The Unexploited West / A Compilation of all of the authentic information available at the present time as to the Natural Resources of the Unexploited Regions of Northern Canada

by Ernest J. Chambers

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.