Woman Who Mapped Labrador: The Life and Expedition Diary of Mina Hubbard 9780773572997

Table of contents :
Contents
Illustrations
Maps
Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Text and Context of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary
The Life of Mina Benson Hubbard: Finding Her Way, 15 April 1870 – 16 June 1905
Labrador Expedition Diary, 16 June – 27 December 1905
The Life of Mina Benson Hubbard Ellis: Finding Her Way, 1906–1956
Appendix: A Note on the Text of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W

Citation preview

THE WOMAN WHO MAPPED LABRADOR

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the Woman wha

Mapped Labrador THE LIFE AND EXPEDITION

DIARY OF

MINA HUBBARD

Diary introduced and edited by Roberta Buchanan and Bryan Greene Biography by Anne Hart

MCGILL-QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY PRESS M O N T R E A L & K I N G S T O N • LONDON • ITHACA

© 2005 Introduction: The Text and Context of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary: Roberta Buchanan, Bryan Greene The Life of Mina Benson Hubbard: Finding Her Way: Anne Hart Labrador Expedition Diary, 16 June — 23 December 1905 (Mina Benson Hubbard): Betty Cawkill Ellis Notes to the text of Mina Hubbard's diary: Roberta Buchanan, Bryan Greene Maps: Bryan Greene Topographic data on Maps 6-18 are reproduced under licence from Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, with permission of Natural Resources Canada. Appendix: A Note on the Text of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary: Roberta Buchanan

L I B R A R Y AND A R C H I V E S CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Hubbard, Leonidas, Mrs. The woman who mapped Labrador : the life and expedition diary of Mina Hubbard / diary introduced and edited by Roberta Buchanan and Bryan Greene ; biography by Anne Hart. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7735-2924-1

ISBN 0-7735-2924-1

1. Hubbard, Leonidas, Mrs. 2. Hubbard, Leonidas, Mrs. — Diaries. 3. Hubbard, Leonidas, Mrs. - Travel — Newfoundland and Labrador - Labrador. 4. Labrador (N.L.) — Discovery and exploration. 5. Explorers Newfoundland and Labrador - Labrador — Biography. 1. Buchanan, Roberta II. Greene, B. A. (Bryan A.) III. Hart, Anne IV. Title.

Legal deposit second quarter 2005 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec

FC2I93.3.H82A3 2005 917.18'2024'092 c20 05-901372-9

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

Set in 11/14 Adobe Garamond Pro with Zapfino Extra Book design and typesetting by zijn digital

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Funding has also been provided by the Memorial University Publications Subvention Program. McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada, through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

Contents

Illustrations Maps

xi

Abbreviations Preface

vii

xiii

xv

Acknowledgments

xvii

Introduction: The Text and Context of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary 1 ROBERTA B U C H A N A N AND BRYAN G R E E N E

The Life of Mina Benson Hubbard: Finding Her Way, 15 April 1870 - 16 June 1905 47 A N N E HART

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16 June — 27 December 1905 105 MINA H U B B A R D

(edited by Roberta Buchanan, with annotations by Roberta Buchanan and Bryan Greene)

The Life of Mina Benson Hubbard Ellis: Finding Her Way, 1906-1956 351 A N N E HART

vi

Contents

Appendix: A Note on the Text of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary Notes

441

Bibliography Index 491

471

439

Illustrations

The Life of Mina Benson Hubbard: Finding Her Way, 15 April 1870 - 16 June 1905 James Benson 53 Jane Wood Benson 53 Mina as a young child 55 Mina and her brother Bert, ca. 1881 57 The school at Bensons' Corners 58 The Benson sisters and brothers, ca. 1883 59 The student nurse, 1897 Leonidas Hubbard

64

67

A winter picnic, ca. 1901 74 Leonidas Hubbard at North West River

78

Dillon Wallace at North West River 79 George Elson

79

Wallace and Elson toiling up the Susan River "Hubbard's condition is pitiable" Mina in mourning 88

83

80

viii

Illustrations

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16 June — 27 December 1905 Wallace's crew, 26 June 1905 120 Mina embarking, 27 June 1905 124 George Elson 125 Job Chapies 130 Joe Iserhoff 132 Gilbert Blake 135 Two pages of Mina's diary 137 Mina's compass 138 "On The Trail"

142

"Up The Fierce Nascaupee" 143 "Geo. placed three smaller rocks and I put one on top of all" 162 "Washing-Day"

185

"The ridge separating the lake from the river" 196 "Gertrude Falls" "Stormbound"

204 221

"Shooting The Rapids" 238 "A North Country Mother And Her Little Ones" "The Camp On The Hill" 247 "The Nascaupee Chief And Men" 254 "With The Nascaupee Women" "Bridgman Mountains" "The Arrival At Ungava" Betsy's letter

256

268 272

293

Wallace and Easton on Lake Michikamau 313

246

Illustrations

The Life of Mina Benson Hubbard Ellis: Finding Her Way, 1906-1956 "The Author"

366

Marriage to Harold Ellis, 14 September 1908 373 Rt Hon. John Ellis 375 Maria Rowntree Ellis 375 Wrea Head

376

Mina with Mahlo and John, 1911 378 66 Redington Road 383 Mina with John, Margaret, and Mahlo, 1915 387 The drawing-room at Redington Road

394

John, Mina, Mahlo, and Margaret, Georgian Bay, 1929 399 At Hubbard's grave, Haverstraw, 1937 409 Mina's brochure, 1938 411 Mina and Donna Benson Creates, 1945 419 Mina with Margaret and twins, Shinaine and Michael Mina and Betty Cawkill Ellis, 1953 428 Coulsdon South Station 433 Mahlo Ellis Hollywood, 1993 434 Memorial plaque at Mina's birthplace, Bewdley 437

420

ix

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Maps

Introduction: The Text and Context of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary 1 The Hudson's Bay Company's Ungava venture, 1830 to 1841 5 2 Survey routes of A.P. Low in the Labrador-Ungava Peninsula, 1884 to 1896 7 3 Northeast section of A.P. Low's map of the Labrador-Ungava Peninsula 8 4 Mina Hubbard's map

fold-out map following page 490

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16 June — 27 December 1905 5 Halifax to North West River, 16-26 June 108 6 North West River to Red Wine River, 27-28 June 122 7 Red Wine River to Wapustan River, 28 June - 10 July 128 8 Wapustan River to Seal Lake, 10-18 July 154 9 The Red Wine and Wapustan portage routes around the rapids on the lower Naskaupi 164—5 10 Seal Lake to Maid Marion Portage, 17-26 July 170 11 Maid Marion Portage, 25-29 July 188 12 The Maid Marion, Bibikwasin, and Dillon Wallace portage routes around the upper gorge of the Naskaupi 198-9

xii

Maps

13 Maid Marion Falls to Lake Michikamau, 29 July - 2 August

202

14 Lake Michikamau to Hubbard Lake, 2-10 August 214 15 Hubbard Lake to Canyon Camp, 10-17 August

234

16 Canyon Camp to north end of Indian House Lake, 17—21 August 250 17 Indian House Lake to Bridgman Mountains, 21—24 August 18 Bridgman Mountains to George River Post, 24-27 August

