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HISTORICAL.
Оглавление“The Fertile Belt.”—Influence of a Catchy Expression.—Northern Canada still a Terra Incognita.—The Hudson’s Bay Company.—Early Explorations.—Kelsey, Hearne, Mackenzie, Franklin, Back, Simpson and Dease.—The More Recent Explorers, Official and Unofficial.—Parliamentary Investigations.
When in 1867 the four principal British provinces in the eastern portion of North America were confederated under the British North America Act and became the original Dominion of Canada, the vast regions of the west vaguely known under several designations such as the “Hudson’s Bay Territory,” the “Northwest Territory” and “Rupert’s Land,” and extending from the United States boundary to Arctic sea, and from the western frontier of Ontario, James bay and Hudson bay to Rocky mountains, remained under the rule of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The Fathers of Confederation had in view, however, a union of all the British possessions on the continent, and one of the measures passed at the first session of the first parliament of the new Dominion provided for the opening of negotiations for the union of the Hudson bay territory with the confederated provinces. Thanks largely to the diplomatic offices of the British government, the rights of the Hudson’s Bay Company were eventually bought out by Canada, and this vast territory, estimated at upwards of two million three hundred thousand square miles, was transferred to the Dominion of Canada in the year 1867.
The cash consideration obtained by the company from the Dominion for the relinquishment of its rights and titles was the sum of three hundred thousand pounds sterling; but there was also a provision for the retention by the Company of blocks of land adjoining each of its stations; and the right was allowed the company for fifty years, from 1870, to “claim in any township or district within the fertile belt in which land is set out for settlement, grants of land not exceeding one-twentieth part of the land so set out.”
For the purpose of the agreement the “Fertile Belt” was described therein as being bounded as follows:—“On the south by the United States boundary; on the west by Rocky mountains; on the north by the northern branch of the Saskatchewan; on the east by Lake Winnipeg, Lake of the Woods, and the waters connecting them.”
The Term “Fertile Belt.”
There is some uncertainty as to the origin of the term “Fertile Belt”, thus arbitrarily defined in the historical agreement with the Hudson’s Bay Company; but this much is certain:—the term came into general use after the publication of the reports of the official exploratory expeditions of Captain John Palliser of the British Army, of S. J. Dawson, C.E., and Professor Henry Y. Hind of Trinity College, Toronto. Captain Palliser was commissioned by the British government to explore “that portion of British North America which lies between the northern watershed and the frontier of the United States, and between Red river and Rocky mountains and to endeavour to find a practicable route through them.” The Dawson-Hind expeditions (there were two) were under the auspices of the government of United Canada (Upper and Lower Canada) and were for the purpose of inquiring into the resources of Red river colony and the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan countries. The British expedition extended over parts of four years—1857, 1858, 1859 and 1860, while the Canadian ones covered two years—1857 and 1858.
In the preface to his report, published in 1860, Professor Hind wrote:—“The establishment of a new colony in the basin of Lake Winnipeg, and the discovery of a Fertile Belt of country extending from the Lake of the Woods to Rocky mountains, give to this part of British America a more than passing interest.” In another place Professor Hind wrote:—“North of the great American desert there is a broad slip of Fertile Country, rich in water, wood, and pasturage, drained by the North Saskatchewan, and a continuation of the fertile prairies of Red and Assiniboine rivers. It is a physical reality of the highest importance to the interests of British North America that this continuous Belt can be settled and cultivated from a few miles west of Lake of the Woods to the passes of Rocky mountains, and any line of communication, whether by waggon road or railroad, passing through it, will eventually enjoy the great advantage of being fed by an agricultural population from one extremity to the other.”
Wheat field at Stanley, Churchill river.
The terms “Fertile Belt,” “Fertile Strip” and “Fertile Land” appear many times in Captain Palliser’s report, published in 1863, the first of these expressions being used no less than three times in one paragraph of the report.
The influence of a “catchy expression” in attracting the world’s attention is wonderful. Whatever the origin of the term “Fertile Belt” in this connection, its emphatic application by these independent official reports to the particular strip of territory between the United States boundary line and Saskatchewan river had immediate and lasting effects.
It arrested public attention in England and in Canada. That which had often been asserted by independent travellers, and more often stoutly denied by those whose sole interests were centred in the fur trade[1], had been found by scientific explorers of unquestioned veracity to be an actual fact. As Captain Palliser put it in his report:—“The whole of the region of country would be valuable not only for agriculturists but also for mixed purposes. I have seen not only excellent wheat, but also Indian corn (which will not succeed in England or Ireland) ripening on Mr. Pratt’s farm at the Qu’Appelle lakes in 1857.” Professor Hind, in his report, quoted interviews with enthusiastic settlers, who, on their prairie farms in Assiniboine valley, had for years been successfully raising prime wheat at a yield of thirty to forty bushels to the acre, “corn, barley, oats, flax, hemp, hops, turnips, tobacco and anything you wish.” He showed that similar conditions of soil and climate extended far to the westward, and, quite naturally, he wrote of this area as the “Fertile Belt.”
The Older Influences.
The Right Honourable Edward Ellice, one of the oldest governors of Hudson’s Bay Company, asked, when being examined before the British Parliamentary Committee of 1857, what probability there was of a settlement being made within the southern territories of the company, replied:—“None, in the lifetime of the youngest man now alive.” (“The Great Company”, p. 480).
