HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY AND TLINGIT RIVALRY

First white people to come in was Hudson Bay people. Two men built house before Robert Campbell there. Met white there. Show him knife and fork. Indian had big bone knife. Made sign to white man three nights sleep then come back here. (traded dry meat) Hudson Bay heard of trade, wanted to be a part of the trade. Showed how to load up gun. Shoot 10 moose skin together. Shot arrows at it, some go there, most only halfway. White picked up gun, shot through the skin, everyone fall down - deaf - can't believe it, even shot right through tree.
-Johnson Edwards, 1994.

I am sorry to report that a large party (31) trading Indians from the coast who visited the Pelly and remained here ‘til they got their loads traded made a clean sweep of all of the furs and leathers of the surrounding vicinity. Some of the same Indians even went down the river near a hundred miles. This long established traffic, the very low price at which they dispose their goods, and their acquaintance with the language and habits of these tribes afford them facilities for trade we are all deprived of . . .
-Robert Campbell, 1851 (H.B.Co. correspondence quoted in Reading Voices, p. 86.)

A good many of the native Indians passed the summer around the fort for the express purpose of being on hand to defend us should the Chilkats come up to kill us as they had said. As we seemed incredulous of any attack going to be made on us, these ... Indians who know little or nothing of us, took concerted measures among themselves for our protection. A party of them would remain for a certain length of time at the Fort and would them be relieved by another party and so on for the whole summer, of their own accord and at their own expense. This act of spontaneous kindness and self sacrifice by ... Indians who had never seen whites till we had gone among them, is perhaps without parallel.
-Robert Campbell (quoted in Wilson 1970, p. 120)

My grandfather, my mother's father, got his name from the Hudson Bay man Robert Campbell. That time when the Alaska Indians came to burn down his post, my grandpa saved him. He hid him and tied him to a boat and pushed him out into the river. So he saved his life. At that time, Indians had no white man name. So Robert Campbell said to my grandpa, "Because you saved me, you have my name." My grandpa tried to tell him to come back (to Fort Selkirk). But Robert Campbell, the white man, never came back. I guess maybe he went to build a post somewhere else.
-Rachel Dawson quoted in Reading Voices, p. 87.

THE STORY

Building Fort Selkirk

In 1843, the ancestors of the Selkirk First Nation apparently had their first encounter with European people near the confluence of the Yukon and Pelly Rivers. Robert Campbell was journeying down the Pelly River in search of a new site for a Hudson's Bay Company Post. He was impressed by the friendliness of the people, their apparent prosperity and the well-established trade with the Coastal Tlingit people. His decision to build the post of Fort Selkirk was based in part on his intention to intercept this trade. The Chilkats were enraged by the Hudson's Bay Company intrusion on their trade monopoly and were determined not to be displaced. Ironically, by this time, many of the trade goods carried by Chilkat traders came from HBC operations on the coast.

Operational Problems

In 1848, Campbell and his party built a trading post upriver and across from the present site, on the point of land between the Pelly and Yukon Rivers. His enterprise was unsuccessful, however. It could take a year or two for trade good to reach Fort Selkirk from eastern Canada by the "West Branch" route via Fort Simpson, NWT; Frances Lake Post and Pelly Banks Post. Travelling this 1100 mile supply route was an arduous 30 to 40 day trip and frequently, the goods ordered never arrived at Fort Selkirk. In turn, it could take as long as seven years for northern furs and skins to reach the market. Campbell regularly sent letters to his superiors with the Chilkats via the Pacific coast, often a more reliable system of transport than the faltering overland route.

The post site was subject to spring flooding. Local people found that his prices were too low compared to the Chilkat traders and the Chilkats aggressively pursued their traditional trade despite the presence of the post. The post was often short of trade goods and in 1849/50 never received any supplies at all for over 18 months. At one point Campbell found himself in the position of being completely without trade goods and watching helplessly while the Chilkat traders bargained for a fortune in locally produced furs and hides.

Over the winter of 1851/52, Campbell and his men began moving the Fort to its present site on higher ground. In July 1852, he brought in a large stock of new trade goods from Fort Yukon (located downriver in Alaska). By August, the new buildings were almost complete when a party of 27 Chilkat traders visited the site. They saw a new larger post, that was well supplied and set on a better site. The Hudson's Bay Company had become more established and the Chilkats did not like this at all.

The Raid

Selkirk people under the leadership of their chiefs, Thlingit Thling and his nephew Hanan, were aware of the violent intentions of the Chilkat people. The Northern Tutchone people spent much of the summer protecting the post. Campbell did not take their concerns seriously, however. There were no local people at the post on August 19th, the day that the Chilkat pillaged Fort Selkirk. There were no deaths, but Campbell was forced into a boat and set afloat downstream. According to oral tradition, he was rescued by Hanan, and in gratitude gave him his name. Hanan's descendents still bear the name Campbell, including Hanan's son Big Jonathan Campbell who was chief of the Selkirk First Nation from 1916 until his death in 1958.

The Aftermath

Campbell returned to the post to find all his new trade goods had been either taken or destroyed. Hanan and his people refused to join Campbell in following the Chilkats to seek revenge. Probably, they realized that there was a strong chance Campbell would abandon the post and did not want to endanger the existing trade network. The Chilkats had cached most of their booty about one day's travel from Fort Selkirk. Local people later discovered the caches and claimed the goods.

Campbell snowshoed thousands of miles first to Fort Simpson then to Minnesota, to convince his superiors to re-open the post, but was unsuccessful in his efforts. It would be another forty years before a Euro-American trader came to Selkirk and over eighty years before the Hudson's Bay Company returned to the area. The post was abandoned and eventually burnt to salvage the nails and ironwork. By the time Frederick Schwatka visited the site in 1883, only the basalt rock chimneys remained.

In 1869, the Tlingit chief Kohklux told a visiting scientist that he had been a member of the raiding party that ransacked Fort Selkirk and was able to draw a map of the Chilkat route to the post. In 1898, NWMP Officer A.M. Jarvis also visited the Chilkats and saw a large disintegrating flag "of the British Columbia Company" that the Tlingits had taken from Fort Selkirk and kept as a symbol of their defiance to the intruding traders.

Further Reading:

Julie Cruikshank, 1991. Dän dhá Ts’edenintth’é - Reading Voices, pp. 82-87.

Ruth Gotthardt, 1987. Selkirk Indian Band: Land Use and Culture Study, pp.125-130.

Lewellyn Johnson, in progress. Journals & Correspondence of Robert Campbell.

C. McLellan, 1987. Part of the Land, Part of the Water, pp. 63-70.

C. Wilson, 1970. Campbell of the Yukon. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada Ltd.