CHAPTER XIII
THE VANISHED FRONTIER

CANADA owes a great deal to the fur companies, They
explored the land, surveyed and mapped it, established posts
and communications, and in the course of their commercial
activities brought the Indians under subjection, and exercised
over them a benevolent despotism that kept them occupied
and at peace. The North-West Company was a pioneer in
this valuable work, and Mackenzie was one of its most
far-seeing agents. His discoveries were immediately followed
by important commercial and political consequences. ‘The
developments that followed the voyage to the Pacific particu-
larly deserve the attention of those who delight to honour
the founders of empire. It is not too much to say that but
for Mackenzie’s personal interest, his initiative and per-
sistence, there would have been no Canada on the Pacific,
and the British Empire would thus have been deprived of
one of her most important strategic and economic assets,
a dominion that stretches from sea to sea, and provides a
highway within her own borders to the Orient and
India.

The fur-trader by the very nature of his occupation was
of necessity a number of other things. Ranging far beyond
the reach of the arm of the law he exemplified a code which
is aptly rendered in that legend, Pro Pelle Cutem, a com-
mercial adaptation of the Mosaic law not entirely free from
an underlying savour of dry Scotch humour, which because

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