Canadian Exploration Literature : An Anthology

by Warkentin, Germaine

• ISBN13: 9781550026610
• ISBN10: 1550026615
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-23
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	9	(4)
Introduction to the Second Edition	13	(6)
Introduction to the First Edition	19	(17)
Part I Discovery or Contact?
1660 Pierre-Esprit Radisson travels to Lake Superior	36	(30)
1690 Henry Kelsey carries the Governor's pipe to the interior	66	(14)
1729-1739 The Sieur de La Vérendrye looks for the Western Sea	80	(18)
Part II The Great North-West in the Eighteenth Century
1743 James Isham dispels the vapours by recording his observations	98	(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