1862 Sketches of an overland trek across Canada .......

[RattlesnakeJack]

While searching online for Red River cart images (see my separate postings elsewhere on my new scale model "Red River guncart") I came across a very interesting website hosted by Library and Archives Canada, featuring about 90 images (the entire contents of a sketchbook, many aketches enhanced with watercolor, though a few are obviously incomplete) done by an artist named William Hind, who accompanied a group of "Overlanders" who travelled out to the Goldfields of Brtish Columbia by land, in 1862. 

This was an unusual way of getting there, since there were certainly no established roads in those days (especially in the Canadian Rockies) and the Canadian Pacific Railway was still almost a quarter century in the future.  Accordinly, in those days, the usual means of getting to British Columbia was by sea - except for a short land jaunt across the Isthmus of Panama.  This party of about 150 men chose to travel overland, going by train first to St. Paul, Minnesota, thence down the Red River to Fort Garry, where they outfitted for the trek across the Canadian prairies which is documented by this sketchbook.  That leg of the journey was done with Red River carts (which is why my search turned up this resource, although west of Fort Edmonton the carts were abandoned in favour of using the oxen and horses as pack animals, due to the increasingly rugged terrain, largely alternating muskeg and heavily forested hills, in the final approaches to the Rocky Mountains.

Quite a fascinating find!  Here is a link to the whole works, with just a couple of sample images to whet your appetite ...

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/hind/index-e.html







I particularly like these two sketches. which nicely sum up the one constant of the "scenery" which would not have changed for weeks and months en route -

[Ransom Gaer]

That is an interesting sketchbook.  I never thought of the Red River Oxcarts being used on an expedition like that.  I always thought of them as part of the trade between St. Paul and Fort Garry.  I grew up in central Minnesota so I am familiar with the oxcarts. I grew up 15 miles from the continental divide between the Mississippi River system and the Red Riiver system.

Thanks for providing the link.

Ransom Gaer

[Alice]

That's a fascinating insight, thanks for sharing the link. I was surprised to see a sketch of a lion on page 57 - surely not a native animal?

[RattlesnakeJack]

... I was surprised to see a sketch of a lion on page 57 ...

I thought that rather strange, as well.  I assume that he was trying his hand at copying an image from a book, or something like that.  We do have lions - i.e. puma, mountain lion - but not the maned variety!!

[Steel Horse Bailey]

I'm not an Art critic, nor do I play one on TV. 

The late, Mr. Hind certainly was talented!  Thanks for posting this, R. Jack!