FAMOUS JOURNEYS IN RUPERT'S LAND.
Fascination of an unknown land--Adventure, science,
or gain--Lieutenant Lefroy's magnetic survey--Hudson's Bay
Company assists--Winters at Fort Chipewyan--First scientific
visit to Peace River--Notes lost--Not "gratuitous canoe
conveyance"--Captain Palliser and Lieutenant Hector--Journey
through Rupert's Land--Rocky Mountain passes--On to the coast--A
successful expedition--Hind and Dawson--To spy out the land for
Canada--The fertile belt--Hind's description good--Milton and
Cheadle--Winter on the Saskatchewan--Reach Pacific Ocean in a
pitiable condition--Captain Butler--The horse Blackie and dog "Cerf
Vola"--Fleming and Grant--"Ocean to ocean"--"Land fitted for a
healthy and hardy race"--Waggon road and railway.
The vast area of Rupert's Land and the adjoining Indian territories have
always had a fascination for the British imagination; and not alone its
wide extent, but its being a fur traders' paradise, and in consequence
largely a "terra incognita," has led adventurous spirits to desire to
explore it.
Just as Sir John Mandeville's expedition to the unknown regions of Asia
in the fourteenth century has appealed to the hardy and brave sons of
Britain from that early day; and in later times the famous ride of
Colonel Burnaby to Khiva in our own generation has led Central Asia to
be viewed as a land of mystery; so the plains of Rupert's Land, with the
reputed Chinese wall thrown around them by the Hudson's Bay Company's
monopoly, have been a favourite resort for the traveller, the mighty
hunter, and the scientist.
It is true no succeeding records of adventure can have the interest
for us that gathers around those of the intrepid Verendrye, the
mysterious Hearne, or the heroic Alexander Mackenzie, whose journeys we
have already described, yet many daring adventurers who have gone on
scientific or exploratory expeditions, or who have travelled the wide
expanse for sport or for mere curiosity, may claim our attention.
LEFROY'S MAGNETIC SURVEY.
The discovery of the magnetic pole by Sir John Ross, and the continued
interest in the problems connected with the Arctic Sea, the romance
of the North land, and the dream of a North-West Passage, led to the
desire to have a scientific survey of the wide expanse of Rupert's Land.
The matter was brought to the notice of the Royal Society by Major,
afterwards General Sir Edward Sabine, a noted student of magnetism.
Sir John Herschell, the leading light on the subject of physics,
succeeded in inducing the Society to pronounce a favourable opinion
on the project, and the strong influence of the Royal Society, under
the presidency of the Marquis of Northampton, induced the Lords of the
Treasury to meet the estimated expenses, nine hundred and ten pounds,
with the understanding that, as stated by the President, gratuitous
canoe conveyance would be provided by the Hudson's Bay Company in the
territories belonging to them.
Lieutenant, afterwards General Sir Henry Lefroy, a young artillery
officer, was selected to go upon the journey. A circular letter was sent
to the Hudson's Bay Company posts by Governor Simpson, directing that
every assistance should be given to the survey. Lefroy, having wintered
in Montreal, was given a passage on May 1st, 1842, on the canoes for
the North-West. Passing up the Ottawa and along the fur traders'
route, he soon reached Sault Ste. Marie and Fort William; magnetic
observations, accurate observations of latitude and longitude being
made at the Hudson's Bay Company posts along the route. Kakabeka Falls
and the various points along the Kaministiquia route were examined, and
exchanging the "canot de maître" for the "canot de Nord," by way of Lake
of the Woods and Lake Winnipeg, the observer arrived at Fort Garry on
June 29th, having found Sir George Simpson at Lower Fort Garry.
After a close examination of the Red River Valley and some geological
observations on the west side of Lake Winnipeg, Lefroy made his way to
Norway House, and then by the watercourses, four hundred miles, to York
Factory. Having done good work on the Bay, he made the return journey to
Norway House, and on August 22nd, Cumberland House on the Saskatchewan
was gained. Here he adopted the latitude and longitude taken by
Franklin's two land expeditions, and here took seven independent
observations of variation and dip of the magnetic needle.