Sir George Simpson, who was for forty years governor of the Hudson Bay territories and had visited every portion of them, was examined before the select committee of the British House of Commons appointed in 1857 at the instance of Mr. Labouchere, on the eve of the expiration of the license for exclusive Indian trade issued to the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1838, to investigate the state of the British possessions administered by the Company. Sir George, being asked his opinion as to the general fitness of Rupert’s Land for colonization, replied:—“I do not think that any part of the Hudson Bay territories is well adapted for settlement; the crops are very uncertain.”
By officially establishing the existence of this rich, arable area in the southern part of the territories governed by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and by associating it with such an apt designation, the Palliser and Hind expeditions brought strong popular support to those who in Britain and Canada were at that particular period actively working to secure the introduction of Canadian jurisdiction over the whole of the western part of British North America, and materially contributed to the success of the protracted negotiations which resulted in the ultimate surrender of its rights of government, etc., by the Hudson’s Bay Company. If any other proof was required to establish in the popular mind the attractiveness of the “Fertile Belt” as a desirable section for settlement, it was furnished by the written agreement under which the country was handed over to the Dominion of Canada, the term “Fertile Belt” therein receiving the stamp of the highest official recognition, and by the Hudson’s Bay Company, famous as a shrewdly managed corporation, stipulating that the grants of land to be made them were to be located within the area so designated.
Settlement of “The Fertile Belt.”
The term “Fertile Area” proved a very loadstone to the settler and the capitalist. Ever since the settlement of the troubles which accompanied the transfer of the great northwest to the Dominion of Canada there has been a stream of immigration flowing into the country, and up to the past few years the Fertile Belt has been the settler’s Mecca and El Dorado.
In the summer of 1874 the region west of the original province of Manitoba was ‘opened up’ by the Northwest Mounted Police as far as Macleod in the south, and Edmonton in the north. In 1885 the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway main line gave western Canada direct communication with the eastern provinces, and a fair chance to develop her natural resources, particularly in the Fertile Belt, through which the line was constructed.
In 1870 the population of the whole region east of Rocky mountains over which the Great Company had so recently relinquished its rule as Lord Proprietor amounted to but a few hundred; at the present time (census of 1911) it amounts to no less than one million, three hundred and forty-eight thousand, one hundred and seventy two. And with the exception of the partially settled areas in Beaver, Athabaska and Peace districts, and a few small, isolated posts on Hudson bay and along Mackenzie river, the whole of this population is located within the “Fertile Belt” as defined in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s agreement of 1869. This is not to be wondered at considering the undoubted natural attractiveness of the zone, its rapidly developed advantages in the way of railway communication, and the benefit it derived from being originally introduced to the world as a future paradise of agricultural enterprise under such an apt and alluring designation as “The Fertile Belt.”
But while the united energies of the capitalist, the railroad builder and the agriculturist have been devoted to the exploration of the Fertile Belt, the much larger area of virgin country extending from the northern limits of the strip in question to Arctic sea and lying between Hudson bay and Rocky mountains has been neglected.
This (not including the Yukon), the most northern section of the vast western region formerly ruled by the big fur-trading company, comprises no less than one and one-half million square miles of country, or considerably more than the combined territory (on March 1, 1912) of the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba. Its very vastness, coupled with its remoteness from the great centres of population, has tended to keep it, as far as the world at large is concerned, comparatively
A Terra Incognita.
The word “comparatively” is used advisedly, for while it is true that the greater part of the unexploited northland is unexplored and unknown, we have in one way or another obtained considerable useful information about it. Now and again word has come from some missionary station or trading post somewhere up in the far north, hundreds of miles beyond the northern limits of the “Fertile Belt,” of root crops, barley, oats, and even wheat being raised during a long succession of years with phenomenal success. Explorers returned from the great north have related how they were regaled upon potatoes and other vegetables grown a few miles from Arctic Circle. A sample of wheat grown at Fort Vermilion in north latitude 58·4°, three hundred and fifty miles north of Edmonton, was awarded First Prize at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, in 1876, in competition with the whole world. Geological explorers have reported vast deposits of coal and other minerals underlying immense areas in the far north. Adventurous travellers, back from the least promising regions of Canada’s great northland have disclosed the existence of timber areas and of game and fish preserves of fabulous richness.
And this great northern country long ago had its champions who challenged the attention of the world by predicting for sections of it, at least, an agricultural and industrial future. Mr. Malcolm McLeod, formerly of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and, as a son of the North, jealous of its reputation, stirred up the thought that in the glamour attached to the original exploitation of the “Fertile Belt” the natural resources of the vaster country to the north would be overlooked, and in the preface of his book, published in 1872, on Sir George Simpson’s canoe voyage from Hudson bay to the Pacific in 1828, wrote:—“The object of the present brochure, at this juncture, is to direct attention—by an account of a canoe voyage through the region—to the fact that beyond that belt of supposed limited fertility, which is implied in the term “Fertile Belt,” there is, in our north west, an area, continuous in every direction and easily accessible to its utmost limits, containing over three hundred millions of acres of wheat and pasture lands, with forests of finest timber, and the largest known coal and bitumen, and also probably the richest gold areas in the world—a land teeming with animal and vegetable life, extending to the very Arctic Circle, and owing its wealth in that respect to exceptional causes. I refer to that area—comprised entirely of Silurian and Devonian systems—watered by the great Athabaska, Peace and Mackenzie rivers, with their countless affluents.”
