.

There are one or two favoured spots, however, into which a missionary or
two have penetrated; and in Red River Settlement (the only colony in the
Company's territories) there are several churches and clergymen, both
Protestant and Roman Catholic.

The country is divided into four large departments: the Northern
department, which includes all the establishments in the far north and
frozen regions; the Southern department, including those to the south
and east of this, the post at the head of James Bay, and along the
shores of Lake Superior; the Montreal department, including the country
in the neighbourhood of Montreal, up the Ottawa River, and along the
north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Esquimaux Bay; and the
Columbia department, which comprehends an immense extent of country to
the west of the Rocky Mountains, including the Oregon territory, which,
although the Hudson Bay Company still trade in it, now belongs to the
Americans.

These departments are divided into a number of districts, each under the
direction of an influential officer; and these again are subdivided into
numerous establishments, forts, posts, and outposts.

The name of _fort_, as already remarked, is given to all the posts in
the country; but some of them certainly do not merit the name--indeed,
few of them do. The only two in the country that are real, _bona fide_
forts, are Fort Garry and the Stone Fort in the colony of Red River,
which are surrounded by stone walls with bastions at the corners. The
others are merely defended by wooden pickets or stockades; and a few,
where the Indians are quiet and harmless, are entirely destitute of
defence of any kind. Some of the chief posts have a complement of about
thirty or forty men; but most of them have only ten, five, four, and
even _two_, besides the gentleman in charge. As in most instances these
posts are planted in a wilderness far from men, and the inhabitants have
only the society of each other, some idea may be formed of the solitary
life led by many of the Company's servants.

The following is a list of the forts in the four different departments,
as correctly given as possible; but, owing to the great number in the
country, the constant abandoning of old and establishing of new forts,
it is difficult to get at a perfectly correct knowledge of their number
and names:--

NORTHERN DEPARTMENT.

York Fort (the depot).
Churchill.
Severn.
Oxford House.
Trout Lake