From a letter dated July 24 1807 from Wm Auld to ? about a Mr. McKay
..."his leaving this place surprizes every body. I mean as far as we can be surprized at a Madman. For his sake I wish you an early arrival of the Ship.
" By Mr. Spence's account of him he is wholly unfit for any Station Inland and at the Factory no Chief would suffer such a firebrand. If however you have any affection remaining for him pray dip him in one of your strongest freezing Mixtures and send him to Lord Melville who will then perhaps venture to employ him in regulating the striking clock of a Catamaran."...
I believe his name was William.
This is difficult to say but about 1769 the HBC sent Samuel Hearne to find copper at the Coppermine River. But that's not the interesting bit. It took years and he wrote a book about it. It's called A Journey To the Northern Ocean. My copy is edited by Richard Glover and published in 1958 by The Macmillan Company. It has much first hand information on how he lived and how the natives lived. Here are a very few excerpts:
"The most remarkable dish among them, as well as all the other tribes of Indians in those parts, both Northern and Southern, is blood mixed with the half-digested food which is found in the deer's stomach or paunch, and boiled up with a sufficient quantity of water, to make it of the consistance of pease-pottage. Some fat and scraps of tender flesh are also shred small and boiled with it. To render this dish more palatable, they have a method of mixing the blood with the contents of the stomach in the paunch itself, and hanging it up in the heat and smoke of the fire for several days; which puts the whole mass into a state of fermentation, and gives it such an agreeable acid taste, that were it not for prejudice, it might be eaten by those who have the nicest palates."...."I no longer made any scruple, but always thought it exceedingly good."
Hearne failed in his first two attempts to find the Coppermine River because he didn't take any women with him, according to his guide for the third trip. Hearne's guide, Matonabbee, said that "Women were made for labour; one of them can carry, or haul, as much as two men can do. They also pitch our tents, make and mend our clothing, keep us warm at night; and, in fact, there is no such thing as travelling any considerable distance, or for any length of time, in this country, without their assistance."
Matonabbee had seven wives. "Most of whom for size would have made good grenadiers."
"Ask a Northern Indian, what is beauty? he will answer, a broad flat face, small eyes, high cheek-bones, three or four broad black lines a-cross each cheek, a low forehead, a large broad chin, a clumsy hook-nose, a tawny hide, and breasts hanging down to the belt."
"Here it is necessary to remark, that they use no medicine either for internal or external complaints"..."For some inward complaints; such as, griping in the intestines, difficulty in making water, etc., it is very common to see those jugglers blowing into the anus, or into the parts adjacent till their eyes are almost starting out of their heads: and this operation is performed indifferently on all, without regard either to age or sex. The accumulation of so large a quantity of wind is at times apt to occasion some extraordinary emotions, which are not easily suppressed by a sick person; and as there is no ventfor it but by the channel through which it was conveyed thither, it sometimes occasions an odd scene between the doctor and his patient"...
Wm Auld at Churchill Factory
July 18 1808
..."The season hitherto deserves not the appelation of Summer and miserable is the appearance of our naked leaflefs Garden. The Climate here is much too cold for any warm blooded thing and only fit for a poor Afs. Oh that I were a rich Afs."...