Lake Winnipeg is in the latitude of England; but the genial influences of the Gulf Stream do not visit those stern coasts, whose temperature is largely governed by the ice-cold currents of the Arctic Ocean. The climate is severe, the winter is long. During five or six months of the year the country lies under a covering of snow; river and lake are fast bound by frost; the thermometer occasionally sinks to fifty degrees below zero. This stern dominion does not pass gradually away; it ceases almost suddenly. The snow disappears as if by magic; the streams resume their interrupted flow; trees clothe themselves with foliage; the plains are gay with grass and flower. At one stride comes the summer, with its fierce heat, with its intolerable opulence of insect life, with its swift growth and ripening of wild fruits, and of the seeds which the sower has scattered over the fertile soil. At the coming of Europeans into America this magnificent region was possessed by numerous tribes of Indians, who gained their food and clothing almost wholly by the chase. In course of years the white man found that the Indian would sell, for trivial payment, rich furs which were eagerly desired in Europe. The Indian came to understand that he could exchange his easily obtained furs for the musket which the strangers brought and taught him to use, for the beads with which he loved to ornament himself, for the seductive liquors which quickly asserted a destructive mastery over his savage nature. Out of these experiences there arose trading relations between the Indians of the North-West and the adventurous Europeans who from time to time made their way into those mysterious regions. A sagacious Frenchman perceived the advantage which was to be gained by an organized and systematic prosecution of this lucrative commerce. [Sidenote: 1668 A.D.] He proposed the enterprise to his countrymen, but it failed to command their support. The baffled projector made his way to England, and obtained access to Prince Rupert, to whom he unfolded his scheme. A quarter of a century had passed since the fierce charges of Rupert’s cavalry swept down the troops of the Parliament at Naseby and Newark, since he himself had been chased from Marston Moor by the stern Ironsides of Cromwell. The prince was now a sedate man of fifty. The vehemence of his youth had mellowed itself down to a love of commercial adventure. He lent a willing ear to the ingenious Frenchman. His influence with the public procured the formation of a company, whose paid-up capital was £10,500. His influence with his cousin, King Charles, sufficed to obtain a charter. [Sidenote: 1670 A.D.] The liberal monarch bestowed half a continent upon these speculators, on no more burdensome terms than that they should pay two elks and two black beavers to the sovereign whensoever he visited their territory. “The Governor and Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson Bay”