Port Nelson is a ghost town on Hudson Bay, in Manitoba, Canada, at the mouth of the Nelson River. Its peak population in the early 20th century was about 1,000 people. [1] Immediately to the south-southeast is the mouth of the Hayes River and the settlement of York Factory. Some books use 'Port Nelson' to mean the region around the mouths of the two rivers.
Port Nelson was named by Thomas Button who wintered there in 1612. "August 15, 1612 Captain Thomas Button seeking for a harbour on the west coast of Hudson's Bay in which he might repair damages incurred during a severe storm, discovered the mouth of a large river which he designated Port Nelson, from the name of the master of his ship whom he buried there." [2]
The French explorers and fur traders Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers had scouted the area, learning from local native contacts that the Nelson River area had great commercial potential. [3] At the time, much of the focus of early expeditions was on the "bottom of the bay", and a succession of early posts would be established near the bottom of James Bay, starting with Charles Fort (Rupert House) in 1668. This was the closest part of Hudson Bay to New France, and could be reached via inland river routes, as was done during the 1686 French expedition which captured the English posts on James Bay. The Nelson River, meanwhile, provided a route to the western interior of what is now Manitoba.
The devastation of Huronia in the 1640s by the Iroquois during the Beaver Wars had decimated a major ally of the French, the Huron, and weakened their fur trade connections to the interior. This had encouraged Radisson and des Groseilliers to explore further into the interior, with the pair penetrating far into the Pays d'en Haut (the Upper Country, geographically interpreted around the Great Lakes waterways), reaching Lake Superior via inland routes in 1659–1660 and making contact with the Sioux. [4]
Radisson, however, had also set his sights on an expedition via the maritime route to Hudson Bay through the Hudson Strait, and was pursuing English or Dutch financing to do so. The adventurism of Radisson and des Groseilliers had been opposed by the institutional authorities in the colony of New France, leading to their fining and the imprisonment of des Groseilliers following their return from a successful expedition with a fortune in furs—furs which possibly had saved the colony from financial collapse. [4]
This set in motion the Frenchmen's association with mariners from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, including Zachariah Gillam, who captained the Nonsuch on the 1668 expedition with des Groseilliers which led to the establishment of Charles Fort. [4]
The Hudson's Bay Company was formed in 1670. Charles Bayly was appointed as the first overseas governor of the company in May, and by June a new expedition had been dispatched. This consisted of two ships, the Wivenhoe (with Radisson and Bayly aboard) along with the Prince Rupert (captained by Gillam, with des Groseilliers aboard). The convoy reached the western end of the Hudson Strait by August 18, where it split up. The Prince Rupert proceeded successfully to Charles Fort, whilst the Wivenhoe sought the Nelson estuary. [5]
The Wivenhoe struggled with fog and poor winds, and was delayed in finding the Nelson. Eventually, in September, it did so and Bayly was able to go ashore and nail a brass plate of the English royal arms to a tree, thus claiming the territory for England. By this time, however, the local indigenous people had already begun their seasonal migration inland in advance of winter, making it impossible for trading to take place at the estuary. Discouraged, the expedition departed for Charles Fort, having not resulted in even a single seasonal trading operation. [5]
A Hudson's Bay Company post was established in 1682 in a context of intense local competition, both from the French Compagnie du Nord (intent on the Hayes River) and from a group of independent New England traders. [6] The New England traders under Benjamin Gillam were focused on the Nelson, but were out-manoeuvred and captured by the French under Pierre-Esprit Radisson. [7]
It was during the period from 1660–1870 – when many Assiniboine and Swampy Cree trappers and hunters became middlemen in the Hudson's Bay Company fur trade economy in Western Canada – that the Cree began to be referred to as "three distinct groups: the Woodland Cree, the Plains Cree, and the Swampy Cree." [8] [ page needed ] The Swampy Cree and the Assiniboine used the Nelson River, along with the Hayes River, as the main inland routes to the great inland lake, Lake Winnipeg. [9] Although the Nelson is much larger, the Hayes was a better route into the interior. Therefore, most of the Hudson's Bay Company's trade was done from York Factory on the Hayes, which was built in 1684. [10] In 1694-95 Father Marest recorded "The Assiniboine are thirty-five or forty days journey from the fort [Port Nelson]." [11]