Now striking energetically northward, and stopping long enough at the
posts to take the necessary observations, the explorer arrived at Fort
Chipewyan on September 23rd. It was twelve years since the dwellers on
Lake Athabasca had been visited by any traveller from the south, and
Lefroy's voyageurs, as they completed their three thousand miles of
journey, decked out in their best apparel, made the echoes of the lake
resound with their gay chansons. Lefroy wintered in the fort, where the
winter months were enjoyed in the well-selected library of the Company
and the new experiences of the fur trader's life, while his voyageurs
went away to support themselves at a fishing station on the lake.
The summer of 1843 was spent in a round of thirteen hundred and forty
miles, going from Lake Athabasca, up the Peace River to Fort Dunvegan,
then by way of Lower Slave Lake to Edmonton, and down the Saskatchewan
to Cumberland. Lefroy claims that no scientific traveller had visited
the Peace River since the time of Alexander Mackenzie, fifty-five years
before. Unfortunately, Lefroy's notes of this journey and some of his
best observations were lost in his return through the United States, and
could not be replaced.
In March, 1844, Lieutenant Lefroy left Lake Athabasca, and travelled
on snow shoes to Fort Resolution on Great Slave Lake, and thence to
Fort Simpson, four hundred and fifty miles, having his instruments
for observation borne on dog sleds. This journey was made in nineteen
days. Waiting at the Fort till May, he accomplished the descent of the
Mackenzie River after the breaking up of the ice, and reached Fort Good
Hope. The return journey to Fort Resolution was made at a very rapid
rate, and the route thence to Lake Athabasca was followed. The diary
ends June 30th, 1844.
At the close of the expedition some misunderstanding arose as to the
settlement of the accounts. The Hudson's Bay Company had promised to
give "gratuitous canoe conveyance." The original plan of the journey
was, however, much changed, and Lieutenant Lefroy was a much greater
expense to the Company than had been expected. A bill of upwards of
twelve hundred pounds was rendered by the Hudson's Bay Company to the
Royal Society. After certain explanations and negotiations a compromise
of eight hundred and fifty pounds was agreed on, and this was paid by
the Treasury Department to the Company.
The work done by Lieutenant Lefroy was of the most accurate and valuable
kind. His name is remembered as that of one of the most trustworthy
of the explorers of the plains of Rupert's Land and the North, and is
commemorated by Fort Lefroy in the Rocky Mountains. It is true his
evidence, recorded in the Blue Book of 1857, was somewhat disappointing,
but his errors were those of judgment, not of prejudice or intention.
PALLISER AND HECTOR.
The approach of the time when the twenty-one years' lease of the Indian
territories granted by the Imperial Parliament to the Hudson's Bay
Company was drawing near a close in 1857, when the Committee of the
House of Commons met in February of this year to consider the matter. A
vast mass of evidence was taken, and the consideration of the Blue Book
containing this will afford us material for a very interesting chapter.
The interest in the matter, and the necessity for obtaining expert
information, led the Imperial Government to organize an expedition under
Captain John Palliser, R.N.A., of the Royal Engineers. With Captain
Palliser, who was to go up the Canadian lakes to the interior, was
associated Lieutenant Blakiston, R.N., who received orders to proceed
by ship to York Factory and meet the main expedition at some point in
Rupert's Land. The geologist of the expedition was James Hector, M.D.
(Edin.). J. W. Sullivan was secretary and M. E. Bourgeau, botanist.
After the usual incidents of an ocean voyage, some difficulty with the
Customs authorities in New York arose as to the entry of astronomical
instruments, which was happily overcome, and after a long journey by
way of Detroit, Sault Ste. Marie was reached, where Palliser found two
birch bark canoes and sixteen voyageurs awaiting him, as provided by the
Hudson's Bay Company. Sir George Simpson had lately passed this point.
Journeying along the fur traders' route, the explorers found themselves
expected at Fort Frances, on Rainy River.
Here a deputation of Indians waited upon them, and the old chief
discoursed thus: "I do not ask for presents, although I am poor and my
people are hungry, but I know you have come straight from the Great
Country, and we know that no men from that country ever came to us and
lied. I want you to declare to us truthfully what the Great Queen of
your country intends to do to us when she will take the country from the
fur company's people. All around me I see the smoke of the white men to
rise. The 'Long Knives' (the Americans) are trading with our neighbours
for their lands and they are cheating them and deceiving them. Now, we
will not sell nor part with our lands."
