dryadDryad
The dryadDryad 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 dryadDryad 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
dryadDryad’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 dryadDryad until all HBC men were safely aboard the vessel.5 The dryadDryad 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.
Mentions of this vessel in the documents