The very year of Confederation the attention of the reading public of the world was forcibly drawn to the latent natural wealth of the northland. The writer of an article published in the Westminster Review of July, 1876, (“The Last Monopoly”) pointed out that “nature marching from east to west, showered her bounties on the land of the United States until she reached the Mississippi, but there she turned aside to favour British territory. To the north the good land of the western states is prolonged beyond the forty-ninth parallel, where it enters British territory as the Fertile Zone. The fertile zone curves towards the north as it proceeds westward, so that the western extremity of the belt is several degrees of latitude higher than the eastern, the curves apparently corresponding pretty closely with certain isothermal lines. The forest zone extends to latitude 61° on Hudson bay. Coal crops out at intervals in seams of ten or twelve feet thick from the Mackenzie in the far north to the Saskatchewan. Ironstone has been discovered in the Athabaska. Sulphur abounds on Peace and Smoky rivers. Salt is plentiful near Great Slave lake; plumbago and mineral pitch on Lake Athabaska; copper, native and in the form of malachite, on Coppermine river.”
The Northland’s First Champions.
To find the first champions of the great Northland as a prospective theatre of enterprise and development, and to trace the history of the exploration of the region from the beginning, it is necessary to go back many years, to a date, in fact, only two years more recent than the founding of Quebec by Samuel de Champlain.
Henry Hudson, the great English sea captain, was engaged in the search for a northwest passage, when on August 3, 1610, he rounded the northwestern shoulder of Labrador and entered the bay which he thus discovered and which now bears his name. The exploration of this great inland sea was begun, not for the sake of gaining a knowledge of the country surrounding it, nor for the development of its resources, but in the delusive hope of finding a passage through it to the western ocean. In 1612, Captain (afterwards Sir) Thomas Button, commissioned to search for Hudson and to look for a northern passage, entered the bay with two ships, and, holding on his westward course, encountered land at about 60° 40′ north latitude. Being a Welshman, he called the land “New Wales,” a name which afterwards gave place to “New North Wales” for the northern part, and “New South Wales” for the southern; but all three designations, as applied to the Hudson bay coast, are now only of historic interest. Button wintered at Port Nelson, which he so named in memory of a shipmaster who, with many of the sailors, died there. When the ice broke up he went northwards past Cape Churchill and landed at a place about 60° north which he called “Hubbart’s Hope.”
The southern coast of Hudson bay, east from Port Nelson (York Factory), was visited and explored by Captains Luke Foxe of London and Thomas James of Bristol in 1631, and again visited by James in 1632. These two navigators met off the coast near the mouth of Winisk river on August 29-30, 1631. Each had given a name to the country to the southwest. Foxe called it “New Yorkshire” and James “The South Principality of Wales,” probably on account of the previous name “New Wales” given by Button in 1612 to the land southwest of Port Nelson. These two navigators sailed together to the eastward, to the entrance to James bay, and there separated, Foxe to go north and James to the southward, to winter. Foxe called the bay he had left “Wolstenholme’s Ultimum Vale.” James, after rounding the cape, determined its latitude (55° 5′) and called it “Henrietta Maria Cape,” after the Queen, and also after his own ship.
Oat field at Ile à La Crosse.
In 1668 Captain Gillam entered Hudson bay with a pioneer fur-trading expedition under the patronage of some influential Londoners, at the head of whom was Prince Rupert, Duke of Cumberland, Count Palatine of the Rhine and cousin of Charles II, King of England. Thus was inaugurated the regime of the Hudson’s Bay Company, but the Royal charter to Prince Rupert and his associates, constituting them “The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay”, was not granted until 1670.[2]
“The Hudson’s Bay Company.”
The company was organized to prosecute the fur trade, and not for colonizing purposes. The few explorations into and from the company’s first posts on the bay were made solely in the interests of the fur trade. When in 1683 Governor Sargeant was urged to send men to penetrate into the country, the object was distinctly stated to be “to draw down the Indians by fair and gentle means to trade with us.” This was the burden of many letters of instruction sent out to Hudson bay in those days, but the response was not very promising. The company’s servants were not easily induced to imperil their lives, particularly as they complained of lack of encouragement. In 1688 Governor George Geyer, who himself, in 1773, had volunteered to do some exploring, was instructed to send the boy Henry Kelsey to Churchill river for an exploring trip “because we are informed he is a very active lad, delighting much in the Indians’ company and being never better pleased than when he is travelling amongst them.” Thus began the adventurous career of one who may be regarded as the pioneer explorer of the region under review.[3] In 1690 Kelsey “cheerfully undertook a journey up into the country of the Assiniboine Poets, with the Captain of that Nation.” The following year he accompanied the Indians on a journey he computed at four hundred or five hundred miles, penetrating as far as the buffalo and grizzly bear countries. A diary of this trip was published, but it contained no references to the natural resources of the country. There followed a period of some activity in the matter of exploration by sea, the discovery of a northwest passage being aimed at. Between 1719 and 1737 the Hudson’s Bay Company alone fitted out nine vessels to participate in this discovery, but these voyages added nothing to the scanty knowledge then available as to the resources of the territory ruled over by the company.
