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In 1939, I stood in the cemetery at Gogama, Ont. My grandfather, James Slater Miller was being buried on the side of a hill. It overlooked the forests and lakes he travelled by canoe and dog team for almost 50 years.
He was one of the last of the fur traders who married Indigenous women, raised families, manned the trading posts and ruled these vast territories as judge, jury, doctor and mediator for the Hudson’s Bay Company.
They, along with the Indigenous population, adventurers, missionaries, doctors and teachers, kept the country together and made it strong. A news item published in the Sudbury Star the day before read:
“James Miller, north pioneer passed away. He was Factor with the Hudson’s Bay Company – one of the most colourful frontier figures for the past century in the north, died early this morning in Gogama in his 86th year. From many remote parts of the District Indians, trappers who can be reached will come by canoe and trail to Gogama where tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. a simple funeral service will be conducted at St Mary’s Anglican Church. Canon G. Prewer will conduct the service for the widely respected Factor, who in his later years of retirement had been affectionately known as the “Old Man.’”
In 2018, his descendants gathered on the same hill. Bagpipes played Scotland the Brave, Going Home and Amazing Grace. We placed a plaque, attached to a stone from the Canadian Shield, on his grave. It replaced a leaning and fragmented wooden cross that stood as a sentinel and guardian for those many years in between. There was a religious service and remembrances.
For the rest of this column: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/first-person/article-my-grandfather-was-one-of-canadas-colourful-hudsons-bay-company/