260 266

19 George River Post to Quebec City, 22 October - 20 November 316

Abbreviations

CNSA

Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives

DAB

Dictionary of American Biography

DCB

Dictionary of Canadian Biography

DNB

Dictionary of National Biography

DNE

Dictionary of Newfoundland English

DW HBC LH MH NA NAET OED

Dillon Wallace Hudson's Bay Company Leonidas Hubbard Mina Hubbard National Archives of Canada North Adams Evening Transcript Oxford English Dictionary

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Preface

The three collaborators on this book came together from different directions, united by a common interest in Mina Hubbard. The book is the result of the combined efforts of many years of research. Roberta Buchanan, recently retired as professor of English literature at Memorial University, was involved in setting up the Women's Studies program at Memorial and has a particular interest in women's autobiographical writing. She undertook to edit the diary and provide the explanatory notes, and also to address issues of gender, race, and class, and examine the diary as a literary text. Anne Hart, a historian, former head of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies at the Queen Elizabeth n Library at Memorial, and now its honorary research librarian, tracked down the manuscript of the diary (hitherto known only from the microfilm in the National Archives of Canada) and was responsible for its acquisition by Memorial University. Intrigued by Mina Hubbard's complex personality, she undertook to write her biography, focusing on Mina's life both before and after the watershed summer of 1905. Bryan Greene, former director of the Geological Survey of Newfoundland and Labrador, and an ardent canoeist, contributed his scientific expertise and his experience of canoeing in Labrador. He was responsible for the scientific, historical, and geographic aspects, and also for the notes on topography, toponymy, and the accuracy of Mina's mapping. He has provided new maps of each section of Mina's route, not only for her passage through Labrador but also for her journeys to and from Labrador, enabling the reader to follow her progress. He has also described the Naskaupi and George Rivers from the perspective of a present-day canoeist.

xvi

Preface

The aim of this book is to provide the text of Mina Hubbard's diary together with her biography, setting the summer of 1905 in the wider context of her life and times. Mina's A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador, first published in 1908, has been reprinted several times: Breakwater Books published a paperback version in 1981, and in 2004 McGillQueen's University Press published a splendid new hardcover edition edited by Sherrill Grace. Although Mina's book was based on her diary, the diary contains material that she did not choose to include in her book. This publication will make her diary available for the first time to the wider readership it deserves. We have been able to use the rich resources of the Archives of Memorial University Library's Centre for Newfoundland Studies, which contain not only the diaries of Mina Hubbard and George Elson of the 1905 expedition, but also those of Leonidas Hubbard (1903), Dillon Wallace (1903, 1905, and 1913), and Leigh Stanton (1905). Together these provide a rich contextual background to Mina Hubbard's 1905 journey. All references to A Woman's Way ate to Sherrill Grace's edition. We follow current usage in the spelling of Naskaupi River and Naskapi, the Innu band, but follow Mina Hubbard's spelling, Nascaupee, on the maps. Roberta Buchanan, Anne Hart, and Bryan Greene

Acknowledgments

Roberta Buchanan: I thank my colleagues at Memorial University who generously gave of their expertise: Marguerite Mackenzie and Jean Briggs for advice on Innu-aimun, Cree, and Inuktitut; William Kirwin, of the Dictionary of Newfoundland English, for help in glossing the text; and Peter Scott, for botanical advice. Also to Peter Armitage, Faith Balisch, Bill Barker, lona Bulgin, Robert Hollett, Gordon Jones, Valerie Legge, Patrick O'Flaherty, Hans Rollmann, Ron Rompkey, Shannon Ryan, Don Steele, Robert Sweeny, and Annette Staveley. Thanks to the Department of English for providing logistical support, and to its unfailing executive and secretarial staff: Cathy Murphy, Renee Clowe, Jillian Gosse, and Brenda Smith. And to Sharon Wall, Administrative Services. Thanks also to Bernice Morrison, a descendant of George Elson's sister (Emily Elson Corston), for information on the Elson family; Gwynneth Hoyle, for references to George Elson in the Revillon Archives; Richard Preston, for permission to quote his interview with John Blackned on George Elson and for sending photographs of Elson; and John S. Long. Thanks to the Explorers Club, New York, for permission to quote from Clifford Easton's diary - in particular to their archivists, Janet Baldwin and Clare Flemming. Thanks also to the J.R. Smallwood Foundation for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies for a research grant for a trip to New York to read the Easton diary. Thanks to Dalhousie University Archives for permission to quote from the Alfred Dickie Papers; the Hudson's Bay Company Archives for use of their material; the Peary-Macmillan Arctic Museum, Bowdoin College, for permission to use the photograph of Gilbert Blake; the National Archives of Canada; and the Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

xviii

Acknowledgments

Thanks to other Mina Hubbard scholars: Pierre Berton, James West Davidson, John Rugge, Sherrill Grace, Wendy Roy, Lisa Dempsey, and Lisa LaFramboise. Thanks to a long string of research assistants, both graduate and undergraduate, who over the years transcribed Dillon Wallace's voluminous diaries and correspondence, and did bibliographical legwork: Melissa Babbey, Deirdre Cooper, Will Grossman, Louise Gravelle, Juanita Herrell, Jennifer Higgins, Susen Johnson, Jillian Kelly, Marcia Mack, Jim Mackey, Tammy MacNeil, Win Mellor, Sherry Mercer, James Michaud, Milan Parab, Nora Pyne, and Lynn Thomas. Thanks to the librarians and archivists of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, Memorial University, especially Joan Ritcey, Deborah Andrews, Bert Riggs, Linda White, Gail Weir, and Susan Hadley; and to the Maritime History Archive, Memorial University. For moral support and good cheer: Michael Calcott, Ann Escott, Linda Wynne, Garry Purcell, Robert Nicolle, Robert Sweeny, ElizabethAnne Malischewski, Joan Scott, Lillian Bouzane, and all my mates in the Newfoundland Writers' Guild — and Miss Ginger. Above all, thanks to Bryan Greene, "Eagle," and to Anne Hart, "Great Heart." Anne Hart: I am greatly indebted to all who helped in my search for Mina Benson Hubbard Ellis. Seven of them deserve special thanks. The first three live in the North Yorkshire village of Scalby, to which I travelled in 1993 at the invitation of Mahlo Ellis Hollywood, Mina's eldest daughter. It is she who has been my most valuable guide in charting much of her mother's life and providing leads to further research. As you will see, her memory is keen and her words vivid. Exactly the same can be said of Betty Cawkill Ellis, Mina's daughter-in-law and chief confidante in her later years. As well, Betty has been a valuable ally in building up documentation on Mina's life in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives, with gifts of letters, photographs, and, most significantly, the Labrador diaries of the Hubbard expeditions. Betty's daughter, Judith Ellis Stevens, has been my chief liaison with Scalby in recent years, patiently relaying questions and conveying answers. In Ireland, Benson (Ben) Russell — a son of Mina's daughter Margaret, whom I visited in Reading the year before her death in 1997 — has contributed many family memories and documents, as well as much encouragement and good humour. In Toronto, Donna

