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Canadian Exploration Literature: An Anthology: 1660-1860
By Germaine Warkentin
Oxford University Press. $39.00
Review by MICHAEL PEAKE --
Che-Mun Editor
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Despite the lack of appeal Canada's history has to those inclined to political correctness and whining, the fact remains that our country became known to the western world because of the demand for the fur of a large brown rodent. As the demand grew, areas in eastern Canada became trapped out and the traders had to penetrate the openings in the vast forest by canoe, pushing deeper into the unknown.
Previous to the fall of Quebec in 1763, most of the inland trade was carried on by the French, who went so far west as to almost cut off the trade of the Hudson's Bay Company, which at that time was still relying on Indians to bring furs to their door. Afterwards, the French trade was taken over by Scotch and English traders, who eventually pooled their concerns and formed the North West Company in 1784.
These upstarts were so successful at diverting trade away from the HBC, the Honourable Company was forced to establish its own posts in the interior to try and gain back some of its lost business. The competition between the two companies grew so intense that both companies, exhausted by the intense rivalry, merged in 1821.
Despite the wide spread impression that fur traders were uneducated immoral rum-runners, the journals kept many traders - while we like to call them explorers, they were really glorified salesmen on road trips - have been published in whole or in part, most during the first 20 years of this century. Many of these journals and diaries overflow with first hand accounts of the lives of traders, voyageurs, and natives. A few of these traders bothered to expand their journals in narratives, to provide greater detail on events and places briefly mentioned in their daily record.
Germaine Warkentin, a professor of English, at Victoria College, University of Toronto, has assembled a selection of 25 of the most well known journals and narratives in this anthology. In it, she includes the writings of, among others, two of the better known early French Traders, several HBC and NorWesters, such as Samuel Hearne, Alexander Henry, Alexander Mackenzie, and the greatest of them all, David Thompson. She has also included the journals of the British military men, John Franklin and John Palliser, and two women, Frances Simpson (and her nasty little husband, George) and Letitia Hargrave. A wide range of authors over a 200 year period.
To the average canoeist, most of these published journals are inaccessible. Groups and associations, such as the Champlain Society, have done a great service by printing many of these, but most are held by collectors or reference libraries and, when they can be found for sale, are usually prohibitively expensive. While it may seem strange for an English Scholar to take an interest in these relics of the past, it is these scholars who, for almost the past 20 years, have been peering into these texts. It is their efforts that have sparked the revival of interest in Canada's history and accounts for the surge of new works on the subject. By examining these journals and diaries, a new view of our past is emerging. I must stress that this process is not revisionism, a vile practise becoming too common these days, rather it is a re-examination of what these journals actually say not what an editor believes it should say.
As some of us venture into more remote northern regions with our canoes, sometimes the only reference materials available are these journals or diaries. In many cases, these not only provide the necessary information, such as the length of certain rapids or which side of the river a portage is on, they also give the reader a sense of what it was like to travel in that time. When I read the journals that mention places I've been, I remember that some of these have changed little since the journal was written - but such instances are becoming fewer each year.
This experience is more heightened if I have copies of these journals with me on trip and I'm fortunate to be at an exact place mentioned by an author and I feel a strong bond to the land. Ghosts wander along the portages, voices rise above the sound of the rapids and I am back in time two hundred years. It is quite a feeling to know that others have been there before you and that you feel the same things they did, or that you experienced the same conditions they had, albeit with all the modern conveniences of today's tripper.
In the past, historians dissected early journals and narratives in search of facts, dates and names. This latest revival looks at the writer's power of observation, to see how they viewed their world and the people in it. David Thompson, for example, was the most observant of all the traders. From an early age he knew that to work effectively with the many Native tribes, he had to know their language, respect their customs and work within their rules when in their country.
During the first wave of exploration covered by this book, the white man's view of Natives was in extreme opposition to that south of the border. Fur traders needed the Natives where they were, to provide the furs and the provisions for the canoemen and wintering traders, while the Indians needed the trade goods they brought, especially guns and ammunition. In the U.S., the westward expansion was driven by agriculture, and for this to continue, Indians had to be cleared from the land, resulting in many well-publicized and one-sided battles.
During the next wave, 'explorers' came in search of determining the continent's boundaries, arising partly from the threat of American expansion, or Manifest Destiny. Finally came the surveys for settlement. However, once the missionaries and European women began to settle in north west, the traditional relationship between Natives and white traders decayed into the tragic situation we have today.
It is important for us to know of our past because it defines what we are as a country. We are distinct from our southern neighbours in many ways. For the first 500 years, geography shaped our collective personality, however, Americans know more about the early travelers in the west than Canadians.
The reason for this is that Americans always promote their history; they're proud of it. While they almost ignore the Native people of North America, that attitude is changing faster there than in Canada. Like the saying 'Youth is wasted on the young', perhaps our history is wasted on us.
It's not free trade that's responsible, rather it's television. Now I'm not suggesting we flood the airwaves with National Film Board vignettes, but I do recommend we get over the political correct attitudes, examine where we have come from and remember who we are. Professor Warkentin's edition is a great start to rediscovering our past. It may also, depending on the depth of your pockets, whet your appetite for more and launch you into an expensive but rewarding hobby.
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