Portage La Loche Brigade

This famous brigade travelled 4000 miles every year and was part of the Hudson's Bay Company transportation system during the North American fur trade.

The boat brigades were mostly crewed by Métis as were almost all the men employed by the Hudson's Bay Company's Northern Department (now the Prairie Provinces and the North-West Territories).

[2] In 1862 Father Émile Petitot quoted William J. Christie then the chief factor of Fort Edmonton as saying in French; "We are almost all Métis in the Company.

(translation)[2] Men from the Red River Settlement recruited by the Hudson's Bay Company formed the first Portage La Loche brigade of 1826.

[7] "The distance from Fort Garry to Portage La Loche was 482 French leagues (1446 miles) which we would undertake in a small vessel called a York boat.

Aoh!” Pousse au large!” came from the lungs of Lesperance, made me understand that the old guide, however white haired he may be, was nevertheless still green and full of energy.

Twenty five years later I still seem to see the pitiful figures that Grouard and I made in our boat filled with sugar boxes, barrels of powder, bolts of cloth and cases of tobacco, with only a felt hat for shade, seated on the first piece of baggage we found."

Father Émile Grouard who was travelling with Petitot also described the experience in his book "Souvenirs de mes soixante ans d'apostolat dans l'Athabaska-Mackenzie" "Monsignor Taché had made arrangements for our passage, Father Petitot and I, with the Hudson's Bay Company on the boats leaving that afternoon of Pentecost for Portage La Loche."

"We each had our travel case, and Monsignor Taché had supplied for our voyage: thick wool blankets wrapped in oilskin, a tent, a stove, a tea kettle, plates and iron pans, knives and forks, a bag of dried meat, a large sack of pemmican, a barrel of biscuits, some ham, tea, sugar.

(translation) [8] The following are Joseph James Hargrave's estimates of the dates when the brigades arrived and left each section of the route.