Acknowledgments

xix

Benson Creates (deceased 2002) was my very first informant and consistently my most helpful in providing a Canadian perspective on Mina's life. Also in Toronto, Janice Tyrwhitt, a consummate writer and editor, has generously shared her earlier biographical work on Mina Hubbard. Some of the most enjoyable moments in my quest have been spent with Jan over long lunches discussing matters Mina. Many of her comments and suggestions enhance this work. In Bewdley, Donna McGillis, a most knowledgable local historian, twice took me under her wing in the role of guide to the landscape of Mina's earlier life and antecedents, and later gave me much assistance by letter. At various stages, these seven have taken time to read drafts, or parts of drafts, of my manuscript, as have Joan Clark, Sherrill Grace, Susan Hart, Peter Hart, and Bert Riggs. Their critical attention and suggestions have been enormously useful. Besides my chief family informants, thanks go also to a further cadre of relatives: in Canada, Gertrude Benson Manley (deceased 1995), Phyllis Shaw Benson (deceased 2001), Mary Lean Lander (deceased 2002), David Manley, Joanne Burroughs Matteson, Muriel Benson Campbell, Julie Cruikshank, and, most particularly, Barbara Benson and her sisters, who generously donated a rich collection of Mina's letters preserved by their parents, Harold and Phyllis Shaw Benson; in England, Niki Russell and Shinaine Russell; in Italy, Andrew Ellis; and in the United States, Norma Ellis Armstrong, who, towards the end of my journey, gallantly searched her attic for useful postscripts. In Happy Valley, Labrador, Jean Crane shared accounts of Mina's expedition passed down by her father, Gilbert Blake. She also joined me on a memorable trip down Grand Lake to the elusive mouth of the Naskaupi with Joe Goudie, himself a famous resource of Labrador history and lore. Also in Happy Valley, Doris Saunders and Them Days Archives have been constant resources. In Mud Lake, Susan Felsberg alerted us to the Gillis correspondence held in the Dickie Papers in the Dalhousie University Archives. At Memorial University, Richard Ellis, the university librarian, has been unfailingly encouraging in support of my research and the ongoing building of the Mina Hubbard and Dillon Wallace collections. In the university library's Centre for Newfoundland Studies, Joan Ritcey, first as assistant head and now head, has been with me all the way in providing support. Debbie Edgecombe, as always, has been of incomparable help. Bert Riggs, the centre's archivist, has brought his fabled knowledge, memory, and wit

xx Acknowledgments

to many aspects of my work. For the reproduction of illustrative material, Memorial University's Joseph R. Smallwood Foundation provided welcome financial assistance. In the eleventh hour, Dr Donald Steele returned from a research foray in the Division des archives, Universite Laval, with copies of a correspondence between Mina Hubbard and Professor Jacques Rousseau of the Montreal Botanical Gardens; these new letters providentially shed new light on Mina's life in the late 19405 and early 19505. I am also grateful to James West Davidson, co-author of Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure, a marvellous reconstruction of the 1903 and 1905 expeditions. Throughout, he has been an encouraging source of information and ideas. I also thank Stephen Hart and Stephenson Yang for their computer ministrations, Kara Wilson and Tom Conti of London for a tour and photographs of 66 Redington Road, the late Pierre Berton for a valuable interview and permission to access Hubbard research in his papers at McMaster University, Tom Mills for unravelling legalese mysteries, Helen Carew for tackling Annie Wallace's enigmatic shorthand, Nancy Deromedi of the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library, and Nancy Burstein, curator of the Williamstown House of Local History. Others providing insights have been Peter Armitage, Chris Brookes, Gwyneth Hoyle, Laura Jackson, Lisa LaFramboise, Stephen Loring, Canon R.E. Louttit, Ivan Morgan, Zara Nelsova, Patrick O'Flaherty, Grace Rich, Wendy Roy, Graham Skanes, Jane Urquhart, Jill Whitaker, Robin Whitaker, and the late Tony Williamson. Finally, I am grateful to my friend Marlene Creates for a conversation in the Ship Inn in 1993 that first sparked my determination to learn more about Mina Hubbard. Above all, thanks go to my dear colleagues, Roberta and Bryan. Bryan Greene: I thank Haj Missan, Larry Nolan, Joe Atkinson, and Keith Parsons at the Geological Survey of the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Natural Resources for their help in unravelling the mysteries of Mapinfo and Corel Draw. Wayne Ryder provided great food, spirited discussion, and a strong paddle on the Naskaupi, the Romaine, the Churchill, and other rivers in Labrador. Wayne Tuttle shared his knowledge of Labrador's history, geography, and people, his cabin at Otter Creek, his pease pudding, and his Glenfiddich, and provided the comforting voice at the other end of the radio when the weather was down. I have benefited greatly from discussions with many Labrador canoeists, from

Acknowledgments

xxi

George Kitchen, who provided copies of his maps of the Red Wine and Bibikwasin portage routes, drawn during his own trips in the 19605, before the Upper Churchill hydro development flooded the Naskaupi's headwater lakes, to Wayne Halley, who canoed up the Naskaupi and down the George in the summer of 2004. One canoeist deserving special thanks is my wife, Patricia, who plied the bow paddle and carried the extra packsack on many trips, for hardly ever drawing attention to changes in the woman's role since 1905. Finally, I thank my co-authors, Anne and Roberta, for the opportunity to bring a canoeist's perspective to this publication. Mina's diary is at its core a canoeist's song of joy, a celebration of the canoe and the Labrador wilderness. The wilderness that she describes so vividly in those pages is shrinking fast. Mina's wish to "spend my summers like this always" may soon prove as impossible for the modern canoeist as it was for her. When that day comes, her diary will stand as testimony to the beauty of the Labrador that was, and to the pleasures and benefits of a wilderness canoe trip.

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Introduction THE TEXT AND CONTEXT OF MINA H U B B A R D S EXPEDITION DIARY

Introduction 3 Roberta Buchanan and Bryan Greene Trie Historical Context: Travel on the Naskaupi and George Rivers prior to 1905 3 Bryan Greene The Summer of 1905 9 Bryan Greene The Men: "Such a jolly happy crew" 12 Roberta Buchanan Dillon Wallace: The "Repulsive" Rival 15 Roberta Buchanan "Our wilderness friends": The Innu 18 Roberta Buchanan "Such a dear little Lady": Gender, Race, and Class Roberta Buchanan "So wild and grand and mysterious": The Aesthetics of the Labrador Landscape 35 Roberta Buchanan

26

2

The Text and Context of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

Diary or Journal? Generic Questions 39 Roberta Buchanan The Geographic Context:, The Naskaupi and George Rivers, Then and Now Bryan Greene Scientific Results of the Mina Hubbard Expedition Bryan Greene

40

44

Introduction ROBERTA B U C H A N A N AND BRYAN G R E E N E

In the summer of 1903, Leonidas Hubbard, his friend Dillon Wallace, and their guide, George Elson, set out from North West River, Labrador, to follow the then unmapped Naskaupi and George Rivers to Ungava Bay. They encountered increasing adversity, culminating in Hubbard's death by starvation in the Labrador interior. In 1905 two separate expeditions completed the journey that Hubbard had attempted. One was led by Dillon Wallace, Hubbard's friend and companion on the earlier expedition, the other by Hubbard's widow, Mina. The story of the Hubbard-Wallace expeditions, initially recounted in books by Dillon Wallace and Mina Hubbard, has been retold in many subsequent publications and has become part of the tapestry of hardship and adventure associated with the exploration of the Canadian north. As well, these expeditions provide a fertile ground for the exploration of issues of gender, race, and class, and of attitudes towards wilderness at the beginning of the twentieth century. Mina Hubbard's diary of her 1905 expedition sheds light on some of these issues and provides a new perspective on an intriguing chapter in the history of the exploration of Labrador.