Soon after the Hudson’s Bay Company obtained its monopolistic charter, antagonism to it arose in England, and this hostility steadily developed, the legality of the charter being flatly challenged. One of the bitterest opponents of the company was Mr. Arthur Dobbs, a gentleman of means and scientific attainment, intensely interested in the subject of the northwest passage, who became embittered because he considered the Hudson’s Bay Company had not furthered the exploration projects as he thought they should have done. In 1744 he published a volume on the countries adjoining Hudson bay, in which he arraigned the company for keeping the country back. He declared that the company would not allow their servants to make any improvements at the posts except it be to plant turnip gardens. He proceeded:—“There might be comfortable settlements made in most places, and very tolerable, even in the worst and coldest parts of that continent, which are the northeast and northwest sides of the bay; but in the southern and western sides of the bay, there might be made as comfortable settlements as any in Sweden, Livonia or the south side of the Baltic, and farther into the country, southwest, the climate is as good as the southern part of Poland and north part of Germany and Holland.”
An Early Parliamentary Inquiry.
In 1748, ten years before the capitulation of Montreal to General Amherst, a motion was passed in the House of Commons “to enquire into the state and condition of the countries adjoining Hudson bay and the trade carried on there, and to consider how those countries may be settled and improved, and the trade and fisheries there extended and increased, and also to enquire into the rights the Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson’s bay pretend to have by charter to the property of lands and exclusive trade to those countries.” The result was an investigation, which produced a considerable amount of evidence throwing the first official light upon the natural resources of Canada’s great northland.
Up to this time the territory about Hudson bay had been commonly supposed “to be a mere waste and howling wilderness, wherein half-famished beasts of prey wage eternal war with a sparse population of half-starved savages; where the drought is more than Saharan, the cold more than Arctic, and that woe would betide the mad and unfortunate individual who might be so far diverted from the path of prudence as to endeavour to settle in those parts.”[4]
Evidence heard before the committee revealed the fact that intelligent men who have lived in the country several years considered that it possessed decided attractions as a field of settlement, and held that nothing but the policy of the fur-trading company kept settlement back.[5]
Some of the evidence as to the resources of the country and as to the conditions of the very slim white population is still edifying. The attack upon the legality of the company’s charter, however, came to nothing, and the revelations made as to the suitability of the country for settlement had no practical result, which is scarcely to be wondered at considering the conditions prevailing in both Europe and America—conditions which in the course of a few years were to result in momentous changes in the map of this continent.
No additional data as to the resources and geography of the great northland were produced until the years 1770 and 1771 when
Hearne Made His Historical Trip
of discovery. Many of the witnesses examined during the enquiry of 1748-49 had spoken of the statements of Indians regarding the rich copper mines existing on a great river many miles to the northwest of Churchill. The Indians who visited that post in 1768 so impressed the governor, Mr. Moses Norton, with their version of the richness of the copper deposits along the river they called the Neetha-San-San-Dazey (the “far-off metal river”), that being in London the following season he induced the Company to send out an exploratory expedition. The man selected for the command was Samuel Hearne,[6] a capable and experienced mariner, then serving as mate on the Company’s brig “Charlotte.” Hitherto all of the exploratory expeditions from Hudson bay towards the northwest had been in search of the northwest passage, and by sea, but now it was decided to undertake exploration by land.[7] Hearne really made three trips, two of which were unsuccessful. The first failed because of the lack of provisions, and the second because Hearne was plundered by his Indian companions and broke his sextant. On these trips he attempted to penetrate to the northwestward through the so-called Barren Grounds or Barren Lands, but on the third venture, leaving in December, 1770, he kept more to the westward and, being in the wooded country, was able to provide himself with provisions and to travel with much less discomfort. As he was accompanied by a number of Indian families as bearers and hunters, his progress was necessarily slow and indirect, on account of the difficulty of crossing lakes and large rivers, and of providing food for so large a party. His general line of travel was at first a little north of west to Clowey lake, which was reached May 3, 1771, and thence a little west of north to the eastward of Great Slave lake, probably passing Artillery lake (his Catt lake?) and Clinton-Colden and Aylmer lakes (his Thoy-noy-kyed lake?) to the stream since called Coppermine river, which was reached probably near Sandstone rapid.[8]
During the eighteen years or so following Hearne’s discovery of Coppermine river, considerable knowledge was acquired as to the resources of the more southern portions of the still unexploited north country by the activities of the Canadian fur traders, including the Northwest Company, in North Saskatchewan, Clearwater, Athabaska and Peace river regions,[9] and the resultant extension southward of the trading operations of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Mackenzie’s Trips of Exploration
including the discovery of the great river of the north which still bears his name, were notable events in the history of the north country; momentous events, in fact, in view of the knowledge first obtained through them of the vast natural resources of the great Mackenzie basin.
Winter travel—Dinner time.
Mackenzie set out on his first voyage from Chipewyan, at the head of Lake Athabaska (a Northwest Company’s post), June 3, 1789, and proceeded in canoes via Slave river, Great Slave lake, and Mackenzie river as far as Whale island in the estuary of that stream. On July 16, he started on the return trip by the same route, and reached Chipewyan on September 12. On his second trip, in 1792, Mackenzie proceeded from Chipewyan to the summit of the Rockies via Lake Athabaska, Peace river, and its affluents, making his way to the Pacific through the passes of the mountains, and down the streams on the western slope as best he could.
David Thomson, an energetic but little known traveller, made a track survey in 1799 of Lesser Slave river, and of the Athabaska from the mouth of the Pembina to Clearwater forks. In 1803 he filled in the gaps between the forks and Athabaska lake, and in 1810 ascended the river and crossed the Rockies by Athabaska pass.