Having reached Fort Garry, Captain Palliser divided his party, sending
one section west, and himself going south to the boundary line with the
other. Going west from Pembina, Palliser reached the French half-breed
settlement of St. Joseph (St. Jo.), and some days afterwards Turtle
Mountain. Thence he hurried across country to Fort Ellice to meet the
other portion of his expedition.
While the tired horses rested here he made an excursion of a notable
kind to the South-West. This was to the "Roches Percées" on the Souris
River. This is a famous spot, noted for the presence of Tertiary
sandstone exposures, which have weathered into the most fantastic
shapes. It is a sacred spot of the Indians. Here, as at the "Red
Pipestone Quarry," described by Longfellow, and not more than one
hundred and fifty miles distant from it, Sioux, Assiniboines, and Crees
meet in peace. Though war may prevail elsewhere, this spot is by mutual
agreement kept as neutral. At this point Palliser saw a great camp of
Assiniboines.
Returning from this side excursion, the Captain resumed his command, and
having obtained McKay, the Hudson's Bay Company officer at Fort Ellice,
with Governor Christie's permission, set off by way of Qu'Appelle Lakes
for the elbow of the Saskatchewan.
On the South Saskatchewan Palliser came to the "heart of the buffalo
country." The whole region as far as the eye could reach was covered
with the buffalo in bands varying from hundreds to thousands. So vast
were the herds, that he began to have serious apprehensions for his
horses, as "the grass was eaten to the earth, as if the place had been
devastated by locusts."
Crossing the Saskatchewan the explorers went northward to Fort Carlton
on the north branch, where the party wintered while Captain Palliser
returned to Canada, paying 65_l._ to a Red River trader to drive him
five hundred and twenty miles from Fort Garry to Crow Wing, the nearest
Minnesota settlement. Palliser's horse, for which he had bargained, was
killed at Pembina, and he walked the four hundred and fifty miles of the
journey, which was made with painful slowness by the struggling horses
and sleds of the traders.
In June of the following year Palliser left Fort Carlton, part of his
command going to the Red Deer River, the other part to visit Fort Pitt
and Edmonton House. From Edmonton the explorer reports that during
the summer, his men had succeeded in finding a pass through the Rocky
Mountains, one not only practicable for horses, but which, with but
little expense, could be rendered available for carts also.
He also states the passes discovered by him to be:--
(1) Kananaskis Pass and Vermilion Pass;
(2) Lake Pass and Beaver Foot Pass;
(3) Little Fork Pass;
(4) Kicking Horse Pass--six in all, which, with the North Kootenay (on
British territory), make up seven known passes.
Having wintered at Edmonton, he satisfied himself that this region so
far north and west is a good agricultural region, that the Saskatchewan
region compares favourably with that of the Red River Valley, that the
rule of the country should be given over by the Hudson's Bay Company to
the general Government, and that a railway could be built easily from
the Red River to the eastern foot of the Rocky Mountains.
Orders having reached Palliser to proceed, he undertook, in the summer
of 1859, a journey across the Rocky Mountains, following in part the
old Hudson's Bay Company trail. On St. Andrew's Day, the party arrived
at the Hudson's Bay Company post at Vancouver on the Columbia, and was
welcomed by Mr. Graham, the officer in charge.
Taking steamer down the Columbia with his assistant Sullivan, Captain
Palliser went to Victoria, a Hudson's Bay Company establishment on
Vancouver Island, whither they were followed by Dr. Hector. Journeying
south-west to San Francisco, he returned, _viâ_ Isthmus of Panama, to
New York and England.
The expedition was one of the best organized, best managed, and most
successful that visited Rupert's Land. The report is a sensible,
well-balanced, minute, and reliable account of the country passed over.
HIND AND DAWSON'S EXPLORATION.
In the same year that Palliser's expedition was despatched by the
British Government to examine the resources and characteristics of
Rupert's Land, a party was sent by the Canadian Government with similar
ends in view, but more especially to examine the routes and means of
access by which the prairies of the North-West might be reached from
Lake Superior.
