Colonial Despatches

Harpooner was a barque or brigantine chartered by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1848 to bring settlers and supplies to the Pacific Northwest.1

It arrived in Victoria in 1849 carrying labourers, miners, carpenters, bakers, and men recruited by Captain Grant.2 John Muir and his family were on board Harpooner as was James Yates.3

The miners eventually went to Fort Rupert and the ship carried on to Fort Vancouver and Hawaii.4

• 1. Judith Hudson Beattie and Helen M. Buss, eds., Undelivered Letters to Hudson's Bay Company Men on the Northwest Coast of America, 1830-57 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2003), 411.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Ibid.
• 4. Ibid.