Sir John Franklin.
With the first journey of Lieutenant (afterwards Captain Sir) John Franklin, R.N., in 1820, began a series of explorations which extended over a period of about thirty years, in connection with which the study of the natural history and geography of the far north country was carried on more systematically than had hitherto been possible. Franklin was fully equipped by the British Government for scientific work, and was accompanied by Doctor John Richardson, Lieutenant George Back and Lieutenant Robt. Hood—men of acknowledged skill and ability. The expedition left York Factory on September 9, 1819, and, travelling by way of Oxford House and Norway House, arrived on October 22 at Cumberland House where they went into winter quarters. In order to arrange in advance for the further progress of the expedition, Franklin, accompanied by Back, left Cumberland House on January 18, 1820, and, travelling by way of Carleton House, Ile à la Crosse and Methye portage, arrived at Chipewyan on March 26. Finally the party again set out on August 2, 1820, from old Fort Providence, on the north side of Great Slave lake, to ascend Yellowknife river, and on August 20 he reached Winter lake, near which he established his winter quarters. Here wooden houses, dignified with the name of Fort Enterprise, were erected. In June the following year the party descended Coppermine river, covering a distance of three hundred and thirty miles to the sea, and paddled along the coast eastwards, exploring the coast as far eastward as longitude 109° 25′ west and latitude 68° 19′ north, thus exploring Bathurst inlet and Coronation gulf. The story of the dreadful hardships endured by the party on the return trip, one-half of the whole number, including Lieutenant Hood, dying of starvation and exposure, forms one of the most ghastly chapters in the history of Canadian exploration, and its publication did much to deepen the popular impression that the whole of the great northland was a hopelessly inhospitable region. As a matter of fact the disasters which overtook this expedition were due to its commissariat being inadequately outfitted. The Admiralty, who planned the expedition, knew practically nothing about the conditions of travel in the regions that they proposed having explored, and depended for aid upon the Hudson’s Bay Company. That corporation did its best, but was unable to extend to Franklin any official aid after he left Great Slave lake or to supply him with proper provisions. The bitter fight between the two big fur-trading companies had reached a climax; every officer of the Hudson’s Bay Company was needed in the Company’s service, and supplies at the frontier posts were at the lowest ebb. So the expedition plunged into the unexplored wilderness without enough food and inadequately supplied with ammunition.
In spite of the disasters attending the return of this expedition, the British Government, determined upon completing the exploration of the Arctic coast line of the continent, satisfied itself that the route overland was the best for the explorers to follow, and Franklin, having been successful on this first trip in surveying a long stretch of coast to the east of Coppermine river, was appointed to the command of the second expedition to explore the coast to the west of that river. The exploring party spent the winter of 1825-26
At Fort Franklin
at the west end of Great Bear lake, and on June 22, 1826, set out in boats along Bear river and Mackenzie river for the coast. The principal members were Captain John Franklin, Lieutenant George Back (second in command); Doctor John Richardson, surgeon and naturalist; Thomas Drummond, assistant naturalist; E. N. Kendall and P. W. Dease, a chief trader of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who was afterwards associated with Thomas Simpson in explorations west of the Mackenzie and east of the Coppermine. At the delta of the Mackenzie the party separated, one detachment under Doctor Richardson turning to the east and completing a survey of the coast as far as the mouth of the Coppermine. In the meantime Franklin and Back explored the Arctic coast to the westward of the Mackenzie for three hundred and seventy-four miles, passing beyond the northernmost spur of Rocky mountains and returned to Fort Franklin, reaching there September 21. Franklin remained there until February, 1827, when, leaving Back to follow him in the spring, he left for Cumberland House, where he joined Richardson on June 18, 1827.[10]
Some time before this expedition set forth, the crisis which had developed in the rivalry between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Northwest Company[11] had resulted in the union of the two companies under the name of the former and the reorganized company, when called upon by the Admiralty for assistance, was in a better position than the original one had ever been to assist in the work of exploration. Consequently Franklin’s second expedition was properly provisioned and attended by experienced and reliable men. As a result it was unaccompanied by any of the tragic occurrences which marked the former trip.
Meanwhile explorations were being prosecuted by sea among the Arctic islands and channels to the far north, and some of the expeditions were indirectly to contribute to the world’s knowledge of the northern part of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s continental territory. Captain John Ross left England in the “Victory” in 1829 and with his ship’s company was compelled to abandon the vessel in the ice in Regent inlet. They spent altogether four winters within the Arctic circle and were finally picked up in their boats in Lancaster sound by a whaler. The prolonged absence of this party caused great anxiety in England, and in 1833 a search expedition was organized at the cost of the Hudson’s Bay Company and Captain Ross’s friends with government assistance. At the head of the searching party was Captain (afterwards Sir) George Back, R.N., who had instructions to descend Thlew-ece-cho-dezeth or Great Fish river to the coast, exploring the river and adjacent country, as far as possible, as he proceeded. Some months after he had started, Back was notified of the return of the Ross expedition, but was ordered to proceed with his trip for exploratory purposes. Captain Back built as his winter quarters
Old Fort Reliance
on a beautiful spot at the north east extremity of Great Slave lake. His explorations extended over parts of Great Slave, Artillery, Clinton-Colden and Aylmer lakes as well as the whole of Great Fish river, and from the Indians Back obtained some interesting information regarding the adjacent country.