Trie Historical Context: Travel on the Naskaupi and George Rivers prior to 1905 BRYAN GREENE

The Labrador that the Hubbard-Wallace expeditions encountered in 1903 and 1905 was one of the least known parts of North America, as far as white society was concerned. Early explorers had bypassed the peninsula, pursuing the fur trade up the St Lawrence to the western plains and mountains. The interior of Labrador was familiar only to the native Innu, who had lived there for millennia. Their canoe and snowshoe routes covered the whole region, from the Atlantic to Hudson Bay and from the north shore of the St Lawrence to Ungava Bay. The southwestern part of this extensive network became known to agents of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC)

4

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

and its rivals in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, the first written record of the extensive Innu travel routes along the George and the Naskaupi Rivers, the area of the Hubbard-Wallace expeditions, comes from the journals and correspondence of Hudson's Bay Company employees associated with the company's Ungava venture in the 18305. The company established Fort Chimo in Ungava Bay in 1830 and explored the country to the south and east over the next decade. In the early spring of 1834, Erland Erlandson left Fort Chimo with five Innu guides who had been engaged to conduct him across country to the wellestablished HBC posts on the north shore of the St Lawrence.1 The guides led Erlandson to the settlement of North West River instead, where a rival fur company had opened a trading post. Erlandson thus became, however unwillingly, the first European to travel overland between North West River and Ungava Bay. Although Erlandson's journal and the accompanying map are sometimes difficult to reconcile with modern maps, it is clear that the party travelled by way of Whale River and Petitsikapau Lake, eventually reached and crossed Lake Michikamau, and descended the Naskaupi, using well-established Innu portage routes to circumvent difficult sections of the river. Erlandson returned by the same route as far as Petitsikapau Lake. From there he took a different route back to Chimo, following the Swampy Bay River and the Kaniapiskau (Map i). Erlandson's report led to a decision by the Hudson's Bay Company to establish a series of inland posts in Labrador to take advantage of the good fur country Erlandson had reported and to intercept the natives on their way to the rival posts on the Atlantic coast. The late 18305 saw a great deal of travel along the Naskaupi and George Rivers, as John McLean, factor at Fort Chimo from 1837 to 1842, sought to implement the company's new strategy. McLean himself travelled overland between North West River and Fort Chimo several times with Innu guides, following Erlandson's Swampy Bay River—Naskaupi River route in the winter of 1838—1839, and using the George River—Naskaupi route in the summer of 1840. McLean and Erlandson became lost in an attempt to reach North West River overland without Innu guides in the summer of 1839, stumbled on what is now Churchill Falls, and retreated by way of George River. In 1838 Innu guides conducted company clerk William Kennedy from North West River to Fort Chimo, using the Naskaupi River route. Another clerk, Donald Henderson, travelled the Naskaupi-Swampy Bay River route between North West River and Fort Chimo in the autumn of i84o.2

The Historical Context

5

Map i — The Hudson's Bay Company's Ungava venture, 1830 to 1841

The first of the inland posts, Fort Nascopie, was set up on Petitsikapau Lake in i838.3 The HBC initially tried to supply this post from Fort Chimo, using the Kaniapiskau—Swampy Bay River route and the George River. The Kaniapiskau route was long and difficult, and the upper George proved too shallow for the loaded supply boats. Supply from North West River was preferable, but the Innu route up the Naskaupi, with its many portages, was impractical for freight canoes. Then, in 1841, the company "discovered" the Innu portage route around the Grand Falls on the Grand (Churchill) River.4 Fort Nascopie was supplied from North West River by the Grand River route until the post eventually closed in 1873. The Hudson's Bay Company abandoned the Naskaupi and George Rivers as major travel routes after 1841. The records of the Ungava venture,

6

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

however, make it clear that the Naskaupi and George were well used by the Innu, the Naskaupi in particular being a traditional travel route between Lake Michikamau on the central Labrador plateau and the coast. The Innu continued to use the traditional portage routes after 1841. They were accompanied on at least four occasions by a Roman Catholic missionary, Father Zacharie Lacasse. He travelled inland from North West River in the summers of 1876, 1877, 1878, and 1880. He reached Fort Chimo in 1876 and 1880, but turned back short of Ungava on the other two trips. His route in 1876 and 1880 is difficult to determine, but it is clear from his accounts that his Innu guides took him inland by the Naskaupi River route in 1877 and i878.5 Erlandson's journals and sketch maps disappeared into the archives of the Hudson's Bay Company, and Lacasse's records of his trips up the Naskaupi found similar repose in the offices of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Existing maps, showing most of the interior of the LabradorUngava Peninsula as "terra incognita? did not change until 1897, when the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) published the results often years' work in the peninsula by A. P. Low. Low's work in Labrador-Ungava is truly monumental, both in the scale of his travels and in the scope of his report. Using local native guides and a hand-picked crew of canoemen from Ontario and Quebec, he crisscrossed the peninsula by canoe in the years between 1884 and 1896 (Map 2,), following traditional Innu canoe and portage routes. His 1896 report6 covers not only the geography and geology of the peninsula, but also its botany, zoology, and anthropology. It represents the status of knowledge on the Labrador-Ungava Peninsula at the beginning of the HubbardWallace expedition in 1903. Low's map, the "big map of Labrador [that] looked back from the wall of the little study in Congers" in the Hubbard home,7 gave accurate renditions of the rivers and lakes Low travelled in the course of his surveys. Information was limited, however, for the areas outside his travel routes. Low's map showed the rivers and lakes in these areas as dotted lines, indicating the second-hand nature of his information. One of the largest of these areas lay in the northeast, north of the Churchill River and east of the Kaniapiskau (Map 3). Low knew, from the HBC and the Oblate archives, and from conversations with local natives, that this area was traversed by the Naskaupi and the George Rivers. His 1894 survey, however, took him up the Grand (Churchill) River, not the Naskaupi. He reached and

The Historical Context

7

Map 2 — Survey routes of A. P. Low in the Labrador-Ungava Peninsula, 1884 to 1896 (compiled from reports of the Geological Survey of Canada)

circumnavigated Lake Michikamau, but then turned southward, without reaching the George. The dotted lines showing the inferred course of major rivers spanning an otherwise blank region on Low's map provided an obvious target for the amateur explorer. They proved irresistible to Leonidas Hubbard. Mapping their course, changing those vague dotted lines to the solid certainty of

8

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

Map 3 — Northeast section of A. P. Low's map of the Labrador-Ungava Peninsula. This shows the status of mapping in the Naskaupi-George River area in 1905. The heavy shading indicates Low's travel routes. (Grenfell, Labrador: The Country and the People, i)

travelled country, became the major objective of his Labrador expedition in 1903. Low's report, with its summary of what was then known about LabradorUngava, provided other objectives for the explorer. The report mentioned that the peninsula was home to three great herds of caribou, one of which crossed the upper George River in its spring and fall migrations.8 This herd supported a little-known band of Innu, the Naskapi, the only Indians

The Summer 0/1905

9

in the whole peninsula who did not spend a considerable part of the year in the vicinity of the trading posts.9 An expedition across Labrador from North West River to Ungava Bay could provide not only accurate maps of two major, unmapped rivers, but also corroborating evidence of the great caribou migration and accounts of the way of life of the last remaining "wild" Indians in North America. Leonidas Hubbard died in the autumn of 1903 in the interior of Labrador without achieving any of his objectives — without, in fact, ever seeing the Naskaupi River. His expedition, mistaking a small river known locally as Susan Brook for the much larger Naskaupi, had struggled for two months across the Labrador plateau until forced to retrace its steps owing to lack of provisions and the onset of winter. Mina Hubbard, devastated by her husband's death, commissioned his friend, Dillon Wallace, to write the story of the expedition. She felt, however, that Wallace's book, The Lure of the Labrador Wild, did not do justice to her husband, and she became determined that its account of error and weakness should not stand as the sole record of his life. Wallace's announcement that he intended to return to Labrador to complete Hubbard's work prompted the response that she records so succinctly in her book: "It seemed to me fit that my husband's name should reap the fruits of service which had cost him so much, and in the summer of 1905 I myself undertook the conduct of the second Hubbard Expedition."10 Thus in late June of 1905, two separate expeditions, whose leaders, by this time, were not on speaking terms, left North West River, bound for ' Ungava Bay.

