A Year Inland: The Journal of a Hudson's Bay Company Winterer

Gratien Allaire is a professor of history at Laurentian University in
Sudbury, Ontario.

Initiating what was to be Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) policy for the
following 20 years, Anthony Henday was sent inland to meet with nations
of the interior and induce them into traveling to York Fort to trade.
Chief Factor James Isham instructed him to note his daily progress, the
characteristics of the country, and the nations he would meet. Guided by
Connawappa, a “Home Indian,” and Attickosish, a “Leading
Indian,” Henday left York on June 26, 1754, traveled to the interior,
wintered in various locations, and returned on June 24, 1755. Contrary
to the previous journal editor and later commentators, editor Barbara
Belyea concludes that “Tracing Henday’s Route” with any precision
is almost impossible; she reminds the reader that the London Committee
had a very limited confidence in Henday’s findings. Furthermore,
according to her “Uses of Henday’s Journal,” there is no
indication that Henday was the first European to see the Rockies.

The impossibility of determining which of the four “original”
versions of Henday’s journal is the most authentic led Belyea to
present the four versions, and their wide variations. Also included are
Isham’s instructions, contemporary maps, and the notes appended to one
version of the journal. Belyea’s notes are 100 pages of information
drawn from journals and HBC documents for 1754–74 and published
studies on the period.

In her commentary, Belyea also attempts to determine the meaning of the
terms “Indians, Asinepoets and Archithinues” found in Henday’s
journal and other HBC documents. Historians must be careful with
designations: early travelers and fur traders used 18th-century English
terminology to define and interpret a very different First Nation
reality; besides, these terms evolved with time. For example, their
identification of “nations” with territories may be misleading; most
likely, families or small clans were the main social units interacting
with each other on a land not necessarily defined by geographical,
linguistic, or “national” boundaries.”

A Year Inland is an excellent piece of scholarship and a valuable
contribution to the literature on travel, fur trade, and First Nations
of Western Canada; it is also a standard for the critical edition of
historical documents.