Captain Back, in 1834, descended Great Fish river, since called Backs river, to its mouth. He also surveyed the coasts of its estuary as far as Cape Britannia on the one side and Point Richardson on the other, leaving but a small space of coast line unexamined between his northern extreme and the limits of earlier explorations. The return journey began on August 16. Back reached the mouth of Great Fish river August 21, the head of it on September 17, and Fort Reliance on September 27.
The next journey of exploration in this region was that of Thomas Simpson and Peter Warren Dease,[12] officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company. While the object of their expedition was to complete the survey of the Arctic coast so nearly completed by Franklin, Richardson and Back, they made some notes on the natural resources of the far northern country. Simpson left Fort Garry, the site of the present city of Winnipeg, on December 1, 1836, and, travelling on snowshoes, arrived at Chipewyan on June 1, and, descending Slave and Mackenzie rivers, explored the Arctic coast westward to Point Barrow. They then returned to the Mackenzie, ascended it and Great Bear river, and, crossing Great Bear lake, built a post near the mouth of Dease river, naming it Fort Confidence, and there spent the winter of 1837-38. They left here June 6, 1838, and, after ascending Dease river as far as was practicable, portaged to the Coppermine. They then descended that river to the sea and explored the coast to the eastward as far as Point Turnagain, the farthest point reached by Franklin in 1821. Being unable to proceed farther, they returned to Fort Confidence, where they arrived on September 14, and again wintered there.
An expedition which was to mark the beginning of a most notable epoch in the explorations of the Arctic regions sailed from England, in 1845. Sir John Franklin, with two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, with crews numbering one hundred and twenty-nine persons, left England on May 26, to complete the survey of the north coast of America and to accomplish the northwest passage. The Erebus and the Terror were last seen by a whaling captain July 26, 1845, moored to an iceberg, waiting for an opening in the ice to cross to Lancaster sound.
As time passed without any word of the missing expedition being received, the interest and sympathy of the world were powerfully aroused, and not only England, but France and the United States also despatched
Search Expeditions
to the Arctic. From northwest Canada some historical expeditions made their way overland. In all thirty-five ships and five overland expeditions were engaged in this search. The entire northern coast line of America and the shores of the Arctic[13] were explored with minute care, and much scientific knowledge of value relating to magnetism, meteorology, the tides, geology, botany and zoology was accumulated. Several of the sea expeditions and all of the overland expeditions contributed to our store of knowledge as to the resources of far northern Canada.
For the purposes of this volume the most important of these expeditions, because the most productive of data regarding the natural resources of the region under review, was that dispatched overland from Athabaska district via Mackenzie river in 1848 and 1849. From the rapids of Slave river, Doctor John Richardson and Doctor Rae (both subsequently knighted) pushed on with all possible speed, leaving the heavier boats to follow with the winter supplies, and skirted the Arctic coast eastward to the mouth of the Coppermine river. Thence they travelled overland to the mouth of the Dease river on Great Bear lake. Near this point, on the site of Fort Confidence, established by Dease and Simpson, Rae, whose detachment had ascended Great Bear river and crossed Great Bear lake for this purpose, had erected houses, and here the entire party passed the winter of 1848-49. As early in the spring of 1849 as the season allowed, the party divided on Arctic sea, and Richardson returned to England, while Rae made an attempt to reach Wollaston land. Failing in this, he returned to Fort Confidence, and ascended the Mackenzie to Fort Simpson. In the summer of 1854, under the auspices of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Rae made a journey of exploration along the southern coasts of Wollaston and Victoria lands, still searching for the Franklin expedition. In 1853, when no trace of Franklin could be found elsewhere, Rae again turned his steps in the direction of Gulf of Boothia. First he sought a short cut to the south of Backs river by Chesterfield inlet and Quoich river, which he ascended in a boat for two and a half degrees of latitude (up to 66° north), but finding the river full of rapids and impracticable for his purpose, he returned and hastened north to Repulse bay.
The reports of these expeditions contain several references to the natural resources of the country, but they are not so valuable as would have been the case had time been less a consideration, or had the investigation of mineral deposits and other natural wealth of the country been the chief objective.
Some information as to the resources of the north country was obtained by the British Parliamentary Committee of 1857 already referred to (See p. 3), but most of the evidence had reference to the southern part of Hudson’s Bay Company’s territory now comprised within the settled parts of the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Canadian Parliamentary Investigations.
April 12, 1870, the Senate of Canada appointed a select committee on the subject of Rupert’s land, Red river and the Northwest territory, with a view to collecting information respecting the condition, climate, soil, population, resources and natural products of the country, its trade, institutions, and capabilities and the means of access thereto, with power to send for persons and papers. The committee reported on April 25, 1870. This report with the report of the evidence was printed, in extenso, as an appendix to the Journals of the Senate (33 Victoria). None of the witnesses examined before the committee had ever been in the district north of the North Saskatchewan. One, Joseph Monkman, explained that he had been up the South Saskatchewan as far as Moose lake, and up the north branch of the same river as far as Carlton. He testified that although the country along the Saskatchewan looked promising from an agricultural standpoint, there were “no farms along the river.” Most of the witnesses were asked if they had any information as to the “far northwest,” and all who had heard anything definite regarding that region testified that their information was favourable.
