Sir Alexander Mackenzie, honoured as the first man to cross North America by land, sat blearily eyeing the respected head of the North West Company, William McGillivray.
McGillivray pushed a bottle of wine across the table to Mackenzie for a last toast, and slowly slid to the floor. Mackenzie silently joined him.
It was 1797 and, yet again, members of the Beaver Club in Montreal had drunk, feasted, and war-whooped themselves into unconsciousness. It was winter. In Montreal, once the St. Lawrence froze, fur traders had little to do. No supplies or furs could arrive. So, to make the long, cold season enjoyable, they partied, drank, and dined.
Heavy drinking was common in Canada as Lieutenant George Thomas Landmann discovered: "I had not been twenty-four hours at Montreal before I was invited to dine every day in succession during a week or ten days.... After many days of feasting and hard drinking I was engaged ... to dine with Sir Alexander Mackenzie and William McGillivray."
But for leading members of the North West Company, which traded for furs in Canada's Northwest and shipped them across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, this was not enough. They yearned to relive the rough winters they'd spent in the north, share tall tales with others who'd been there.
So, in 1785, they founded the Beaver Club.
Of the nineteen original members, eight were French Canadians, three were English, two were American, and six were Scots. With guests welcomed to the Beaver Club feasts, the numbers could double.
The basic rule for eligibility was that a member had to have spent at least one winter in the north--specifically, north of Fort William.
Unfortunately this prevented Simon McTavish, head of the North West Company and leader of Montreal society, from becoming a member. McTavish could be so autocratic and powerful that he was nicknamed the Marquis, but he had never been further west than Grand Portage on Lake Superior. He wasn't allowed to join until seven years later.
Earlier records are missing but those for 1805 show the club's membership included almost all leading Nor'Westers who had opted for a comfortable life in Montreal where they could build mansions and live like lairds. Members of the Beaver Club included, in addition to William McGillivray and Sir Alexander Mackenzie, longtime partners such as Roderic McKenzie, Duncan McGillivray, and Simon Fraser.
These men could join in a Beaver Club feast every two weeks. And perhaps that was as much as even their constitutions could stand.
The proceeding at these fortnightly meetings began with rituals.
The calumet (peace pipe) was passed and five toasts were mandatory: To the mother of all saints; the king; the fur trade in all its branches; voyageurs, wives and children; absent members. A guest in 1817, John Palmer, wrote that native manners, customs, and even language were imitated, but it seems likely that, as wine bottles emptied, Scottish accents and French speech predominated.
As the wine flowed, horseplay took over, with tables as much for walking on as sitting at. It is said inebriated members even sat themselves in single file and used anything at hand to paddle as if they were in a birchbark canoe.
Accounts for a dinner held September 17, 1808, show that thirty-two members and guests drained 29 bottles of Madeira, 19 bottles of port, 14 bottles of porter (a kind of dark beer), and 12 quarts of ale.
In 1797, seventeen-year-old Lieutenant Landmann was invited to a Beaver Club feast that he later recorded when he was a colonel:
In those days we dined at four o'clock, and after taking a
satisfactory quantity of wine, perhaps a bottle each, married
men ... and some others retired, leaving about a
dozen to drink to their health. We now began in right
earnest and true Highland style, and at four o'clock in
the morning the whole of us had arrived at such a degree
of perfection that all could give the war-whoop as well as
Mackenzie and McGillivray, we could all sing admirably,
we could all drink like fishes, and we all thought we
could dance on the table without disturbing a single
decanter, glass or plate with which it was profusely covered,
but on making the experiment we discovered it was
a complete delusion, and ultimately we broke all the
plates, glasses, bottles, and the table also.... I was afterwards
informed that one hundred and twenty bottles of
wine had been consumed at our convivial meeting but I
should think a great deal had been spilt and wasted.
Distinguished guests at the Beaver Club dinners included Edward, Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria's father; American fur-trade millionaire John Jacob Astor; the governor general, Lord Dalhousie; and General Isaac Brock, as well as veterans of the War of 1812, General Gordon Drummond and General Roger Hale Sheaffe, who had taken command at the Battle of Queenston Heights when Brock was shot. Even Lord Selkirk, head of the rival Hudson's Bay Company, was a guest at least once.
It seems the Beaver Club closed its doors in 1825, but just two years later Governor Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company urged that it be revived. Ten members of the original club welcomed three new ones, including Governor Simpson, who showed his autocratic leanings by inviting eight guests to a dinner--three more than was allowed.
This dinner, on March 5, 1827, was the last Beaver Club gathering, and thirty-two members and guests consumed 46 bottles of Madeira and port, 14 of porter, and 8 of cider.
We can be sure feasting continued elsewhere in frozen Montreal, and no doubt those who had wintered in the north continued to tell tall tales, sing boisterous voyageur songs, and paddle imaginary canoes.
And doubtless they toasted an increasing number of absent members.
Topic: Beaver Club! (Read 150 times)