The Summer of 1905 BRYAN G R E E N E

The two parties that travelled across Labrador in the summer of 1905 were very different, both in their structure and in their experience of the Labrador wilderness. Wallace's four-man crew included George Richards, a geology student from Columbia University; Clifford Easton, who had been a student at the School of Forestry at Biltmore College; Leigh Stanton, a general handyman whom Wallace had met in Labrador in 1903; and Peter Stevens, an Ojibway from Minnesota. They were accompanied for the first few weeks

io

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

by Duncan McLean, a trapper from North West River. The party lost a great deal of time attempting to follow the old, overgrown Innu portage routes around difficult sections of the Naskaupi, finally reaching Lake Michikamau, the midpoint of the trip, on 3 September. Here Wallace divided the party, sending Richards, Stanton, and Stevens back while he and Easton continued down the George River in the smaller of their two canoes. Winter was approaching and they were novice canoeists, unprepared for the fierce rapids of the George. They upset the canoe running a rapid in a snowstorm, and lost some of their equipment, including their guns and axes and the pipe for their tent stove. There followed a race down the river against winter, with many narrow escapes running rapids they had no time to scout adequately beforehand. They finally arrived at the Hudson's Bay Company post at the mouth of the George on 16 October. The tide was out, the cove in front of the post was a sea of mud, and Wallace and Easton became trapped on a cliff at nightfall while trying to walk around the cove to the post. The people at the post eventually noticed their signal fire and rescued them from their uncomfortable perch. Their ignominious arrival was witnessed by the Hubbard party, who had been in residence since 27 August, awaiting the Hudson's Bay Company's supply ship to take them back to civilization. The members of Mina Hubbard's party were chosen for their experience in the bush and their skill in a canoe; there was no attempt to include scientific expertise. George Elson, who had proven his abilities and gained hard-earned Labrador experience on Leonidas Hubbard's expedition in 1903, was her chief guide. Job Chapies and Joe Iserhoff were expert canoeists with a great deal of experience on the rivers flowing into James Bay. Gilbert Blake was only nineteen, but he had grown up in North West River and had hunted and trapped along the lower Naskaupi since he was twelve. The Hubbard party did not attempt to follow the ancient Innu portage routes around the rapids of the Naskaupi, as Wallace did. They stuck to the river, using Gilbert's knowledge of trappers' routes to avoid the worst of the rapids below Seal Lake and Job's canoeing and route-finding abilities to circumvent the waterfalls and canyons of the upper river. They reached Lake Michikamau on 2 August, a month before Wallace. There followed an exciting run down the George, ending without mishap at George River Post, where they encountered the same mud flats that would later baffle Wallace and Easton. Mina's crew once more rose to the occasion, however, poling the canoes up over the mud, delivering Mina to solid ground and a triumphant meeting with John Ford, the post's factor.

The Summer 0/1905

n

The books and diaries of the two expeditions provide very different views of the summer of 1905. Wallace's book, The Long Labrador Trail, and the surviving diaries of Wallace, Stanton, and Easton are full of the problems associated with route finding, of concern for dwindling food supplies, of fear of upset in the rapids, of a sense of menace emanating from the land around them. Easton's diary entry for 3 October summarizes their tone: "Have learned the fear of God more since we started down this river than in all my life before. If I do get out of this alive the homecoming will be the best part of the trip."11 The records of the Hubbard expedition, on the other hand, show the summer of 1905 to have been a generally happy time, a time of joyful accomplishment. For Mina Hubbard, it was a period of increasing awareness of beauty and harmony in the wilderness around her. Her diary entry for 25 August stands in stark contrast to Easton's entry just cited: "The river has grown more and more splendid all the time ... I dread going back. I think I should like to spend my summers like this always." Mina Hubbard's account of her happy expedition across Labrador is in fact a remarkable anomaly in the exploration literature of her time, most of which is characterized by tales of hardship and endurance. Much of its special character is surely due to the fact that Mina was shielded from the work, the hardship, and the danger of the trip to Ungava by the strength and skill of professional woodsmen. Male writers like Easton were usually full participants in the labours and worries of relatively inexperienced crews. It is also true, however, that native and Metis perspectives found unusual opportunity for expression on Mina's expedition, with four native or Metis canoemen and no white male. Native values and sensitivities, rather than white paradigms, determined the general atmosphere of her trip and provided the background against which she encountered the wilderness of Labrador. Mina's party travelled in the native way, comfortable with their surroundings, secure in their woodcraft, at home in the bush. Her men in effect became intermediaries, introducing her to their wilderness, teaching by example how she should react to it. So there emerges in her diary a feeling of belonging, a sense of living in the landscape, that is very different from the atmosphere of endurance and contest that characterizes the written records of Wallace and his men. The contrasting views of the north are close to those Justice Thomas Berger found in white and native submissions to the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Enquiry and summarized so succinctly in the title of his report, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland.12

12

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

Mina's men did much more than conduct her safely "through unknown Labrador" in the summer of 1905. They gave her their sense of the wilderness as homeland, a view that permeates her diary, gives it its distinctive character, and makes it exceptional in the chronicles of conflict that constitute the exploration literature of the early twentieth century.

The Men: "Such a jolly happy crew" ROBERTA BUCHANAN

Leonidas Hubbard realized that "for a hard trip like this more men are essential. The head [of the expedition] must have more time to think and plan — less need for continuous physical labor."13 Mina Hubbard followed this strategy, having four men and two canoes to Leonidas's three men in one canoe. This allowed her to concentrate her energies on making her map and writing the detailed descriptions in her diary that would form the basis of her book. The success of her expedition was due to the experience and knowledge of her crew. George Elson and Joseph Iserhoff grew up together at Rupert House, where their fathers worked for the Hudson's Bay Company. Son of a Scots-Cree cooper and carpenter, George Elson left school at fourteen to join his father and two older brothers working at the post.14 He worked as a general labourer, doing such chores as cutting and hauling ice, packing furs, planing boards, washing windows, digging a cellar, sawing wood, and making fence pickets.15 According to his Cree friend John Blackned, Elson was ambitious and dissatisfied with the lowly status assigned to him: "He didn't want to hunt, although he was told to hunt. He thought that hunting was not a very good job for him. Since he was able to speak English, he thought that he could find a better job."16 Hunting would relegate him to the lowest rung of the HBC hierarchy.17 He moved to Missanabie, where he became a guide and also worked on the new railroad as a cook.18 S.A. King, manager of the HBC post at Missanabie, recommended him to Leonidas Hubbard as an expert canoeman and woodsman and good cook.19 After the disaster of the 1903 expedition, Elson emerged as its hero. His account (published in Mina Hubbard's book) of fording icy rivers on an improvised raft to bring help to Hubbard and Wallace was hailed as "one of the epics of the Men of the Woods."20 He graduated from