Since the transfer of the northwest from the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Dominion Government, a vast amount of reliable information regarding the great northland has been obtained by Canadian Government explorers, generally engineers reconnoitring in advance of railway construction, members of the staff of the Geological Survey of Canada, or expeditions despatched to various defined areas by the Department of the Interior for the express purpose of investigating their natural resources and determining their suitability for agricultural or industrial developments. More or less extensive trips through sections of the great northland by adventurous sportsmen and naturalists have also contributed considerably to our knowledge of the country.
A very brief account of some of the more productive of these expeditions, with special reference to the routes followed, is necessary to enable the reader to appreciate intelligently the references to the information obtained to be made in the succeeding chapters.
Scientific Investigation of the Country.
In 1872, Professor John Macoun was sent from Edmonton by Mr. (now Sir) Sandford Fleming, who was then exploring for the Canadian Pacific Railway, to explore Peace river and see if there were a pass there. Professor Macoun’s report attracted much attention to this district.
Professor Macoun had then already spent ten years study, theoretical and practical, of botany, natural history and physical geography. In the year 1875 he was appointed botanist to the expedition which, under the leadership of the Director of the Geological Survey, explored Peace river and Rocky mountains. Two years later he was asked by the Dominion Government to write a report on the Northwest territories and availed himself of all reliable information regarding the country. The summers of 1879-80-81 were spent by Professor Macoun in traversing the least known parts and investigating the fauna, flora, meteorology and physical phenomena of the country.
During the years 1878-79 Doctor G. M. Dawson, of the Geological Survey, in conjunction with a Canadian Pacific Railway survey party, made an examination of the region between the mouth of Skeena river on the Pacific coast and Edmonton, including Pine river pass and its approaches, Smoky river and the fertile country north and south of Peace river. The vast extent of country covered left but little time for details, and caused the expedition to assume the character of a rapid reconnaissance survey.
In 1873, Charles Horetzky, C.E., was commissioned by Mr. Sandford Fleming to make a reconnaissance survey through Peace river country and Peace river pass to assist the government in reaching a decision as to the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. Horetzky, who was accompanied by Doctor Macoun, botanist, proceeded via Edmonton, Lesser Slave lake, the confluence of Smoky and Peace rivers, Dunvegan, McLeod’s lake, etc. Besides his official report, Mr. Horetzky wrote a popular account of this trip under the title “Canada on the Pacific,” which contained much interesting information as to Peace river district.
In 1875, Doctor Selwyn, Director of the Geological Survey, mapped and reported upon the upper part of Peace river, as far down as the mouth of Smoky river, and in the same year Professor John Macoun, who accompanied him in the capacity of botanist, proceeded down the river to Lake Athabaska, and returned east by the Athabaska-Clearwater route, while Doctor Selwyn reascended Peace river, and returned by British Columbia.
Doctor Robert Bell, F.G.S., F.R.S.C., etc., in a period of active service in the Geological Survey extending over more than forty years, contributed very largely to our knowledge of Northern Canada. He was medical officer, naturalist and geologist on the “Neptune,” the “Alert” and the “Diana” expeditions to Hudson bay, and his reports of those voyages, as well as of his overland trips, are very valuable. Three of his exploratory trips, two in the eastern division, the other in the western part of the country under review, are especially interesting. In 1878 he made a track-survey and a geological examination of the boat-route from Lake Winnipeg to Hudson bay by way of Oxford and Knee lakes, and the rivers thence to York Factory. He also made topographical and geological surveys of the lower part of Nelson river, and of the upper part of the same stream, from Lake Winnipeg nearly to Split lake, leaving unfinished the central part. Between 1878 and 1891 he explored Nelson river, the lower part of Grass river, and parts of Churchill and Little Churchill rivers. In 1879, Doctor Bell, assisted by Mr. Cochrane, completed his survey of Nelson river and Churchill river basins; the country covered in that region included altogether Gull lake, Grass river, Sipiwesk lake, Jackfish river, Knee lake, God’s lake, Island lake, Split lake and the coast of Hudson bay for a few miles on either side of Churchill. These explorations practically re-opened a section of country which must have been familiar to those engaged in transportation via the old route between Hudson bay, Red river and Saskatchewan river districts. Before reaching Norway House, although diligent enquiry was made by Doctor Bell, no reliable information could be obtained of the Churchill, or the central part of the Nelson, or the country lying between these two streams. And even at Norway House very little was known on the subject. This arose from the fact that both these rivers had long before been abandoned as “voyaging” routes by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and also that no Indians lived at or near the parts to be examined.
In 1882, a track survey and geological examination of Athabaska river below the mouth of Lac La Biche river, was made by Doctor Bell.
In 1886, Doctor Bell conducted an exploration of portions of Attawapiskat and Albany rivers, and of the country between Lonely lake (Lac Seul) and James bay. Doctor Bell reached the Albany from Wabigoon via Lake Minnietakie, and crossed the watershed to the Attawapiskat from the highest of the chain of lakes on the Eabamet, which flows into the Albany about ninety miles in a straight line below the outlet of Lake St. Joseph. The Attawapiskat was followed to James bay.
