Original - North Central Michigan College Library

landers from the Orkney Islands, and under46the command of a Mr. Cockings, by whom,though unwelcome guests, 47 we were treatedwith much civility. The design in buildingthis house, was to prevent the Indians fromdealing with the Canadian merchants, andto induce them to go to Hudson's Bay. It isOcean in the years 1769-72. He established CumberlandHouse, as Henry states, but this was two yearsafter, rather than before his famous exploration to theArctic. Cumberland House, says Elliott Coues, was at"the focus of a vast network of waters whose strandsradiate in every direction. A canoe could start fromthis house, and with no portage of more than a day'slength could be launched on the Arctic Ocean, Hudson'sBay, Gulf of St. Lawrence, or Gulf of Mexico;and without much greater interruption could be floatedon to the Pacific Ocean. "Editor.46Matthew Cocking was a trader of the Hudson's BayCompany who in 1 772-73 had conducted an explorationfrom York Factory southwestward into the country ofthe Blackfeet. The discoveries made on this journeydetermined the Company to establish CumberlandHouse the following year, and Cocking was placed incommand. His journal of his journey of 1772-7313printed in Royal Society of Canada, Proceedings andTransactions, Third Series, Vol. II, 91-121. Editor.47Cumberland House was a post of the Hudson'sBay Company, by whom Henry and the other Canadiantraders were regarded as interlopers. The North WestCompany, which these traders were shortly to create,conducted, throughout its entire history, a fierce traderivalry with the older firm, which reached the height,finally, of open warfare between the partisans of thetwo. This was terminated by the amalgamation of theNorth West with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821.Editor.252