Samuel Black

:"For the governor of the Nebraska Territory, see Samuel W. Black. For the American singer, see Sammy Turner."

Samuel Black (ca. 1780 - February 8, 1840) was a Canadian fur trader and explorer noted for his exploration of the Finlay River and its tributaries in present-day north-central British Columbia, which helped to open up the Muskwa, Omineca, and Stikine areas to the fur trade; as well for his role as Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company for the Columbia District.

Early life and career

Black was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and went to work for the North West Company, headquartered in Montreal, in 1803. Assigned to work in the Athabasca Department (mostly in present-day Alberta) in 1805, Black served as a clerk there for fifteen years. For much of this time, he took an active role in the sometimes violent competition between the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company.

By 1820, Black's violent activities against Hudson's Bay Company employees had so imperilled his safety that he withdrew across the Rockies to the North West Company fort at McLeod Lake in New Caledonia. With the merger of the two fur trading companies the following year, Black was appointed to the post at Fort St. John as Chief Trader.

Explorations

In the summer of 1824, at the behest of Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, Black was assigned to set out with a crew of ten from Rocky Mountain Portage (now Hudson's Hope) "to the Sources of Finlay's Branch [the Finlay River] and Northwest Ward". The purpose of the expedition was to assess the region's suitability for extension of the fur trade, and to check the advance of the Russian fur trade from the west.

The river had been partially explored by John Finlay, a colleague of Alexander Mackenzie, in 1797. In 1793, Mackenzie had ascended the Peace River to the point where it is formed by the Finlay flowing from the north, and the Parsnip River from the south. Mackenzie had taken the Parsnip, and from there completed a complicated route to the Pacific Ocean. It is thought that Finlay may have decided to probe the northern branch of the Peace in order to determine if it afforded a better route to the Pacific than the one taken by Mackenzie. Nonetheless, it would appear from the information Black had that Finlay had only made it as far as the Ingenika River, about 130 km north of the Finlay River's confluence with the Peace.

The journey up the Finlay River's 450 km length and up its tributaries, the Toodoggone River and the Firesteel River, took Black and his men to the source of the Mackenzie River at Thutade Lake. Proceeding sometimes on foot, sometimes by raft, Black and a smaller crew explored the region of the Spatsizi Plateau, there finding one of the sources of the Stikine River and so reaching the boundary between the Arctic and Pacific drainages. Journeying north-eastward, Black crossed another divide — this time between the Stikine and Liard Rivers — and rafted some way down the Kechika by way of its tributary, the Turnagain River, before returning again down the Finlay. In addition to the makeshift rafts, Black's expedition was completed in a single canoe and a crew of ten over a period of four months.

Black's vivid journal account of the expedition conveys the extreme hardships faced by the crew, and what Black believed was the general privation of the country — both as a source of food and of furs. The river proved to be a rough and difficult traverse, and Black's assessment was that this fact — coupled with what he perceived to be the general absence of marketable furs or a healthy First Nations population — made the territory impracticable for the extension of the fur trade or as a northern route to the Pacific. Nonetheless, Black and his crew had completed an extraordinarily extensive survey of what is now north-central British Columbia. They had not only journeyed to the source of the Mackenzie River, but had travelled over the Arctic-Pacific divide, and to the sources of two major watersheds — the Stikine and Liard.

Later career

After an interval at Fort Dunvegan and York Factory, Black was appointed Chief Factor of Fort Nez Perces (at present day Walla Walla, Washington) in 1825. This posting allowed Black to exercise his renowned vigour in opposing competition, in this instance from American traders. His difficulties in maintaining a good relationship with the local Nez Perce clients led to Black's transfer to the company's Thompson's River Post (now Kamloops) in 1830. In 1837, Black was appointed as Chief Factor in charge of the inland posts of the Columbia.

As he lived an often violent life, so Black met a violent end. On February 8, 1841, Black was shot dead by a nephew of Chief Tranquille of the local group of Secwepemc (Shuswap) following a minor quarrel. He is interred near Kamloops.

Places Named for Black

*The Finlay River was locally called Black's River by early fur traders, but the Hudson's Bay Company had inadvertently filed Black's journals under John Finlay's name, fixing his name as the name of the river Black traversed.
*The fur trader and explorer John McLeod re-located the river that Black discovered (the Kechika) and named it Black's River however the Canadian government officially recorded the name as the Kechika.
*The Samuel Black Range lies between the Toodoggone and Firesteel Rivers.
*Black Lake is a small lake on the south-western side of the Samuel Black Range.

References

*Samuel Black wrote a vivid account of his expedition, "A Journal of a Voyage from Rocky Mountain Portage in Peace River to the Sources of Finlays Branch and North West Ward in Summer 1824," edited by E.E. Rich and A.M. Johnson (London, HBRS, 1955).
*A tremendous account of Black's expedition and a modern partial re-tracing of his route is to be found in R.M. Patterson's "Finlay's River," originally published in 1968. A new edition has been published by TouchWood Editions (ISBN 0-920663-25-7).

External links

* [http://thewillowtree.turtle-mountain.com/SamuelBlack.html A good description of Samuel Black's life with an emphasis on his Finlay River expedition; by Dorothea Calverley from "A History of the Peace" website.]
* [http://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/thomp-ok/river-post/black.html A brief but thorough synopsis of Black's life and career by George Woodcock, published on the Royal British Columbia Museum website.]
* [http://www.bivouac.com/ArxPg.asp?ArxId=1418 A description of the Samuel Black Range from the "Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia".]
* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=3251 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]