Rupert's Land and Arctic

1818-1855

38 Listed.

The charter of 1670 granted by Charles II gave the Hudson's Bay Company monopoly over the whole Hudson Bay watershed, an area of ??nearly 3.9 million km2, a third of the current Canada.

In 1821, the North West Company merged with the Hudson's Bay Company, their territorial possessions now combining the tributaries of the Arctic Oceans to the north and the Pacific to the west. However, the two territories (Northwest Territories and Rupert Land) remained separate until 1870. At that time, three years after the creation of Canada, the Canadian government formally acquired them to form the new Territories of Canada. North West. In addition, part of Rupert's Land becomes Manitoba.

Following the acquisition of this territory, the government is seeking to integrate Western Canada into the nation through the construction of a transcontinental railway and the promotion of colonization. Many religious groups were attracted, including Doukhobors and Mennonites from Russia, as well as Mormons from the United States.

By the mid-1840s, Britain was again engaged in a border dispute with the United States, this time over a territory stretching from the Prairies to the Oregon Territory and to the coast of the United States. Peaceful. In 1845, during the Oregon Quarrel, Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company for Rupert's Land - a vast territory that encompassed the dividing line of all the waters flowing into the Bay of Rupert. Hudson - recommended that Métis be trained in local defense groups to act in concert with the Royal Marines and the Royal Navy and that other groups of Métis and Indian riflemen be organized to accompany the regular forces to be dispatched in the Red River District.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the exploration and development enterprises of the British Empire and, later, the Canadian Confederation, were greatly facilitated by the knowledge of the territory of the Aboriginal peoples and the adaptation of or the modification of their transport techniques and clothing. Of these numerous expeditions, there is Arctic Inland Waterway exploration and Royal Engineers' construction and survey work across Canada, from the East to the Center, and from the Rocky Mountain Meadows to the Rocky Mountains. Peaceful. The exploration of Canada's North includes the name of Pierre Saint-Germain. Métis of French descent and Denée, born about 1790, he was employed as a traveler by the North West Company from 1812 to 1818. After serving with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1819, he joined in June the following year to the group of fifteen men engaged by Sir John Franklin for his first exploration of Arctic lands. The expedition, however, quickly turned very badly. Mandated to map the Arctic coast in concert with a group traveling by sea, Franklin's team soon faced a shortage of game and the loss of many boats.

Aboriginal people played a key role in northern mapping and exploration. By Order No. 469 of the Admiralty, issued on January 28, 1859, the "Arctic Medal 1818-1855" was granted retroactively to all officers and employees of the Bay Company. Hudson (CBH) who had been assisting British naval expeditions in the Arctic from 1818 to 1855. Included were members of the many teams searching for Sir John Franklin and the crews of Erebus and Terror disappeared in 1845 and never found alive.

The list of recipients of this medal reads as a directory of Métis families,

Iroquois and other Aboriginal families who, in the middle of this century, had established a long tradition of service as travelers and smugglers in the service of the Company. Among others, there are Iroquois names such as Charles Arahota, Ignace Montour and Thomas Karahotan; Cree, jumping and Algonquin names such as Pierre Kanaquasse, Thomas Misteagun and John Nooquay; and those of well-known Métis families, including the Kirkness, Desjurlais, Fidler, Isbister, Saint-Pierre and Rondeau families.