The staff of the party was as follows: George Gladman, director;
Professor Henry Youle Hind, geologist; W. H. E. Napier, engineer; S. J.
Dawson, surveyor. These, along with several foremen, twelve Caughnawaga
Iroquois, from near Lachine, and twelve Ojibway Indians from Fort
William, made up a stirring canoe party of forty-four persons.
In July, 1857, the expedition left Toronto, went by land to Collingwood
on Lake Huron, embarked there on the steamer _Collingwood_, and passing
by Sault St. Marie, reached on August 1st Fort William at the mouth of
the Kaministiquia. Mr. John McIntyre, the officer of the Hudson's Bay
Company in charge of Fort William, has given to the writer an account
of the arrival of the party there with their great supply canoes,
trading outfit, and apparatus, piled up high on the steamer's deck--a
great contrast to the scanty but probably more efficient means of
transport found on a Hudson's Bay Company trading journey. The party in
due time went forward over the usual fur traders' route, which we have
so often described, and arrived at Fort Garry early in September.
As the object of the expedition was to spy out the land, the Red River
settlement, now grown to considerable size, afforded the explorers an
interesting field for study. Simple though the conditions of life were,
yet the fact that six or seven thousands of human beings were gaining a
livelihood and were possessed of a number of the amenities of life, made
its impress on the visitors, and Hind's chapters VI. to X. of his first
volume are taken up with a general account of the settlement, the banks
of the Red River, statistics of population, administration of justice,
trade, occupations of the people, missions, education, and agriculture
at Red River.
Having arrived at the settlement, the leaders devised plans for
overtaking their work. The approach of winter made it impossible to plan
expeditions over the plains to any profit. Mr. Gladman returned by canoe
to Lake Superior early in September, Napier and his assistants took
up their abode among the better class of English-speaking half-breeds
between the upper and lower forts on the banks of the Red River. Mr.
Dawson found shelter among his Roman Catholic co-religionists half a
mile from Fort Garry. He and his party were to be engaged during the
winter between Red River and the Lake of the Woods, along the route
afterwards called the Dawson Road, while Hind followed his party up the
western bank of Red River to Pembina, and his own account is that there
was of them "all told, five gentlemen, five half-breeds, six saddle
horses, and five carts, to which were respectively attached four poor
horses and one refractory mule."
This party was returning to Canada, going by way of Crow Wing, thence by
stage coach to St. Paul, on the Mississippi, then by rail unbroken to
Toronto, which was reached after an absence of three and a half months.
The next season Hind was placed in charge of the expedition, and
with new assistants went up the lakes in May, leading them by the
long-deserted route of Grand Portage instead of by Kaministiquia. The
journey from Lake Superior to Fort Garry was made in about twenty-one
days. On their arrival at Red River the party found that Mr. Dawson
had gone on an exploring tour to the Saskatchewan. Having organized
his expedition Hind now went up the Assiniboine to Fort Ellice. The
Qu'Appelle Valley was then explored, and the lake reached from which two
streamlets flow, one into the Qu'Appelle and thence to the Assiniboine,
the other into the Saskatchewan. Descending the Saskatchewan, at the
mouth of which the Grand Rapids impressed the party, they made the
journey thence up Lake Winnipeg and Red River to the place of departure.
The tour was a most interesting one, having occupied all the summer.
Hind was a close observer, was most skilful in working with the Hudson's
Bay Company and its officers, and he gained an excellent view of the
most fertile parts of the country. His estimate of it on the whole
has been wonderfully borne out by succeeding years of experience and
investigation.
MILTON AND CHEADLE.
The world at large, after Hind's expedition and the publication of
his interesting observations, began to know more of the fur traders'
land and showed more interest in it. In the years succeeding Hind's
expedition a number of enterprising Canadians reached Fort Garry by way
of St. Paul, Minn., and took up their abode in the country. A daring
band of nearly 200 Canadians, drawn by the gold fever, started in 1862,
on an overland journey to Cariboo; but many of them perished by the way.
Three other well-known expeditions deserve notice.