The Men

13

guide (to the Tasker expedition in 1906 and the Revillon company in 1908) to manager of Revillon Freres' fur-trading posts at Churchill, Grand Lake, and Eastmain, and then owned his own fur-trading business at Hannah Bay. When Revillon sold out to the Hudson's Bay Company, he bought the Revillon house in Moosonee and lived there until his death in 1944.21 Elson's second-in-command was Job Chapies, a Cree from Missanabie.22 Little is known about Chapies apart from Mina Hubbard's tribute to his character and skill. In 1906 he was employed, with Elson, on the Tasker expedition. Florence Tasker, like Mina, was impressed with Chapies's skill in shooting rapids and gave a gripping account of the canoe facing "an enormous wave about five feet high," when "Job seemed fighting with the water."23 In 1913 Dillon Wallace and a lawyer friend, William Malone, wished to hire Chapies for another trip to Labrador, but Malone complained that "[h]is price puts him out of the running."24 His fame as a whitewater canoeist had spread, and he could command a high fee for his services. Chapies and Elson handled Mina's canoe, with Job as sternman, the "captain's" position, while Iserhoff and Labradorian Gilbert Blake paddled the second canoe. Although Elson was the head guide, Chapies, a strong personality, sometimes took charge, as when he told Mina she could not climb Red Rock Hill. Mina responded to his intensity, feeling an empathy for him she did not feel for Iserhoff or Blake. "Job is a whole host in himself. We have come thus far under his guidance and have as yet not made a single mis-step" (5 August). The second James Bay man, Joseph C. Iserhoff, came from a remarkable family, descendants of a shipwrecked Russian sailor, John Leopold Iserhoff, who had married a native woman.25 Joseph was probably the grandson of "old Joe," or "old Joseph," a canoemaker at Rupert House. Young "Josie" was "installed as cowboy" at Rupert House in March 1892, "attending to bire and other choars."26 Nothing is known of his career after the Hubbard expedition, though he was probably the Joe Iserhoff from whom the anthropologist Alanson Skinner collected trickster stories, "The Adventures of Tcikapis," at Rupert House in I9O8-9.27 The fourth man was Labradorian Gilbert Blake (1886-1979), of mixed Scottish-Inuit descent, from a prominent North West River settler family, the son of Thomas Lea Blake and his second wife, Sarah Jane Oliver Blake.28 His grandmother, Lydia Brooks Blake, later Campbell, published the first Labrador autobiography, Sketches of Labrador Life, a vivid picture

14

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

of the hardships of settler life.29 His father, "Skipper" Tom Blake, trapped at the upper end of Grand Lake and was one of the men who brought out the body of Leonidas Hubbard from the interior in the winter of I9O4.30 Gilbert Blake began trapping when he was twelve.31 With his brother Donald, he was one of the four men who rescued Dillon Wallace in I9O3.32 In 1905 he was employed at the Revillon post at North West River, but was released by M. Duclos, the manager, to go on Mina Hubbard's expedition. Mina describes him as "a half-breed Eskimo boy trapper"; he was nineteen years old at the time.33 He had a practical interest in joining the expedition, as he was looking for new trapping grounds for himself and his brother Donald, beyond their present trapping area past Seal Lake.34 He was one of the first white men to trap among the Indians in the early 19005, and he met with violent resistance. One of the Innu "took his gun and held it to [fellow trapper] Arch's [Arch Goudie's] head while the others robbed away all his grub and burnt down his tilt."35 However, Blake also traded with the Innu and "could talk their language as good as his own," according to his wife, Annie.36 Blake was employed by Dillon Wallace and William Malone when Wallace returned to Labrador in 1913 to put a memorial plaque at Leonidas Hubbard's death site. Wallace and Malone paid him two dollars a day for a very rough and difficult trip up the Beaver River.37 Blake also guided a prospecting expedition in 1929, led by Ralph Hurd. He then had a "main" tilt on Seal Lake and another on the lower end of Wuchusk Nipi.38 Later he worked for the Grenfell Mission at Indian Harbour and at Goose Bay with the Royal Canadian Engineers.39 The other trappers jokingly called him "The Old Chief."40 Bert, as he was called (not Gil, as Mina calls him), admired Mina and named his first daughter Mina Benson.41 "Oh what a wonderful trip. We saw thousands of caribou," he told an interviewer in I97O.42 He said of Mina Hubbard: "She were a true lady ... and less trouble than most men."43 He died in 1979 in his nineties, a respected figure in Labrador.44 Mina calls Gilbert "a great kid" and regarded him as the junior on the expedition (diary, i July). He was "a great little worker," and "his merry boyish laugh in which everyone joins" added to the sense of having "such a happy jolly crew" (diary, 10 July, 6 August). His knowledge of the local terrain and the location of the trappers' tilts was of vital importance to the success of the expedition. He was able to show them the trappers' portage route around the lower gorge of the Naskaupi and the location of

Dillon Wallace

15

the entrance of the Naskaupi into Seal Lake, which was difficult to find (diary, 17 July). Elson and the men hand-picked by him worked as a harmonious team. Although the work was physically strenuous and often dangerous, morale was high and they laughed, joked, told stories, and sang together. They never suffered from shortage of food as Wallace's men. did - or the three men on the disastrous and ill-organized first Hubbard expedition. Much of the happy spirit on the trip was due to the sociable and outgoing personality of George Elson; he enjoyed a laugh, and his joking and teasing lessened tensions on the expedition.

Dillon Wallace: The "Repulsive" Rival ROBERTA B U C H A N A N

In her published account of her expedition, A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador, Mina made no mention of Dillon Wallace, her rival in the race across Labrador; and in his account of his 1905 Labrador expedition, The Long Labrador Trail, Wallace made no mention of her. Their true feelings were "cloaked in genteel silence," in Gwyneth Hoyle's phrase.45 Their diaries, however, reveal their mutual dislike. Mina actively tried to hinder Wallace's expedition and to discredit him. She had apparently extracted a "promise" from John Gillis, the manager of the Grand River Pulp and Lumber Company in Halifax, that he would not give Wallace passage on the company ship on which she went to Labrador.46 She was furious and upset when Wallace boarded the Harlaw at Rigolet. Gillis then told her that he could not prevent Wallace taking passage on the ship. Perhaps he was being disingenuous, for according to Leigh Stanton (one of Wallace's party) they obtained passage on the Harlaw "through the kindness of Mr Gillis."47 "George was almost stunned when he came on deck and saw us there as big as life. He looked pretty sheepish, but I shook hands with him and showed no irritation at his behavior to me at all," Wallace wrote.48 He received a frosty reception from Mina Hubbard, who gave him "the stony stare, which, of course, was very terrible to bear."49 Both competed for local guides; each wanted to hire Duncan McLean, but Wallace got him first. Elson tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Duncan to defect to Mina's team.50

