The pioneers of western settlement sailed from Glasgow for Hudson Bay on July 26, 1811, but met “boisterous, stormy and cold weather,” and it was two months before they cast anchor at York Factory. There, though unskilled with the axe, they built log huts and spent the winter. Starting in boats for the next stage of their pilgrimage on July 6, up Hayes River and through Lake Winnipeg, it took them nearly as long to reach their Red River home as it had taken to cross the sea. They arrived on the 30th of August, and the first land was broken for crop that fall. Other parties meanwhile were coming out to join them, mostly from the north of Scotland and the Hebridean Isles, but some from Ireland too. The North West Company did not like its rival’s new colony, and its hostility flamed up at last in the “Pemmican War,” which came about in this way. The settlers, until they could raise food for themselves, had to live chiefly on the buffalo. The North West Company’s men, however, had been used to drawing their supplies of pemmican largely from the same district, and as the Company’s Métis were skilled hunters the food supply of the colony was in danger. An order was made that no pemmican should be taken away from Lord Selkirk’s land. The Métis disobeyed the order, chased the buffalo out of reach of the settlers, and went on shipping pemmican out to the North West Company’s trading posts. The quarrel grew more and more fierce, and the Nor’-westers resolved to drive the Selkirk settlers out of the country. They burned the farmhouses and other buildings, destroyed the crops, and chased off any settlers who refused to go. “The Colony is gone to the Devil,” as one of the conquerors wrote. The colonists came back to their devastated farms, however, or some of them did, and the old Company tried to give them better protection. The enemy organized a force, including Métis and Indians, for a fresh attack. The Hudson’s Bay commander, Governor Semple, went out to meet them, but his party was surrounded. The Governor and a score of the settlers were killed, and the rest were either captured or put to flight. So ended the “Battle of Seven Oaks.” Lord Selkirk sent up reinforcements, and many of the original settlers went back to restore their ruined homes; some of their descendants are still to be found in the neighborhood; but for half a century no fresh attempt was made to colonize the West.