Like Thomas Flewin, most passengers on board the Norman Morison had signed up to work for the Hudson's Bay Company for five years. Two of them, friends Robert Melrose and James Wilson, who had travelled from Scotland to London on board a steamboat, The Trident, before joining the Norman Morison, made a record of the whole of their emigration journey.

Melrose kept a diary, the contents of which provided some information for our story of the emigration. But Wilson wrote a descriptive poem which gives some vivid insights into the journey.

The original is kept in the Archives of British Columbia and is reproduced here in full.

At the start of his diary, Melrose wrote:

"I am highly favoured with the ritual of inserting a poem, alluding cheifly (sic) to our voyage out to Vancouver Island, the production of which, belongs to that indefatigable genius, James Wilson, a native of Scotland, whose name and poem, I trust, will do no dishonour to the country which claims his birth; he being a comrade, and an eye-witness along with us, it is needless to apologise for anything regarding the peice (sic), let the verses speak for themselves, the bare recital of fact is the plainest eulogium."