Samuel Hearne
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PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A YANKEE IN CANADA: SAMUEL HEARNE “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE “A YANKEE IN CANADA”: I got home this Thursday evening, having spent just one week in Canada and travelled eleven hundred miles. The whole expense of this journey, including two guidebooks and a map, which cost one dollar twelve and a half cents, was twelve dollars seventy five cents. I do not suppose that I have seen all British America; that could not be done by a cheap excursion, unless it were a cheap excursion to the Icy Sea, as seen by Hearne or McKenzie, and then, no doubt, some interesting features would be omitted. I wished to go a little way behind that word Canadense, of which naturalists make such frequent use; and I should like still right well to make a longer excursion on foot through the wilder parts of Canada, which perhaps might be called Iter Canadense. SAMUEL HEARNE ALEXANDER MACKENZIE HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE 1745 February (1744, Old Style): Samuel Hearne, who would become the initial European to make an overland excursion across northern Canada to the Arctic Ocean, was born in London, England. His father was a senior engineer of the London Bridge Water Works but would die during Samuel’s early childhood. CANADA THE FROZEN NORTH NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE 1756 The beginning of the Seven Year War (Prussia and Britain versus France, Austria, and Russia), which, as its name implies, would not come to its completion until 1763. Curiously, also in this year the British government purchased the right to export 600,000 Russian trees each year, to supply the Royal Navy. Having received merely an elementary education, Samuel Hearne joined the Royal Navy as midshipman under the fighting captain Samuel Hood. He would remain with Hood throughout the war, seeing considerable action including the bombardment of Le Havre. Due to the French and Indian War (which is the name this Seven Year War would travel under in the New World), the Reverend Gideon Hawley needed to retreat from his missionary station among the Six Nations at the town of Oquaga on the Susquehanna River near what is now Windsor, New York. Traveling to Boston, he became chaplain of Colonel Richard Gridley’s regiment. Relative quiet prevailed on the Great Lakes of North America. Both sides there were, however, feverishly preparing for the inevitable confrontation that lay ahead. The French continued their construction of the massive new works at Fort Carillon while the British continued fortifying the head of Lake George. At Lake George a massive fleet of bateaus was constructed, and two small sloops. On the lake and on shore, there were skirmishes between Roger’s Rangers and the French. NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE 1763 At the end of the Seven Years’ War, having served in the English Channel and then the Mediterranean, Samuel Hearne left the British navy. His activities during the following three years are unknown. Jonathan Carver quit the colonial army with a determination to explore the territories that had been acquired by the British as a result of the French and Indian War. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE 1766 February: Samuel Hearne joined the Hudson’s Bay Company as a mate on the sloop Churchill, in the Inuit trade out of Prince of Wales Fort, Churchill, Manitoba. CANADA THE FROZEN NORTH THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE 1767 In Nova Scotia, the township of Yarmouth was laid out. The governor and council constituted a court of appeal, and a new provincial seal was received from England. Samuel Hearne found the Arctic Ocean by traversing the Canadian Northwest Territory on foot. Starting at Fort Prince of Wales on the western shore of Hudson Bay, near the mouth of the Churchill River, Hearne set out on foot with his Indian guide Matonnabbee. He would visit the Coppermine River, and Great Slave Lake. Following the Coppermine to its mouth, on July 18, 1771 he would claim the northern coast of Canada in the name of the Hudson Bay Company. Arctic Explorations Date Explorer Nation Discovery 1501 Gaspar Corte Real Portuguese Newfoundland 1536 Jacques Cartier French St. Lawrence River, Gaspe Peninsula 1553 Richard Chancellor English White Sea 1556 Stephen Burrough English Kara Sea 1576 Martin Frobisher English Frobisher Bay 1582 Humphrey Gilbert English Newfoundland 1587 John Davis English Davis Strait 1597 Willem Barents Dutch Spitsbergen, Novaya Zemyla 1611 Henry Hudson English Hudson Bay 1616 William Baffin English Ellesmere and Devon Islands 1632 Thomas James English James Bay 1741 Vitus Bering Russian Alaska 1772 Samuel Hearne English Coppermine River to the Arctic Ocean 1779 James Cook British Vancouver Island, Nootka Sound 1793 Alexander Mackenzie English Bella Coola River to the Pacific 1825 Edward Parry British Cornwallis, Bathurst, Melville Islands 1833 John Ross British North Magnetic Pole 1845 John Franklin British King William Island 1854 Robert McClure British Banks Island, Viscount Melville Sound HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE THE FROZEN NORTH July 1, Wednesday: Samuel Hearne applied a chisel to a smooth, glaciated surface at Sloop’s Cove near Fort Prince of Wales. CANADA THE FROZEN NORTH THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE 1768 The British Captain Samuel Wallis had been the initial white man to reach Tahiti, but six months later the French navigator Louis-Antoine de Bougainville arrived. Having successfully posed as a boy in order to ship out with Captain Bougainville, Jeanne Barè was on this vessel. She became the first female to circumnavigate the globe. (Women were, it seems, also serving in the British Navy, avoiding discovery because seamen traditionally slept in their clothing, and because bathing so seldom happened that it could readily be avoided.) In Nova Scotia, the township of Clare was laid out. CANADA Samuel Hearne became mate on the brigantine Charlotte and participated in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s short-lived black-whale fishery. He examined portions of the coast of Hudson Bay with a view to improving the cod fishery (during this period he acquired a reputation for snowshoeing). THE FROZEN NORTH DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE 1769 The 1st scientific observations for latitude and longitude in western Canada were made at Fort Prince of Wales (now Churchill) in preparation for observing the transit of Venus by commission of the Royal Society. The surveyors were Messrs. Joseph Dymond and William Wales. Samuel Hearne was able to improve his navigational skills by observing William Wales. CARTOGRAPHY THE FROZEN NORTH November 6, Monday: Samuel Hearne’s initial attempt at northern exploration began as a search for potential copper mines, in tundra terrain where the ground is permanently frozen to within a few inches of the surface, described by natives as “Far-Away-Metal River.” This tundra, during the summer thaw, becomes an impenetrable mosquito- and fly-infested swamp — travel during the winter, however challenging, is the only possibility. The search party was large and took along with it a lot of cumbersome European equipment. Eventually, when native guides deserted, the expedition would be doomed to failure. CANADA THE FROZEN NORTH WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF People Mentioned in A Yankee in Canada “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE 1770 December: Learning from the mistakes of his initial couple of expeditions, Samuel Hearne began to travel as the sole white man with a group of Chipewyans led by Matonabbee. Eight of this headman’s wives served in the place of Huskie sled dogs, pulling along the sledge. The intent was to travel overland toward the Coppermine River during the winter, and then during the summer descend to the Arctic in canoes. The expedition arrived at the great caribou summer migration in time for the spring hunt, and laid up a store of meat. A band of warriors joined the expedition with the intention of hunting down and destroying rumored intruding Inuit people. Matonabbee instructed his wives to wait, in the Athabasca country to the west, until he returned. CANADA THE FROZEN NORTH HDT WHAT? INDEX SAMUEL HEARNE SAMUEL HEARNE 1771 July 14, Friday: Samuel Hearne and the large group of ethnic-cleansing-bent native Americans reached the Coppermine River, a small stream flowing over a rocky bed in the “Barren Lands of the Little Sticks.” A few miles down the river, just above a cataract, they sighted the domed wigwams of an Eskimo encampment. CANADA THE FROZEN NORTH CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT July 17, Monday, 1AM: Matonabbee and the native Americans fell upon the sleeping Eskimo in a ruthless genocide.