Shortly afterwards James Findlay, another son of the heather, followed up the fur-traders' route, and reached Saskatchewan.
Thus the Northwest Fur Trade became the almost exclusive possession of the Scottish Merchants of Montreal.

With the master must go the man.

And no man on the rivers of North America ever equalled, in speed, in good temper, and in skill, the French Canadian voyageur.

Almost all the Montreal merchants, the Forsythes, the Richardsons, the McTavishes, the Mackenzies, and the McGillivrays, spoke the French as fluently as they did their own language.

Thus they became magnetic leaders of the French canoemen of the rivers.