Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/59

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
8
OREGON IN 1834.

morning, rousing the furriers, mechanics, and farmers to their tasks. At eight it announced breakfast; at nine work again; at twelve, dinner; at one, work; at six, suspension of labor, and supper. Saturday's work ended at five in the afternoon, at which time the physician of the establishment served to the men their week's rations, consisting in winter of eight gallons of potatoes and eight salt salmon, and in summer of pease and tallow; no bread or meat being allowed, except occasionally. The Indian servants of the Indian wives hunted and fished for additional supplies. Nor was this unremitting industry unnecessary. The management of the Hudson's Bay Company required its posts to be self-supporting. The extent of territory they traded over was immense, and the number of their forts increased the demand for such articles as could be produced only in favorable localities. For instance, at Fort Vancouver the demand for axes and hatchets for the trappers and Indians required fifty of them to be made daily. In addition to the manufacture of these, the smiths had plenty to do in repairing farming tools and milling machinery, and making the various articles required by a community of several hundred people. The carpenter, the turner, and the tailor were equally busy; two or three men were constantly employed making bread for the fort people and sea-biscuit for the coasting vessels. The furs had to be beaten once a week to drive out moths and dust. The clerks had not only to keep accounts and copy letters, but keep a journal of every day's affairs. Among so many persons, some were sure to be in the hospital, and on these the best medical care was bestowed. Though so far from the world as to seem removed from the worlds wants, Fort Vancouver was no place for the indulgence of poetic idleness.

And if within the fort this industry was necessary, it was none the less so without, where a farm of about seven hundred acres had been brought under cultiva-