16

The Text and Context of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

Mina did her utmost to find something discreditable about Wallace. Perhaps this aspect of her diary shows her in her least favourable light. She questioned the men who had rescued Wallace in 1903 and had found Hubbard's body on the following day. Had Wallace really tried to get to her husband with the remnants of the flour that might have saved his life? Was he really as seriously incapacitated with frostbite as he made out? She was told that there were no signs that Wallace had tried to find Hubbard's tent, contrary to Wallace's account in Lure of the Labrador Wild, and that his condition was better than he described.51 Elson's account, which Mina published in her book, minimized Wallace's injuries — he was only "frostbitten on the point of his toe, the big toe on his left foot."52 From the evidence of Wallace's 1903—4 diary, his condition deteriorated and he was taken to the lumber camp at Muddy Bay to get treatment from the physician, Dr Hardy, who diagnosed blood poisoning. He was bedridden and could not walk for a time, but gradually recovered. Wallace claimed that Dr Hardy had told him that "there was only one way to save my life — to cut off my legs," a dramatic statement not in his diary.53 Mina collected further negative gossip in Labrador, that Wallace had not rewarded the local people who had saved his life and had looked after him after the tragedy of 1903.54 The written record shows that this is untrue: in July and September 1904, Wallace sent gifts to the people at North West River "in payment for services rendered."55 In 1905, en route to Labrador, he bought gifts in Halifax and St John's for his Labrador helpers, distributing rings, brooches, watch chains, and a cloak.56 His sisters, Annie and Jessie, also sent gifts, which Wallace reported were much appreciated.57 Mina's next step was to quibble about Wallace's expenses. She asked Stuart Cotter, manager of the HBC post at North West River, to produce Wallace's expense account for his trip back in 1904, when he had brought Leonidas Hubbard's body out by dog team on its "funeral sled." Wallace was infuriated: "Mrs H. claimed to Mr Cotter that I had put in a charge of $20 — for dog team from N.W. River to Rigolet while I paid but $12 - The other $8 - was not for dog line [team?] but supplies Geo had."58 When Mina passed through Rigolet in November on her return journey, she demanded to see the accounts for Wallace's expenses. Fraser, the HBC agent, refused, but Mina thought it "[t]oo important to let go too easily."59 It seems ungenerous and petty to haggle over eight dollars in the circumstances, but it shows the extent of Mina's animus against Wallace. He returned her dislike. Each sniped at the other in their respective diaries,

Dillon Wallace

17

and Wallace in his letters home, which were leaked to the newspapers by his sister, Annie Wallace. While Mina records having a "pleasant little chat" with Easton and Richards at North West River, Wallace maliciously wrote home that the "boys" didn't like her.60 He sneered at "Mrs H parading around with pistol in belt and Amy [Army?] six inch sheath knife."61 Wallace and Easton arrived at the George River Post fifty days after the Hubbard party and were "coldly received by Mrs Hubbard."62 "Meeting between Mrs H & W very intresting, both bowed stiffly," Easton recorded.63 In her diary Mina bluntly expressed her detestation of Wallace: "coarse and common ... positively repulsive"; the sound of his voice and his "clap trap" got on her nerves (16, 17 October). He arrived at an emotional time — two days before the anniversary of her husband's death. She looked at Laddie's picture in his little New Testament and "read about the resurrection and about the coming of the Light" (17 October). Laddie was Christlike, spiritual, ethereal - the very opposite of the mundane Wallace. Wallace, too, recognized the importance of the fatal day, noting it as the anniversary of his parting from Hubbard, but immediately going on to itemize the menu of "Meals today: Breakfast — Oatmeal with brown sugar — bread and tea — Dinner Pea soup — salt boiled pork," etc. (18 October). Perhaps the two ideas were irrevocably associated in his mind: Leonidas Hubbard and food, or deprivation thereof. Still, the juxtaposition does seem unfeeling; he expresses no grief for the loss of his friend. A comparison of Mina's and Wallace's diaries gives an interesting illustration of how differently each constructed their version of the same event. Mina felt that all must recognize her superiority to the coarse and common Wallace and take her side against him. She recounts an incident on board the HBC ship, the Pelican, when Wallace was given "second place" to her and "snubbed" by Mr Mackenzie (19 October). She later repeated her version of the event, with embellishments, to ethnobotanist Jacques Rousseau, telling him that the captain of the Pelican had proposed a toast to her as the first white to have explored the entire course of George River. Sitting in a corner, without saying a word, Wallace awkwardly raised his glass to the pretty and smiling young woman who had taken the priority of the achievement from him.64 Wallace and Easton tell a different story, describing a cordial reception, including cigars and whiskey, from Captain Lovegrove and Peter Mackenzie. Wallace discovered that the pilot, Captain Blandford, was a fellow mason, and they were good friends at once.65 Far from snubbing Wallace,

:8

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

Mr Mackenzie gave him a berth in his own room, and they enjoyed an excellent dinner on board. Next morning they were given a warm send-off. The steward gave them some provisions for their trip to Fort Chimo, and Captain Blandford gave Wallace a pair of warm woollen mittens. Wallace pointedly did not say goodbye to Mina. Mina's account of the "snubbing" of Wallace suggests that she saw what she wanted to see, and inscribed her desired version of events into her text. Of course, anyone can misread or misinterpret the behaviour of others in a social situation. But the discrepancy between her account and the Wallace/Easton accounts of the same event is certainly striking. Mina's loyal friend, the Reverend Sawyer, wrote a letter to the editor of the World indignantly rejecting the idea that Mina went to Labrador "in the spirit of rivalry" with Wallace or in order to "antagonize" him.66 But Mina's diary proves otherwise. She anxiously looked for signs of the other party and rejoiced when it appeared she was in the lead. She yearned to "get back and get my story and some of my pictures in print before W. is even heard from ... how complete would be my victory and how completely it would make of no account W's reflections" (26 August). Wallace meanwhile had forestalled this by sending back Duncan McLean from Lake Nipishish on 21 July, and Richards, Stanton, and Stevens from Lake Michikamau on 4 September. Caspar Whitney, the editor of Outing, the sporting magazine that was to publish the serialized version of Wallace's expedition, was able to publish regular bulletins on the Wallace expedition.67 Mina was also unaware that two attacks on her were published in Outing.6&

"Our wilderness friends":69 The Innu ROBERTA B U C H A N A N

One of the purposes of the Hubbard expeditions, 1903 and 1905, was to meet the Naskapi, then regarded as the most "primitive" Indians on the North American continent.70 In 1905 very little information was available about them.71 For Mina Hubbard, it was a coup to meet these remote people on Indian House Lake. To her they were the "real" Indians, "the real ones that dress in skins."72 The Innu of Labrador/Quebec, the aboriginal "Indian" population as distinguished from the Inuit (Eskimo), were referred to as Montagnais (or "Mountaineers") in the south and as Naskapi in the north; they are part of

"Our wilderness friends"

