Donald Smith crossed the Atlantic in a small supply craft belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company and took up his duties as a clerk in one of the most unimportant branches of the service. He made the 1200 miles' journey from Montreal to Labrador. He was stationed in a place where only once a year could any tidings reach him from the outside world. Was he lonely in this exile? He himself said that he { 21} never knew what the feeling of loneliness was. He had books; he had thoughts. Such a psychologist as the late William James, who to his profound grasp of psychology and philosophy added the unmapped power of spiritual divination, would have found, in these long, solitary years of meditation and thought, the key and clue to the lad's future greatness. In the infinite and unmeasured force generated by thought-vibrations lies power that may transcend a universe. "Mind with will is intelligent energy," declares a recent scientific writer, who adds: "intelligent energy is enough to supply a cause for every known effect within the limits of the universe."
Sir Oliver Lodge has recently said that life is simply "utilised and guided energy to produce results which otherwise would not have happened." If the distinguished British scientist had been seeking a phrase to define the life of Donald Alexander Smith he could hardly have created one more felicitous. That the results that were called into activity for a period of over fifty years, of momentous importance to Canada, by the causes set up by the young Scotsman, matters that would never have happened but for him, is evident to all who study closely the modern history of the Dominion. Lord Strathcona's biographer, Mr. Beckles Willson, introduces the reader to a long record of interesting details of the early years of Donald Smith, all of which contributed to the development and the { 22} nurture of the marvellous qualities which rendered him one of the most determining of the forces that shaped the destiny of Canada. The brilliant John Jay Chapman, writing of the remarkable man who may be said to have initiated the abolition of slavery in the United States, remarks of his subject: "Garrison plunged through the icy atmosphere like a burning meteorite from another planet." Not thus, however, did Donald Smith enter on his great career. Exiled in a far and frozen region, his service in Labrador lasted for thirteen years "with no companionship save a few employees and his own thoughts, learning the secrets of the Company, how to manage the Indians, and how to produce the best returns."[1] Thirty years had passed since his landing in Canada when, in 1868, on the death of Governor Simpson, of the Hudson's Bay Company, whose office was in Montreal, Mr. Smith was appointed by the London office to succeed him. He was then in his forty-ninth year. Born on August 6, 1820, he died on January 21, 1914, in his ninety-fourth year. The forty-five years which preceded his passing from the physical realm were the years in which Canada entered on her great destiny, and of this momentous period Lord Strathcona might well have said, "All of which I saw and part of which I was." His devotion and loyalty to the Empire was as intelligent and wise as it was ardent and powerful. The history { 23} of Canada and his personal biography during those years might almost be interchangeable terms. The Hudson's Bay Company, although organised and conducted on a financial basis, was the soul of loyalty to the Empire. The splendid courage, endurance, and persistence that characterised its entire tenure entered into the very structure of the nation.