition started off on May 14th, 1804, at 4:00 pm,
and only traveled four miles, 6.4 km, up the Missouri River to an island,
before stopping for the night. Bakeless
further noted that, “Intentionally or not, Clark wisely made what is
sometimes called a ‘Hudson’s Bay start’.
Hudson’s Bay men are credited with a system of starting late and making
the camp not far from their starting point.
The first night’s camp reveals anything that has been forgotten and it
is not hard to go back for it”.2
 |
An excerpt from Forty Years in Canada, by Samuel Benfield Steele
A Pro-Tip!
 |
A Pro-Tip! from the voyageurs of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Graphic by the Author.
The
Hudson’s Bay voyageurs were professionals canoe trekkers and moved tons of
cargo through the wilderness, and they were also experts on life in the
wilderness, and so were Lewis and Clark and their men. Their advice to start the first day late and
only travel a short distance before setting up camp, in case something
necessary is forgotten, is good very advice.
I
had never heard this advice before, although occasionally, I have emulated the
voyageurs and made a late start and only travelled a short distance before
setting up camp for the night. While I
would like to say that it was due to good planning, in all but a few cases, to
be honest, it was accidental and mostly due to travel or other delays, that
prevented me from hitting the trail or getting on the water until later than I
had originally planned.
However,
it is a good advice, with the weight of lifetimes of expert’s experience behind
it, and on those few trips where I accidentally made a “Hudson’s Bay start” the
first part of the trip was smoother and more pleasant than on my other
trips. From now on I am going to use a
“Hudson’s Bay start” whenever I can on my trips through the wilderness, by starting
the first day in the early afternoon and only traveling a short distance before
setting up my camp for the night.
 |
Canoeing in the Adirondacks. Photograph by the Author.
Don’t forget to come back next week and read “The Marine Corp Survival
Kit, Circa 1974©”, where we will talk about what Marine Corp survival experts in
1974, suggested should be in your survival kit.
I
hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me
on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE. Don’t forget to follow me on both The
Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE,
and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free
to leave a comment on either site. I
announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at
bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.
That
is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!
Notes
1
From “The 1832 Battle of Pierre’s Hole”, by Jim Hardee, Muzzleloader,
July/August 2021, Vol. XLVIII, No. 3, page 81.
2
From The Journals Of Lewis and Clark, by John Bakeless, page 24.
Sources
Bakeless, John; The Journals Of Lewis and Clark,
[New American Library, 1964], page 24.
Hardee,
Jim; “The 1832 Battle of Pierre’s Hole”, Muzzleloader, July/August 2021,
Vol. XLVIII, No. 3, page 81
MacBeth,
Roderick George; Policing the Plains, page 47, [Hodder and Stoughton,
Ltd. New York, NY 1923], https://books.google.com/books?id=nMM6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA47-IA1&lpg=PA47-IA1&dq=%22hudson+bay+start%22+%22POLICING+THE+PLAINS%22&source=bl&ots=cmqWsgG-uW&sig=ACfU3U16v3v7LcyPjPNFgA45ntA57SrG2w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjVs62f2fn4AhWoEmIAHWdDAmUQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=%22hudson%20bay%20start%22%20%22POLICING%20THE%20PLAINS%22&f=false, accessed July 14, 2022
Steele,
Samuel Benfield; Forty Years in Canada, [McClelland, Goodchild &
Stewart, Ltd., Toronto, 1915 ], page 65, https://books.google.com/books?id=R4S4tTQbZGsC&pg=PA418&dq=%22hudson+bay+start%22+%22FORTY+YEARS++IN+CANADA%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2pLeZ2_n4AhWRMlkFHWa0AL8Q6AF6BAgCEAI#v=onepage&q=%22hudson%20bay%20start%22%20%22FORTY%20YEARS%20%20IN%20CANADA%22&f=false, accessed July 14, 2022
Wikimedia, “Canoes in a
Fog, Lake Superior”, by Frances Anne Hopkins, 1869, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canoes_in_a_Fog,_Lake_Superior.jpg,
accessed July 17, 2022
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