The first of these was in 1862 by Viscount Milton and Dr. Cheadle.
Coming from England by way of Minnesota to Fort Garry, they stopped at
Red River settlement, and by conveyance crossed the prairies in their
first season as far as Fort Carlton on the North Saskatchewan, and
wintered there. The season was enjoyable, and in spring the explorers
ascended the Saskatchewan to Edmonton, and then, by way of the Yellow
Head Pass, crossed the Rocky Mountains. Their descent down the Thompson
River was a most difficult one. The explorers were nearly lost through
starvation, and on their arrival by way of Fraser River at Victoria
their appearance was most distressing and their condition most pitiable.
A few years ago, in company with a party of members of the British
Association, Dr. Cheadle visited Winnipeg, and at a banquet in the city
expressed to the writer his surprise that the former state of scarcity
of food even on Red River had been so changed into the evident plenty
which Manitoba now enjoys. Milton and Cheadle's "The North-West Passage
by Land" is a most enjoyable book.
CAPTAIN BUTLER.
In the early months of the year 1870, when Red River settlement was
under the hand of the rebel Louis Riel, a tall, distinguished-looking
stranger descended the Red River in the steamer _International_.
News had been sent by a courier on horseback to the rebel chief that
a dangerous stranger was approaching. The stalwart Irish visitor
was Captain W. F. Butler, of H.M. 69th Regiment of Foot. As the
_International_ neared Fort Garry, Butler, with a well-known resident of
Red River settlement, sprang upon the river-bank from the steamer in the
dark as she turned into the Assiniboine River.
He escaped to the lower part of the settlement, but the knowledge that
he had a letter from the Roman Catholic Archbishop Taché led to the
rebel chief sending for and promising him a safe-conduct. Butler came
and inspected the fort, and again departed to Lake Winnipeg, River
Winnipeg, and Lake of the Woods, where he accomplished his real mission,
in telling to General Wolseley, of the relief expedition coming to drive
away the rebels, the state of matters in the Red River.
Captain Butler then went west, crossed country to the Saskatchewan,
descended the river, and in winter came through, by snow-shoe and dog
train, over Lakes Winnipegoosis and Manitoba to the east, and then to
Europe.
Love of adventure brought Captain Butler back to the North-West. In
1872 he journeyed through the former fur traders' land, reaching Lake
Athabasca in March, 1873. Ascending the Peace River, he arrived in
Northern British Columbia in May. Through three hundred and fifty miles
of the dense forests of New Caledonia he toiled to reach Quesnel, on the
Fraser, four hundred miles north of Victoria, British Columbia, where he
in due time landed.
Captain Butler has left a graphic, perhaps somewhat embellished, account
of his travels in the books, "Great Lone Land" and "Wild North Land."
The central figure of his first book is the faithful horse "Blackie" and
of the second the Eskimo dog "Cerf-Vola." The appreciative reader feels,
however, especially in the latter, the spirit and power of Milton's and
Cheadle's "North-West Passage by Land" everywhere in these descriptive
works.
FLEMING AND GRANT.
Third of these expeditions was that undertaken in 1872, under the
leadership of Sandford Fleming, which has been chronicled in the
work "Ocean to Ocean," by Rev. Principal Grant. The writer saw this
expedition at Winnipeg in the summer of its arrival. It came for the
purpose of crossing the plains, as a preliminary survey for a railway.
The party came up the lakes, and by boat and portage over the traders'
route, and the Dawson Road from Lake of the Woods to Red River, and
halted near Fort Garry. Going westward, they for the most part followed
the path of Milton and Cheadle. Fort Carlton and then Edmonton House
were reached, and the Yellow Head Pass was followed to the North
Thompson River. The forks of the river at Kamloops were passed, and
then the canoe way down the Fraser to the sea was taken. The return
journey was made by way of San Francisco. The expedition did much to
open the way for Canadian emigration and to keep before the minds of
Canadians the necessity for a waggon road across the Rocky Mountains
and for a railway from ocean to ocean as soon as possible. Dr. Grant's
conclusion was: "We know that we have a great North-West, a country like
old Canada--not suited for lotus-eaters to live in, but fitted to rear a
healthy and hardy race."