Monday, April 25, 1842 — Nightfall

fort stikine

Under a canopy of stars hung solely for his amusement, Sir George Simpson stood aboard the deck of the trade steamer Cowlitz as it laboured from Tako to Fort Stikine. A surprise inspection was in the offing, and though he had paid a visit to the fort a few months prior, Simpson felt another cage rattling was in order. When the ship entered the mouth of the river, the Governor ordered his voyageurs to lower the canoes and proceed upstream. As they rounded the bend and were in sight of the outpost, Simpson’s impending arrival was announced with its usual modesty. His personal Highland bagpiper Colin Fraser (whose retainer was paid by the HBC) blasted the Governor’s melodic signature, a signal for the fort’s complement to roll out the appropriate welcome mat. Having issued fair warning, Simpson told his crewmen to stop the boat so that he too might prepare. Before setting foot on shore, he needed to “don his beaver topper and [give] his paddlers a moment to spruce up in their best shirts.” Only when every man cut his finest figure did the canoe dock and the procession begin, swept ashore with a full pipe and drum accompaniment.

On this night, the cavalcade met with deafening silence. “The stillness that prevailed on shore” was the first indication something was terribly wrong. The Governor quelled his fanfare and hurried toward the fort, his mind “filled with apprehension that all was not right, by observing that both the English and Russian Flags on the Fort were half mast high, and that Mr. John McLoughlin, the Gentleman left in charge, did not appear on the platform.”

Thomas McPherson, McLoughlin’s assistant, scrambled onto the dock to greet his distinguished guest, but Simpson was in no mood to be handled. He careened through the fort at full speed, and there he found “a scene which no pen can adequately describe.” McPherson had the unenviable task of informing the Governor that Mr. John had been “hurried into eternity by a gunshot wound from one of his own men.” Simpson demanded to know which man had pulled the trigger and soon found fingers pointed in every direction. In a private moment, McPherson whispered that his fellow Canadians tried “to make me believe that it was Indians that shot him,” a charge the fort’s indigenous population vehemently denied.

The Governor wasted no time in launching what proved to be a “superficial investigation.” There were no police to be summoned, no courts to inform. As the HBC’s top designate in the Indian Territories, Simpson was within his rights — and fulfilling his obligations — when he convened a panel and deposed the eyewitnesses.

To history’s eternal regret, he began with Thomas McPherson.