I'm Bruce Fummey. It's the 7th of November and today I'm going to tell you a story about
the most unlikely and surprising man to ever work for the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada.
If you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history, then hit the subscribe
button at the bottom right hand side at anytime during this video. For books, further information,
ways to support the channel, buy me a coffee, join The National Trust for Scotland, all that stuff
is in the description below. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
I normally like to take you to a relevant location to tell you stories, but for today's
story that would mean taking it either to Orkney or Canada! My budget stretches to Crieff.
I'm going to take you on Lady Mary's Walk, we might even go up the hill too.
In some ways, the Hudson Bay Company was Canada before Canada was Canada. In 1660
what westerners and our political incorrectness might call Canada today was French. Two young
Frenchmen wanted to set up a fur trading post in Hudson Bay, but the Governor said 'no'. Now when
they went anyway and brought back fine furs to prove their point, they were arrested and fined,
so they turned to the English for backing and they got it from Charles the Second and his cousin, Prince
Rupert. Trading posts were set up in competition with the French. Coverage grew, conflict grew,
and 100 years later the British defeated the French in the Seven Years' War.
You get where this is going don't you? Our story starts in the summer of 1806.
A disproportionate number of men from Orkney were hired to work for the Hudson's Bay Company.
The trapping, transporting, transiting and furs and supplies in the harsh conditions of a Canadian
winter would take a special type of hardy bloke, and let's face it, Orcadians were Vikings with a
haircut, so lots of them went to work for Hudson's Bay. Now the short-haired Viking that concerns us
went by the name of John Fubbister. The young John followed in his elder brother's footsteps and
signed up for a three-year term as a Hudson's Bay Company labourer on a wage of eight pounds a year.
Now that might not sound much, but it was more money than John was likely to earn staying in
Orkney. Initially John was based at Fort Albany and worked in the supply boats. With a reputation
as a diligent, hard worker, who coped well with the rigors and harsh conditions, never failing
to carry out a task that was requested, so the next summer brought bigger responsibilities and
John was sent as part of an expedition to travel 1500 miles to the west supplying remote outposts.
This was a job for hardy and trustworthy men, which brought them ultimately to a post at Pembina,
in what's now North Dakota. The post at Pembina was run by a man called Alexander Henry, and he
recorded the events of one evening in his journal. I mean he probably recorded the events of lots of
evenings in his journal, but I don't think any others would be quite like this one. John Fubbister,
a Hudson's Bay Company employee, came to the door of Alexander Henry, the north west company manager.
He was complaining of not feeling well and could he come in and sit by the fire in his cabin.
I can imagine Alexander Henry being so surprised, instead of saying, 'Beat it you Hudson Bay skank!',
he blurted out 'Aye all right come in and sit by the fire'. See me I'm the kind of guy who would
say, 'There's the fire, there's the pantry, there's milk in the fridge, help yourself, I'm off to bed'.
My wife's much more suspicious, she'd be saying, 'Who's that strange man in the house?'
'He's from Hudson's Bay Company, you know they're the competition'. 'What if he steals something,
what if he murders us in our beds? Did you turn the gas off? I think I might have left the iron on! Now
I don't think Alexander Henry's wife was there, in fact white women didn't go out to this wilderness,
they certainly weren't allowed to work for the Hudson's Bay Company. Native women were allowed to
do menial jobs, but was seen as far too rough an environment for civilized, white women.
Anyway suddenly Alexander Henry hears John Fubbister screaming like a banshee from next door
where he left him in front of the fire. Henry rushed through and it became apparent why John
Fubbister was screaming, he was giving birth to a bairn. At first this must have been like watching
alien and then realizing for the first time John Fubbister's a woman! Woman aren't allowed here!
She'd been there for over a year and none of the men realized she was a woman!
Okay one of the men realized she was a woman I get that okay, but now it was out along with a placenta.
In his journal, Alexander Henry said, 'I stepped down to him and was much surprised to find him extended
out upon the hearth uttering most dreadful lamentations. He stretched out his hand towards me
and in a pitiful tone of voice begged my assistance, and he requested that I would take
pity on a poor helpless abandoned wretch who was not of the sex that I had every reason to suppose,
but was an unfortunate Orkney girl pregnant and actually in childbirth. In saying this
she opened her jacket and displayed to my view a pair of beautiful round white breasts'.
That's how you know they were in a camp with no women, Henry finds a bloke
giving birth in his own fire hearth and what does he write in his diary? Look at the tits on that!
Now I don't know about you, but I've got lots of questions. Isn't it obvious like, how could you possibly
have fooled folk all that time? I'm assuming an outdoor, rugged, backwoods lifestyle where blokes
pee behind a tree and they either grow a beard or shave on a regular basis! Now I'm assuming some
form of communal living where, even if she got over these first hurdles, at some point before
her waters broke, pregnancy would have looked suspicious. I tell you what, John Fubbister's fairly
putting on the beef recently. Aye, I know, and he always gets teary-eyed when he's skinning beaver,
and he's always licking coal, what's that about? Now it turns out that John Fubbister had shared a cabin
with a guy called John Scarth who had discovered her secret. Now he was going to inform management, but
after much pleading he was persuaded to keep her confidence. Now I don't know if there was
a mutual attraction, inappropriate pressure or a quid pro quo, but Isobel Gunn, let's
accept that it wasn't really John Fubbister. Isobel Gunn fell pregnant to John Scarth.
Here's the bit that troubles me most. Assuming that the conception was consensual, Isobel Gunn gave
birth to her son at the end of December. She set out on this journey to remote outposts in autumn.
Now I'm no expert, but from what my wife tells me, Isobel would have known when she set out on
that journey what would inevitably happen before it was over, and yet she chose to go anyway. She
chose to guard her secret. Was it bravery in spite of the hardships of a Canadian winter, was it fear
in the face of the chill of moral judgment? How helpless, trapped and lonely must she have felt?
No midwife, no sanitized surroundings, no mother's comfort on hand, and certainly
no honourable man to take responsibility for his actions. Now she's just one of many incredible
Scottish women and I'm going to make videos on more, and there'll be a link at the end to a
playlist. So what happens now? John Fubbister had carried out his duties diligently and well, he'd
worked to the satisfaction of Hudson's Bay Company. Isobel Gunn was forbidden from doing the work, the
work for which she'd already demonstrated herself capable. She was sent back to Fort Albany and she
became a washer woman. Then on September the 20th, 1809 packed up on a ship, she and her son set sail
back to Orkney, where her son grew up fatherless and she lived out her life in poverty sewing clothes.
Songs have been written about Isobel Gunn and I'll leave a link to a historical novel about her
life in the description below, but aside from the obvious stupidity of refusing her work that she'd
already been doing, Isobel Gunn's story makes me think of the Robert Burns song, 'Ye Banks and
Braes o' Bonnie Doune', it's a heart-breaking song about a young woman, Peggy Kennedy.
The wealthy local MP for the area seduced her, abandoned her, and left her for the rest of her
short life with an unsupported child. Anglicised for my diverse audience, Burns wrote
Wi lightsome heart I pulled a rose, Upon its thorny tree But my false lover stole my rose
And aye he left the thorn wi me. Women already carry a biological burden and responsibility on behalf of
the whole human race, and over the centuries we men have added to an already considerable weight with
our selfishness, machismo and totally unjustified sense of superiority 200 years after Isobel Gunn.
Maybe it's about time we put things right. if you want to hear stories about other incredible women
in Scottish history, then a link to a playlist should appear about now. I'll add to the list
in future. If you want to become a member, or buy me a coffee, all that stuff's in a link
in the description below. In the meantime, tha mi an dochas bum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.