First published by Oxford University Press in 1993, this is a groundbreaking collection of early writing inspired by the opening of a continent. With maps, notes, and thumbnail biographies of these early writers, "Canadian Exploration Literature" is an entry point for both the casual reader and the student of Canadian literature into the beginnings of a literate response to the awe and wonder inspired by an unfolding geography and the literary fundamentals of new nationhood.

Acknowledgements

(4)

Introduction to the Second Edition

(6)

Introduction to the First Edition

(17)

Part I Discovery or Contact?

1660 Pierre-Esprit Radisson travels to Lake Superior

(30)

1690 Henry Kelsey carries the Governor's pipe to the interior

(14)

1729-1739 The Sieur de La Vérendrye looks for the Western Sea

(18)

Part II The Great North-West in the Eighteenth Century

1743 James Isham dispels the vapours by recording his observations

(16)

1754-1755 Anthony Henday is permitted to enter the Blackfoot chief's camp

114

(14)

1760-1776 Alexander Henry survives a native attack on Fort Michilimackinac, and later travels to the prairies

128

(24)

1769-1791 Andrew Graham becomes a scholar of Bayside life

152

(15)

1770-1772 Samuel Hearne journeys across the Barren Lands

167

(38)

1772-1773 Matthew Cocking seeks trading partners inland

205

(15)

1791-1792 Peter Fidler spends a winter with the Chipewyans

220

(22)

Part III Life and Letters among the Explorers

1771-1782 Edward Umfreville considers "The Present State of Hudson's Bay"

242

(16)

1775-1788 Peter Pond describes a trader's life in the Mackinac region

258

(11)

1784-1812 David Thompson imagines the Great Plains

269

(49)

1787-1788 Saukamapee describes native life on the plains

318

(11)

1800-1816 Daniel Harmon tries to make an Eden in the wilderness

329

(21)

Part IV An Imperial Enterprise

1789 "Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land"

350

(47)

1792 Captain George Vancouver carries out an Imperial agenda

397

(21)

1808 Simon Fraser descends a perilous river

418

(23)

1819-1821 Captain John Franklin is bested by the Arctic

441

(43)

1823 George Nelson encounters "the Dreamed"

484

(14)

Part V Prelude to Settlement

1830 Frances Simpson travels west

498

(16)

1832 Governor George Simpson satirizes fur trade personalities

514

(17)

1840 Letitia Hargrave: the Factor's wife

531

(16)

1857-1858 Professor Henry Youle Hind visits a civilization on the wane

547

(16)

1857-1859 Captain John Palliser considers prairie settlement

563

(23)

Suggestions for Further Reading

586

(5)

New Suggestions for Further Reading

591

(3)

Index

594

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