Yesterday’s successful landing of NASA’s Mars Rover Perseverance and the broadcast of early pictures was indeed a triumph of human perseverance made all the more uplifting because of the current travails of the coronavirus pandemic. It remains that the long-term future of humanity will increasingly rest above and beyond with the first tentative steps into the solar system of the last 50 years being inevitability followed over the course of the next century by interstellar probes and more. Yet, it is the name of the Rover itself which was drawn to my attention by a close friend who texted me today and said that the first pictures reminded him of the Northwest Company whose motto indeed was Perseverance. This reminded me of perseverance in terms of both national and personal history.
First, the Northwest Company of Montreal was a vast fur trading enterprise that for nearly two decades more than held its own, against the Hudson Bay Company as a result of its perseverance against incredible odds. While the HBC had the advantages of shorter north south supply routes and a charter from the Crown, the Northwest Company’s superior management, organization and entrepreneurship via its profit-sharing system enabled it to construct a web of forts and trading posts along Canada’s east-west river systems the crown jewel of which was the vast sprawling inland headquarters at Fort William (now Thunder Bay) that served as the rendezvous point for company business. Having spent numerous student summers working as a historical interpreter at the modern reconstruction of Fort William, I can attest to its size and grandeur.
The NWC shareholders were field traders and doubled as European explorers with names that resonate in Canadian history such as Simon Fraser, Alexander MacKenzie and David Thompson. It was perseverance indeed that in the face of a vast rugged geography and harsh climate allowed a trans-continental east west business arrangement using birch bark canoes to prosper and that according to Harold Adams Innis was the forerunner of the Canadian federation. As my friend noted in his comparison, it was also about going forth into an endeavor away from the "comforts of their usual surroundings", which the harshness of space definitely is for humans.
Of course, it is not considered politically astute these days to celebrate the business achievements and role of male European fur traders in nation building. And yet, the Northwest Company was ahead of its time in that unlike the hierarchical Hudson’s Bay Company, it was a partnership of sorts between Anglo-Scottish and French-Canadian businessmen, French Canadian labour and Indigenous peoples and their technology – canoes, pemmican, snowshoes. Moreover, the trade was directly with Indigenous peoples who harvested the furs and until the decline of the fur trade were bargainers on par with Northwest Company. Indeed, it was the decline of the fur trade that was the first step in undermining the economic and social welfare of First Nations as an important source of the livelihood they had grown dependent on vanished – an important lesson for all resource extraction economies.
Second, perseverance also marks friendships and how those
acquired at the dawn of one’s life persist, persevere and grow over time. I am still in touch with my two best friends
from high school – Harold and Rob - and though we all now live in separate cities
we still manage to Rendezvous in Thunder Bay so to speak from time to time and
update each other on our course and progress. It
was Harold’s text that triggered this post.
Everyone’s high school years are of course formative, but I cannot help
but think back fondly to the numerous activities we participated in and how
they ultimately shaped the work and life we all lead.
As teenagers, we even then had a strong interest in public policy. Along with the usual debates and class discussions and projects – we actually ran a QUI Campaign for the Quebec referendum in 1980 at our Thunder Bay high school - we made a point of attending election rallies from all three visiting leaders with the 1979 election being especially memorable. I had the car the evening we went to hear federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent and the most interesting part of the evening was the drive home when for whatever reason another vehicle chased us a bit while they brandished a tire iron out the window (My memory may be faulty here as the tire iron incident may have been after a City Council meeting and I vaguely recall being in a van for that one). Anyway, on the way home the brakes on my dad’s car failed.
As I was driving, along with keeping me calm they also helped slow the car by sticking their feet outside of their doors. It was an evening out of a James Bond film I suppose though given our ages I suppose it was a bit more rural Alex Rider. We persevered and did get home in one piece but in the hindsight that emerges, it was obvious that continuing to drive was the wrong thing to do. I should have let the car come to a halt or steer it into a snow bank given how badly things might have ended. I suppose 16-year-olds do not always make the best decisions. Still, it is the stuff of memories though naturally I somehow curiously neglected to share this story with my children when they were teenagers.
Still, perseverance is important when it comes to life’s experiences and challenges whether it is humanity’s attempts to understand the cosmos or people simply engaged in the ordinary business of life. Perseverance is about getting through life’s challenges and persevering is helped a lot by having persevering friends.
