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Scientific Expeditions
Throughout the nineteenth century, knowledge
of the Northwest was slowly accumulated from military
surveys, gentlemen
travellers, moral
crusaders, and commercial
interests. By mid-century, mounting pressures
in Britain, the United States, and eastern Canada
to learn more about the continental interior prompted
two major scientific expeditions, both of which
were far more systematic and more encompassing
than anything previously undertaken.
The first, a British-financed expedition under
the command of Captain John Palliser and Dr. James
Hector, arrived at Fort William (now Thunder Bay)
in mid-June 1857. A combined military and civilian
operation, the Palliser
expedition investigated the entire region
extending from Lake Superior to the Rocky Mountains
and remained in the field for three years.
The second, a Canadian-backed expedition, arrived
on the northwestern shore of Lake Superior about
six weeks after Palliser. It was strictly a civilian
operation and was led by Henry
Youle Hind, a professor of chemistry at Toronto's
Trinity College, and Simon
James Dawson, a civil engineer from Quebec.
In its first year, the expedition examined the
area between Lake Superior and Red River (the
Red River Exploring Expedition) and the following
year between Red River to the South Saskatchewan
River (the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring
Expedition), and determined "the best route
for opening facile communication through British
Territory."
The observations of both expeditions were communicated
in official reports,
maps and,
in the case of Hind's expedition, artworks
and photography.
Together, the two expeditions started the long
process that would eventually see European perceptions
of the West transformed from a desolate and lonely
landscape to an unspoiled paradise full of promise.
Further
Readings
See also
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