"For more than two hundred years, from two to five sailing vessels, on an average, frequently with war ships conveying them, have sailed annually from Europe and America to Port Nelson, or other ports in Hudson's Bay and returned with cargoes the same season via the only available route, Hudson's Straits." [2]
In the early 1900s, the Government of Canada felt that a major harbour on Hudson Bay was needed for shipping grain from central Canada. In 1912 Port Nelson was selected as the site over Churchill (at the mouth of the Churchill River) to become the terminus of the Hudson Bay Railway, the construction of which had already begun from The Pas in 1910. [1]
In the winter of 1912-13 the site was surveyed and construction of a wharf began in the spring, followed by buildings and other infrastructure built during the summer. The brand new Canadian research ship CSS Acadia was sent from Halifax to chart the harbour and approaches in the summer of 1913 and 1914. However the whole harbour project was fraught with problems from the start. Material shortages, labour disputes, storms, fires, and boating accidents led to major delays. Another setback was the necessity to completely redesign the harbour because the fast flowing Nelson River was building up silt on both sides of the wharf. Therefore, the harbour was changed to a small man-made island farther out in the river. The island was connected to the mainland with a seventeen-span truss bridge, built by Dominion Bridge Company of Montreal. [1] A wrecked ship currently lies on the island. [12]
When Canada entered the First World War, it resulted in further material and labour shortages, and more significantly, the loss of political and financial support. The project was able to continue a few more years until 1918 when all work stopped and the site was abandoned. The whole project was greatly criticized by several politicians, the media, which called it a "gigantic blunder", and even the project's chief engineer. [1]
The Hudson Bay Railway never reached Port Nelson and its tracks lay abandoned until 1927 when Churchill was chosen to become the northern shipping hub. Construction on the railway was restarted in 1927 and completed in 1929. [1]
In 1989 Parks Canada began the York Factory Oral History Project which included compiling stories by Swampy Cree Elders. Flora Beardy, a York Factory Cree woman conducted interviews with fourteen elders, [13] some of whom lived in Port Nelson.
The Cree are a North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations.
James Bay is a large body of water located on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. It borders the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and is politically part of Nunavut. Its largest island is Akimiski Island.
The Nelson River is a river of north-central North America, in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The river drains Lake Winnipeg and runs 644 kilometres (400 mi) before it ends in Hudson Bay. Its full length is 2,575 kilometres (1,600 mi), it has mean discharge of 2,370 cubic metres per second (84,000 cu ft/s), and has a drainage basin of 1,072,300 square kilometres (414,000 sq mi), of which 180,000 square kilometres (69,000 sq mi) is in the United States.
Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636/1640–1710) was a French coureur des bois and explorer in New France. He is often linked to his brother-in-law Médard des Groseilliers. The decision of Radisson and Groseilliers to enter the English service led to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company. His career was particularly notable for its repeated transitions between serving Britain and France.
Médard Chouart des Groseilliers was a French explorer and fur trader in Canada. He is often paired with his brother-in-law Pierre-Esprit Radisson, who was about 20 years younger. The pair worked together in fur trading and exploration. Their decision to enter British service led to the foundation of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. This company established trading posts and extensive relations with the First Nations in western Canada. It was highly influential in making the region amenable to British colonization. Radisson, with Groseiliers, also mapped many of the Great Lakes and trading routes used by settlers.
York Factory was a settlement and Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) factory located on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay in northeastern Manitoba, Canada, at the mouth of the Hayes River, approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi) south-southeast of Churchill.