A micrometer survey of the lower part of both Peace and Athabaska rivers was made by William Ogilvie, D.L.S., in 1884, and in 1888, Mr. Ogilvie, having completed some surveys in the Yukon, arrived at Fort McPherson via Peel river to make
An Exploration of Mackenzie river,
Great Slave lake and river, and Lake Athabaska. Mr. Ogilvie ascended this great waterway and prepared a report which is still much consulted. In 1891 Mr. Ogilvie, under the direction of the Surveyor-General, again made an exploratory survey in the same region. Mr. Ogilvie’s instructions were to make a thorough exploration of the region drained by Peace river and its tributaries, between the boundary of British Columbia and Rocky mountains and to collect any information that might be of value relating to that region. As it was desirable that he should, if practicable, connect the end of his micrometer survey of Mackenzie river made in 1888 with that made on Great Slave river in the same year, which he was then unable to accomplish on account of high water, Mr. Ogilvie took with him the necessary instruments, but he found it impossible to complete this work. This time, he descended the great northwestern waterway from Athabaska to Fort Simpson, and, ascending the Liard and “East Branch” or Nelson river, as it has since been officially called, reached Port Nelson on September 15, ascending Nelson and Sikanni Chief rivers and portaging through the woods to St. John on Peace river. Another interesting report was the result of this really hazardous trip.
In 1886, Mr. A. P. Low of the Geological Survey, accompanied by Mr. J. M. Macoun, crossed Lake Winnipeg from Red river to Berens river and ascended the latter to a portage to the head waters of Severn river, making an exploration of the country from Lake Winnipeg to Hudson bay.
In 1887, Mr. R. G. McConnell, B.A., of the Geological Survey, descended to Mackenzie river from the Yukon via Liard river, and during that year and the following one explored a considerable part of Mackenzie basin including Slave river, Salt river, Hay river, part of the western end of Great Slave lake, etc. The result was embodied in a most interesting official report (Part D. Annual Report, Vol. IV., 1888-89, Geological Survey of Canada.) The country between Peace and Athabaska rivers north of Lesser Slave lake, comprising an area of about forty-four thousand square miles, remained entirely unknown until Mr. McConnell’s exploration was undertaken.
In the years 1888, 1889, 1890 and 1891, Mr. McConnell effected a most important exploration of the unexplored country between Peace river and Athabaska river and in the basin of the Athabaska. He investigated as thoroughly as he could the phenomena of the so-called tar-sand deposits and the
Oil Springs of Athabaska region,
about which the few hunters, traders and travellers who had hitherto penetrated so far had brought back such astonishing tales. His report, printed in the annual report of the Geological Survey of Canada for 1890-91 (New Series, Vol. V, Part I), excited much interest at the time throughout the scientific world, and is still regarded as the standard authority on the subject.
In the summer of 1889, a well-known English sportsman set out upon a trip to Great Slave lake district with the object of making some explorations. This was Mr. Warburton Pike, and his book “The Barren Ground of Northern Canada”, describing his trip, gives a great deal of interesting information about that part of the “Barren Lands” just north of Great Slave lake and the region about the headwaters of Backs river. Mr. Pike, who combined the qualities of a good writer, a trained explorer and a keen sportsman, proceeded during the summer of 1889 via Great Slave lake and the canoe-portage route by Francois, de Mort, Nez Croche, du Rocher, Camsell, Mackay and de Gras lakes to the headwaters of Coppermine river. He spent the winter in camp just south of Mackay lake and at Fort Resolution, and the following summer proceeded via Great Slave lake, and a chain of lakes to the east of those he had traversed on his canoe-portage route the previous season, to Aylmer lake. Thence he proceeded down Backs river to Beechey lake, south of Bathurst inlet. He came out via Clinton-Colden and Artillery lakes, and from Athabaska district made a trip up Peace river.
Mr. J. Burr Tyrrell, of the Geological Survey, explored the country bordering on the east shore of Lake Winnipeg in 1890 and 1891.
In 1892, Mr. Tyrrell, assisted by Mr. D. B. Dowling, made an exploration of the country between Athabaska and Churchill rivers and north of the latter waterway. The routes covered included a course from Prince Albert northward through Cree lake and down Beaver river to Churchill river, and north across the country by Cree lake to Black river, thence through Wollaston lake and up through Geikie and Foster rivers to the Churchill. In 1893 and 1894 Mr. Tyrrell conducted two important exploration parties. In 1893 the route taken was via Chipewyan, Lake Athabaska, Fond du Lac, Black lake, Chipman lake, Selwyn lake, Daly lake, Dubawnt river and lake, Aberdeen, Schultz and Baker lakes, Chesterfield inlet, Churchill, York Factory, Norway House and West Selkirk. In 1894 the route followed was via Cumberland House, Sturgeon-weir river, Churchill river, Reindeer river and lake, Cochrane river, Kasba lake, Kasba river, Ennadai lake, Kazan river, Kathkyed lake, Kazan river again, Ferguson lake and river to Hudson bay. Mr. Tyrrell and party came out via Split lake, Norway House and Selkirk.
The Vast Wilderness,
through which the lines of exploration upon these occasions passed, lies for the most part north of latitude 59°, and extends from the coast to Hudson bay, westward to Lake Athabaska, comprising an area of not less than two hundred thousand square miles. The work of the party embraced a survey of the north shore of Lake Athabaska, Chipman, Cochrane, Telzoa or Dubawnt, Thlewiaza, Kazan and Ferguson rivers, in whole or in part, Chesterfield inlet, and the shore of Hudson bay from Chesterfield inlet to Churchill, as well as a line overland in winter, from Churchill to York Factory, and another from Churchill to Split lake.
