From Wasteland to Utopia: Changing Images of the Canadian in the Nineteeth Century

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 1987 From Wasteland to Utopia: Changing Images of the Canadian in the Nineteeth Century R. Douglas Francis University of Calgary Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Francis, R. Douglas, "From Wasteland to Utopia: Changing Images of the Canadian in the Nineteeth Century" (1987). Great Plains Quarterly. 424. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/424 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. FROM WASTELAND TO UTOPIA CHANGING IMAGES OF THE CANADIAN WEST IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY R. DOUGLAS FRANCIS It is common knowledge that what one This region, possibly more than any other in perceives is greatly conditioned by what one North America, underwent significant wants or expects to see. Perception is not an changes in popular perception throughout the objective act that occurs independently of the nineteenth century largely because people's observer. One is an active agent in the process views of it were formed before they even saw and brings to one's awareness certain precon the region. 1 Being the last area of North ceived values, or a priori assumptions, that America to be settled, it had already acquired enable one to organize the deluge of objects, an imaginary presence in the public mind. experiences, and impressions into some mean Imbued with a preconceived view of what the ingful and comprehensive world view. Percep region should be like, early visitors to the area tion changes as new information or altered imposed their image on the region. During the perspectives are integrated and thus, one's nineteenth century, three dominant images or view of the "objective" external world is perceptions of the Canadian West successively affected. held sway. It was seen as a wasteland in the The perception or "imagery" of the Ca early nineteenth century, a pristine wilderness nadian West is the subject of this article. As I in the mid-nineteenth century, and a utopia have used it, the term "West" refers to the by the late nineteenth century. This article North West in the fur trade era and to the chronicles these changing images of the Ca Prairie Provinces in the post-confederation era. nadian West. Associate professor of history at the University of THE WEST AS WASTELAND Calgary, R. Douglas Francis has edited several The present-day Canadian West first came books on Canadian history and the prairie West. to the attention of Europeans when British He is the author of Frank H. Underhill, and French fur traders penetrated the area in Intellectual Provocateur (1986). the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The first white man to see the [GPQ 7 (Summer 1987): 178-194J interior of present-day western Canada was 178 \VASTElA1':O TO CTOPIA 179 1be I.nile belt as described by Palliser and Hind. • Palliser·s ·triangle. / --Treeline. ./ I FIG. 1. The Canadian W est. Reprinted fr o m Images 0/ the Plains: The Role 0/ Human i\Tature in Sertlemem, edited bv Brian \X '. Blou et and \lerlin P. Lawso n, by permission of University of1\ebras ka Press. CopYr ight & 19i5 bv the Universit \· of ~ eb r aska Press. twenty-year-old H enrv Kelsev , an employee of im age of the \Vest. In 17 83 Alexander l\1acken the Hudson's Bav C ompany. Kelsev in 1690 : ie, an employee of the Montreal-based North we nt from York Facton r on the Ba;.' into the \'\'est C ompan y, made his great exploratory western interior, perhaps as far south as the journey fr om :-dontreal to the Arctic O cean countrv between the Saskatchewan and A ss i and later to the Pacific. He recorded his niboine ri vers . As h is first report, he submitted impressions of the area in his Vo)age s from a ninety line poem. In his verse , Kelsey \fontreal (1 801). l'v1 ackenzie was optimistic introduced many of the descriptive terms for about the fur trade potential of the area, but the region that reappeared in later fur-trading voiced pessimism about settlement possibili reports. He called the southern gr ass lands a ties . "The proportion of the region that is fit "plain," first used the term "desert" to describe for cultivation is very small, and is still less in the lonely empty sp ace, and termed the general the interior parts; it is also very difficult of terrain "barren ground" because of the lack of access ; and whilst an y land remains unculti trees. "Desert" may have meant "deserted" for vated to the South of it, there will be no Kelsev, a common meaning of the term in his temptation to settle it. Besides, its climate is time, e\'en though, of course, the are a was not in general sufficiently genial to bring the inhabited b ~ ' Indians. Throughout he stressed frui ts of the earth to maturity." D avid Thomp "the Emynent D angers that did often me son, another ~ o rth \Ve st C ompany trader (a attend" in this terra incognita, this land where former employee of the Hudson's Bay Compa no white man h ad previously been.: He ny) and an expert cartographer, made a similar convey ed the image of cold, inhospitable, sweeping indictment of the North West. He desolate, barren was teland where an individu concluded in his }manal that although there al was at risk of danger to his life. were distinct regions within this vast territory, Later fur traders reinforced this negative each with its own unique geography, re- 180 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 1987 sources, assets, and liabilities, overall the On the map that accompanied Long's report North West territories "appear to be given by of his 1819-20 expedition was written in bold Providence to the Red Man for ever."l letters: "Great Desert." The term was applied The fur traders and explorers naturally to a region that extended from the Mississippi pictured the territory as a wasteland in terms to the Rockies and from the Gulf of Mexico to of settlement potential and therefore down the Parkland belt, north of the Great Plains. played its agricultural potential since the two "In regard to this extensive section of the activities were seen as incompatible with each country," Edwin James wrote, "we do not other. After all, as employees of the fur trading hesitate in giving the opinion that it is almost companies they were predisposed to observe wholly unfit for cultivation and, of course, the area in terms of its fur trade potential. uninhabitable by a people depending on Furthermore, these early explorers and traders agriculture for their subsistence. "i Here then pursued their exploits in the northern regions was a new negative image of the North West as where the fur trading potential was best. The a desert bad land, condemned as being as most popular fur trade brigade route, for unsuited for settlement as the northern wilder example, ran from York Factory up the Nelson ness. River to Norway House and Cumberland It remained for the British-sponsored Pallis House and north to the Churchill River, thus er expedition and the Canadian-backed Hind never leaving the rugged Canadian Shield. expedition, both begun in 1857, to popularize Their generalizations about the region were the term "desert" in describing the grassland based often only on their limited exposure to region of the Canadian prairies. Both expedi the far north. Even those European explorers tion leaders expected to find desert-like condi and travelers who did reach the prairie lands tions in the prairie region along the American quickly gained a negative image of the North border. Evidence exists that they had read West. Whether from Britain or France, they American scientific literature on the Plains came from heavily forested areas of the world area with reference to the "Great American where successful agriculture was associated Desert," and John Palliser had previously with abundant vegetation, trees, and a moist explored the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers climate. They came upon the barren grass area.' Henry Youle Hind became the first to lands, devoid of trees and lush vegetation, and apply directly the term "Great American could only conclude, based on their own Desert" to the present-day Canadian prairies. experience, that the land was ill-suited for In the map accompanying the Narrative of his settlement. As the historical geographer, Wre western expeditions of 1857-58, published in ford Watson, notes, "There developed in the 1860, Hind applied two sweeping generaliza minds of Europeans an equation that went as tions to the area south of the North Saskatche follows: bareness equals barrenness equals wan River: "the Great American Desert" to infertility equals uselessness for agriculture. "4 the southern plains, and "a Fertile Belt" to the The American fur traders and explorers area immediately north, stretching in an arc also fostered a negative image of the North from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky West. As Americans began exploring the area Mountains, passing through the Red River west of the Mississippi River in the early 1800s, and Saskatchewan River countries, and ex they were struck by the arid, sterile landscape. tending into the foothills at the 49th parallel.; Zebulon Pike, in his exploration of the area In the remainder of his Narrative, Hind dwelt along the Arkansas River in 1806-07, referred on the positive qualities of the Fertile Belt for to it as a "sandy sterile desert." But to Stephen settlement, and downplayed the desert area to H.

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