The Hayes River is a river in Northern Manitoba, Canada, that flows from Molson Lake to Hudson Bay at York Factory. It was historically an important river in the development of Canada and is now a Canadian Heritage River and the longest naturally flowing river in Manitoba.
John Abraham was a governor of the now abandoned Hudson's Bay Company settlement at Port Nelson on Hudson Bay, located in the northern part of the modern province of Manitoba.
Henry Kelsey was an English fur trader, explorer, and sailor who played an important role in establishing the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada.
Norway House is a population centre of over 5,000 people, some 30 km (19 mi) north of Lake Winnipeg, on the bank of the eastern channel of Nelson River, in the province of Manitoba, Canada. The population centre shares the name Norway House with the northern community of Norway House and Norway House 17, a First Nation reserve of the Norway House Cree Nation. Thus, Norway House has both a Chief and a Mayor.
The Swampy Cree people, also known by their autonyms Néhinaw, Maskiki Wi Iniwak, Mushkekowuk,Maškékowak or Maskekon or by exonyms including West Main Cree,Lowland Cree, and Homeguard Cree, are a division of the Cree Nation occupying lands located in northern Manitoba, along the Saskatchewan River in northeastern Saskatchewan, along the shores of Hudson Bay and adjoining interior lands south and west as well as territories along the shores of Hudson and James Bay in Ontario. They are geographically and to some extent culturally split into two main groupings, and therefore speak two dialects of the Swampy Cree language, which is an "n-dialect":
The Compagnie du Nord was a French colonial fur-trading company, founded in Québec City 1682 by a group of Canadien financiers with the express intent of competing with the English Hudson's Bay Company. It was founded by Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye with the assistance of Pierre-Esprit Radisson and his brother-in-law Médard Chouart des Groseilliers.
This article covers the water based Canadian canoe routes used by early explorers of Canada with special emphasis on the fur trade.
Zachariah Gillam (1636–1682) was one of a family of New England sea captains involved in the early days of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Fur trading on the Assiniboine River and the general area west of Lake Winnipeg, in what is now Manitoba, Canada, began as early as 1731.
The Iron Confederacy or Iron Confederation was a political and military alliance of Plains Indians of what is now Western Canada and the northern United States. This confederacy included various individual bands that formed political, hunting and military alliances in defense against common enemies. The ethnic groups that made up the Confederacy were the branches of the Cree that moved onto the Great Plains around 1740, the Saulteaux, the Nakoda or Stoney people also called Pwat or Assiniboine, and the Métis and Haudenosaunee. The Confederacy rose to predominance on the northern Plains during the height of the North American fur trade when they operated as middlemen controlling the flow of European goods, particularly guns and ammunition, to other Indigenous nations, and the flow of furs to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and North West Company (NWC) trading posts. Its peoples later also played a major part in the bison (buffalo) hunt, and the pemmican trade. The decline of the fur trade and the collapse of the bison herds sapped the power of the Confederacy after the 1860s, and it could no longer act as a barrier to U.S. and Canadian expansion.
Joseph Smith was a British fur trader and explorer working for the Hudson's Bay Company. He was one of the first Europeans to explore the interior of what later became Canada from Hudson Bay. Smith died June 1765 en route to York Factory from the Saskatchewan River country. Smith's explorations played an important role in opening up the interior of western Canada to European trade, and his journals provide one of the earliest accounts of Cree life.
James Isham (1716–1761) was chief factor (master) at both York Factory and Fort Prince of Wales in Canada during the mid-1700s. He kept detailed journals that described life in the region, including flora and fauna that were unknown to people in England at that time. His journals are important historical documents and he is well known to scholars of the fur trade in Canada during the early years of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC).
Port Nelson, at the mouth of the Nelson River, on the north shore of the peninsula and only twelve miles from York Factory, preceded York as an H.B.C. post in 1682-83. Sir Thomas Button named the river and harbour after Button's sailing master, who died and was buried there (Macoun et al 1882 page 595).
Media related to Port Nelson, Manitoba at Wikimedia Commons