Boundaries
by Jack Nisbet

Jack Nisbet is the author of The Mapmaker's Eye, Sources of the River, Purple Flat Top, Singing Grass, Burning Sage and Visible Bones. His newest, The Collector, is due out in October.

Another Dose of Finan McDonald: the Buffalo Stomp
October 2007

In his classic book on the early fur trade days called The Columbia River, fur clerk Ross Cox included a few blustery paragraphs that describe Finan McDonald as a mythic force in the tradition of Paul Bunyan. Cox counts off Finan's many postings during his tenure in the Columbia District and pokes fun at his spluttering attempts to express himself, but can't hide his affections for a local hero.

He seldom remained more than one winter at any particular place, and had a greater facility of acquiring than of retaining the language of the various tribes with whom he came in contact. He was subject to temporary fits of abstraction, during which the country of his auditory was forgotten, and their lingual knowledge set at defiance by the most strange and ludicrous melange of Gaelic, English, French, and half a dozen Indian dialects...He was however a goodnatured, inoffensive companion, easily irritated, and as easily appeased.

Cox's view of Finan's country wife, and his relationship with his family and in-laws, was equally romanticized.

He had taken a spokan wife, by whom he had two children. A great portion of his leisure time was spent in the company of her relations, by whom, and indeed by the Indians in general, he was highly beloved. Their affection however was chastened by a moderate degree of fear, with which his gigantic body and indomitable bravery inspired them.

Finan McDonald's own writings reveal a much more complicated man, full of frustration and regrets. One letter from Spokane House, sent to his favorite company boss in April 1819 (and here translated into something close to modern English) described discontent with his job location.

...I bound myself for three years last spring to remain on this side of the Mountains, [but] I assure you that I am getting tired of this side. I would be very happy to be a couple of years on the other side to play with the English to know what they are made of. It was partly against my will that I remain for such a long time.

He made his relations with the local Salish tribes, especially the Spokane, sound far from beloved.

For my part this is the last place that I would wish to pass the spring in the whole country. I am not fond of the natives and they are still less fond of me.

Finan also suggested struggles with family and finances that neither Ross Cox nor later historians ever touched on.

I am sorry that you were so late in giving your advice about Peggy and not having children. I had one on the stocks ready to be launched when I got your advice. It can't be helped--it is adding one more to the family. More the merrier. A fool is able to gain money, but it is a wise man that is able to keep it. Which I am a Fool. I have no more to say.

"Peggy" probably refers to Margaret, the daughter of a Kalispel (not Spokane) chief named Chin-Chay-Nay-Whey with whom McDonald fathered an unknown number of children. We know that at least one daughter remained behind when Peggy and four children accompanied Finan back to eastern Canada upon his retirement. The idea of entering into a new life in Montreal, among European culture, manners, and language, must have been a scary prospect for Peggy and the children. But soon after they left the Columbia country and crossed Athabasca Pass in the early spring of 1827, something much more terrifying happened.

Leaving his family at Fort Edmonton on the Saskatchewan River, Finan went on a buffalo-hunting excursion with some of his fellow fur agents and the wandering botanist David Douglas. At one point, according to Douglas's account, all of them were trying to chase down a wounded buffalo bull. Finan caught up with it well in front of his companions and dismounted when the animal fell. But as he approached his quarry to dispatch it, the bull turned out to be very much alive.

[S]eeing that it was utterly impossible to escape, Mr. McDonald had the presence of mind to throw himself on his belly flat on the ground, but this did not save him. He received the first stroke on the back of the right thigh, and pitched in the air several yards. The wound sustained was a dreadful laceration literally laying open the whole back part of the thigh to the bone; he received six more blows, at each of which he went senseless. Perceiving the beast preparing to strike him a seventh, he laid hold of his wig (his own words) and hung on; man and bull sank the same instant.

Douglas describes one of the great moments in western lore: Finan McDonald, already suffering from a dislocated wrist, several broken ribs, a general bruising, and an entirely flayed right thigh, hanging onto the hairy cape of a buffalo bull as it shakes him until they both disappear into the prairie grass.

Now the incident evolved into a standoff between men and beast. All of the hunters were out of shot, and even after one returned to the fort to replenish their supply, no one dared get close because the bull remained on guard over Finan's body.

Poor McDonald was thus situated for two hours and a half, bleeding at the point of death, and that too under cloud of night, which afforded us scarcely any opportunity of rescuing him, for the animal lay watching within a few yards, and we were afraid to fire, lest a shot should strike our friend.

Finally, with a group of mixed-blood furmen gathered at a safe distance, an accidental shot spooked the buffalo. It raised itself up, "first sniffing his victim, turning him gently over, and walking off." Douglas approached the unconscious Finan to find that the bull's horn had struck him directly on the left side, and

had it not been for a strong double sealskin shot-pouch, with ball, shot, wadding, &c, which shielded the stroke, unquestionably he must by that alone have been deprived of life, being opposite the heart. The horn went through the pouch, coat, vest, flannel, and cotton shirts, and bruised the skin and broke two ribs. He was bruised all over, but no part materially cut except the thigh...

David Douglas, like many educated travelers of the time, always carried a bleeding lancet in his pocket. He whipped it out and bled Finan, then bound up his wounds as best he could. Once back at the fort, 25 drops of laudanum produced a deep and effective sleep, and after that, no doubt with Peggy's help, Finan was on the road to recovery. The fur trade was a tough business, but surviving such a buffalo stomp surely enhanced Finan's reputation as a warrior.

Even so, McDonald's warrior days were over. By summer the family had arrived in civilized Glengarry County, just outside of Montreal, and Finan was negotiating to buy the country estate of his financially beleaguered former boss, David Thompson. In Glengarry, Finan apparently found out what the English were made of, and thrived on it: in 1838 McDonald was commissioned as a captain in the First Regiment of the Glengarry Militia, and in 1843, two years after Peggy died of unknown causes, he was elected as a member of the Provincial Parliament for Canada West, now Ontario. When Finan did finally expire in 1851, he was buried beside Peggy in a Glengarry cemetery -- laid to rest among peers from a life that seems entirely different from the swath he blazed across the Columbia country.

Illustration by Emily Nisbet.

Jack Nisbet Homepage