Colonial Despatches

The Dryad was a 204-tonne brig, launched in 1825 and purchased in 1829 by the HBC, who employed it as a trade-vessel in the Pacific Northwest until it was sold in 1836.1

In 1834 the Dryad arrived at the mouth of the Stikine River under the command of Ogden, who intended to erect an HBC trading fort;2 however, the Russians had already hurriedly erected Fort St. Dionysius and claimed that the surrounding territory was off-limits to the HBC, despite the Convention of 1825, which gave the British the right to access the Stikine.3 Rather than risk conflict, Ogden headed south, to the Nass River, where he and the Dryad's crew helped relocate Fort Simpson to its current location.4

The Akriggs state that before Ogden departed the site of old Fort Simpson he and his crew experienced hostilities with the First Nations people of the area; Ogden took two Aboriginal hostages aboard the Dryad until all HBC men were safely aboard the vessel.5 The Dryad then traded near Haida Gwaii, then the Queen Charlotte Islands, until it returned to the Columbia River in November of 1834.6

• 1. James R. Gibson, Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and China Goods: The Maritime Fur Trade of the Northwest Coast, 1778-1841 (Montréal, QC: MicGill-Queens University Press, 1991), 312.
• 2. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Chronicle, 1788-1846 (Victoria: Discovery Press, 1975), 294.
• 3. Ibid., 279.
• 4. Ibid.
• 5. Ibid., 280.
• 6. Ibid., 281.
• 7. Ibid.