Orkneys. A little later these were joined by some Swiss soldiers
of fortune who had fought for Canada in the War of 1812. But
Selkirk had reckoned without the partners of the North-West
Company of Montreal, who were not prepared to permit mere herders
and tillers to disturb the Indians and the game. The Nor'Westers
attacked the helpless colonists and massacred a score of them.
Selkirk retorted in kind, leading out an armed band which seized
the Nor'Westers' chief post at Fort William. The war was then
transferred to the courts, with heart-breaking delays and endless
expense. At last Selkirk died broken in spirit, and most of his
colonists drifted to Canada or across the border. But a handful
held on, and for fifty years their little settlement on the Red
River remained a solitary outpost of colonization.


Once arrived in Canada, the settler soon found that he had no
primrose path before him. Canada remained for many years a land
of struggling pioneers, who had little truck or trade with the
world out of sight of their log shacks. The habitant on the
seigneuries of Lower Canada continued to farm as his grandfather
had farmed, finding his holding sufficient for his modest needs,
even though divided into ever narrower ribbons as le bon Dieu
sent more and yet more sons to share the heritage. The
English-speaking settler, equipped with ax and sickle and flail,
with spinning wheel and iron kettle, lived a life almost equally
primitive and self-contained. He and his good wife grew the
wheat, the corn, and the potatoes, made the soap and the candles,
the maple sugar and the "yarbs," the deerskin shoes and the
homespun-cloth that met their needs. They had little to buy and
little to sell. In spite of the preference which Great Britain