CHARTING A COURSE
Aboard the ships Eaglet and Nonsuch, a pair of ambitious French adventurers set sail for Hudson Bay in hopes of striking it rich in the fur trade.
The two men looked silently at each other and then embraced. Both Pierre-Esprit Radisson and his brother-in-law Médard Chouart, Sieur Des Groseilliers, knew that the mission upon which they were about to embark was fraught with danger.
It was June 5, 1668, and the pair of French fur traders were at the dockyards in London, England, making the final preparations for a months-long sea voyage. Their plan was to sail directly into the heart of North America via the mysterious “Inland Sea” visited in 1610 by the English explorer Henry Hudson. Once there, they hoped to launch a new fur-trading business based out of Hudson Bay that would circumvent the French fur traders who operated out of Montreal. At the time, New France dominated the fur trade in the region around the St. Lawrence River.
This would be no easy cruise down the River Thames. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the seventeenth century was a perilous undertaking filled with many threats, including ocean storms, disease outbreaks, and even pirates.
As the Frenchmen headed to their ships — Eaglet and Non
such — their minds likely wandered back to that moment, two years earlier, when they had arrived in England to pitch their plan to a gathering of wealthy investors and nobles.
There had been no guarantee that the investors would support their scheme. After all, Radisson and Des Groseilliers had already pitched the same plan to two other groups, one in France and one in New England, and on both occasions they were turned down. And now here they were — “Mr. Radishes and Mr. Gooseberries,” as they were known to their English backers — about to set sail on ships loaded with trade goods, heading west.
Unfortunately, almost as soon as their adventure began, disaster struck. Barely two months into their voyage, Eaglet, carrying Radisson, was beset by a terrible storm. “Wee went together 400 leagues from ye North of Ireland, where a sudden great storme did rise & put us asunder,” Radisson later wrote in his journal. “The sea was soe furious 6 or 7 hours after that it did almost overturne our ship, so that wee were forced to cut our masts.”
Eaglet limped back into port at Plymouth, on the south coast of England — a disastrous turn of events. The English investors, who included Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the cousin of King Charles II of England, demanded to know the status of the second ship, Nonsuch, which carried Des Groseilliers. All Radisson knew was that Nonsuch had escaped the storm and had kept going.
Months passed, filled with waiting and worry. Had Non
such sank in a storm? Was it trapped in sea ice? Was the crew shipwrecked and starving on the stark shores of Hudson Bay? A year and a half passed with no word. A pall of despair hung over the mission.
But in October 1669, sixteen months after Nonsuch’s departure, the ship was spied sailing up the River Thames into the heart of London. Riding low in the water, the ship was heavy with more than three thousand pounds of beaver pelts. The audacious plan had worked. Des Groseilliers and Radisson were celebrated as heroes. And from this initial triumph Hudson’s Bay Company was born.