19

the Algonquian family.73 The Montagnais, living near HBC trading posts and Catholic missions, were regarded as the more "civilized" and acculturated. As Mina Hubbard points out, they were a branch of the Cree Nation, to which Job Chapies and the partly Cree George Elson and Joseph Iserhoff also belonged.74 The Montagnais/Naskapi are now referred to as Innu (human beings, the people), their own term for themselves; their language is Innu-aimun, a dialect of the Cree language.75 At the turn of the nineteenth century, they were still nomadic, traversing the length and breadth of the Labrador-Ungava peninsula.76 Originally Naskapi meant "people of the place where it fades from sight" (i.e., beyond the horizon), but later the term took on a negative connotation, signifying "uncivilized people" or "those who have no religion."77 The HBC traders found the Naskapi "tiresomely independent" and resistant to white control.78 Tlie caribou supplied all their basic needs: meat, skins for clothing, tents and bedding, and bones and antlers for tools. It was only when the Naskapi started to use guns and ammunition rather than bows and spears for hunting that they became vulnerable to the pressures of the H B c to trap furs rather than hunt caribou, for the Labrador furs were particularly fine and valuable. The HBC managers attempted to force the Naskapi into trapping by limiting their supply of ammunition, a tactic that resulted in episodes of mass starvation in the second half of the nineteenth century.79 Mina Hubbard arrived in Labrador at a time of growing tension between the Innu and the settler population, which was comprised mainly of descendants of white/Inuit marriages.80 According to Stuart Cotter, HBC agent, "Prior to 1893 the Montagnais Indians were the chief fur hunters and they brought in the bulk of the Furs" to the post at North West River.81 They came to see their Roman Catholic priest, as well as to trade. When, in 1893, the Catholic missionary withdrew from North West River and instructed the Innu to meet him at Sept-lies, the result was a shift in the Innu population that could have meant "ruination" to the post.82 The white/Metis settler-trappers filled the void and kept the post in business. The growth in the population of settlers led to a search for new hunting and trapping grounds. By 1900 the Innu were complaining to the Hudson's Bay Company about settlers trespassing on their hunting grounds, which they considered to be their birthright. In retaliation, Innu were raiding the trappers' tilts and rifling food caches, traps, and stoves. Life for the Innu became "a dire struggle for existence."83 Gilbert Blake's hostile encounter with Innu has been described above.

2O

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

Mina's encounters with the Innu must be viewed in this wider context. The Montagnais she first met at Rigolet and North West River were helpful and friendly. They agreed to make maps for her showing the lakes and portages, and when her maps were taken by Wallace, she was provided with others.84 As is clear from her diary, the Innu had also explained the route in detail to Elson (e.g., 18, 24 July). Innu maps were highly valued for their accuracy.85 Although in her book Mina refers to the Innu map of the portage route as "crude," her diary shows her constantly studying and referring to the maps (e.g., 23 July).86 They were probably like the one William Ashini made for Dillon Wallace, which he reproduced in the serialized version of The Long Labrador Trail, but, oddly, not in his book.87 Mina intended to hire "a couple of Indians" to guide her to Lake Michikamau (diary, 23 June). "The Mountainer Indians tells me that it will take us 3 months to go up to Mishakmau Lake, and that we will not be able to find it with out a guide," Elson noted in his diary (25 June). There is no further mention of hiring an Innu guide, but Wallace states that "Geo has engaged John Assini [Ashini] to help him find portage from Nascaupee. I tried to get William [Ashini] but Geo influenced him not to go."88 Later the Wallace party met John Ashini on the Naskaupi. "As far as we can make out," Easton wrote, "he is after the Hubbard party who are doubtless waiting for him in camp somewhere up the Nascaupee."89 Neither Mina nor Elson mention that they were expecting to meet up with John Ashini. As the Hubbard party approached the Innu in the interior, the men became increasingly anxious about their reception by the Naskapi.90 Around the camp fire, the men told stories about Indians, including accounts of the Hannah Bay massacre.91 John McLean, an HBC employee, described this gruesome episode in fur trade history. In 1832 a group of about a dozen Cree attacked the HBC post at Hannah Bay, in the southern tip of James Bay, and massacred the inhabitants.92 The perpetrators acted on the orders of the "Spirit above," who appeared to them in conjuring seances; the attack was intended to be the beginning of a general Cree insurrection against the HBC posts.93 The adult males involved were summarily executed, without trial, by HBC men. McLean condemned the "barbarous habits" and "savage disposition" of the Indians (99, 101). Elson grew up close to Hannah Bay, so he would be familiar with the story. He and Gilbert Blake revealed their worst fears to Mina: that the Naskapi would kill the men, incited, like the Cree at Hannah Bay, by their "conjurer." '"Whatever their conjurer tells them to do they will do.'"94 But

"Our wilderness friends"

21

they would not shoot her, for, Gilbert explained, "'They want the women for themselves.'"95 The mixed-race Elson and Blake invoke the stereotype of the savage, or "image of the indigene," prone to uncontrolled acts of sex and violence, and incited by sorcery.96 By doing so, they perhaps distance themselves from their indigenous inheritance and align themselves with the "civilized" white. In Mina's account, Chapies took no part in this discussion, although, according to Elson, he was afraid of the Naskapi. As they approached the first (Montagnais) camp, Chapies warned Elson: "I think we better not go near them ... They might do something to us ... I knew he was scared of them and would rather not trouble them. I also was a little afriad [sic] ,"97 Mina's reaction to the threat of rape and violence was not fear, but aggression. She oiled her pistol, making ready for a possible hostile encounter with the Naskapi (diary, 14 August). She was fully prepared to defend herself and her men: "What do you think I shall be doing while they are killing you? You do not need to suppose that because I will not kill rabbits, or ptarmigan, or caribou, I should have any objection to killing a Nascaupee Indian if it were necessary." This melodramatic speech is in her book, but not her diary.98 Wendy Roy comments: "Hubbard emphasizes her authority over the expedition (and the narrative) by expressing her willingness to meet violence with violence."99 Wendy Roy was the first to notice the alterations in wording between the British and American editions of A Woman's Way, changes that serve to intensify "the trope of white women's fear of male indigenous sexuality" and violence.100 In the British edition, Mina lies awake in her tent, "turning over in my mind plans of battle in case we should meet with treachery." In the American edition, this is changed to "in case the red men proved aggressive."101 Mina casts herself in the role of active heroine, the white woman confronting "savage" Indians, a favourite theme in the popular literature of the day.102 The capturing of a white woman by Indians is reminiscent of the "captivity narratives" that were a feature of Canadian and American popular culture. The white woman could become an "unwilling wife of a brutal savage," or alternatively, a refined white lady could act as a civilizing influence, like Fanny Kelly, "Queen of the Sioux. A cultured Canadian Lady, once their captive drudge, now their idol."103 There is no evidence that the Naskapi — "the savage hunters of the Labrador peninsula," as Speck describes them — kidnapped and ravished women.104 Was Mina Hubbard succumbing to what Pauline Strong

22

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

has called "constructions of alterity": "typifications" of "Captive Self" and "Captivating Other" - or to the "rape scares" that were "a common phenomenon in racially divided colonial societies, and ... emerged when there was a fear of a loss of colonial power, authority, or prestige"?105 In A Woman's Way, there are significant elaborations on Mina's brief meetings with the twoInnu bands: the Davis Inlet band, whom she called Montagnais, at Resolution Lake, on 17 August; and the Naskapi, '"Musha-wau e-u-its [Mushuaunnuat] (Barren Ground People)," three days later on Indian House Lake.106 In her diary entry of 17 August, she focuses on the external: appearance and artifacts; clothing; the "picturesque" way they arranged their hair; wigwams; and the itemizing of what she could see of their belongings. She observes that they "had bright and some of them quite intelligent faces" (17 August). In her book, Mina's account of the Montagnais is more nuanced and menacing. There is "a shapeless dark mass" on the hillside, a "flash of sunlight on metal," the sound of rifle shots, and "screams of terror" from the women (125—6). It seems as if something violent is about to occur — until the screams give way to laughter when Elson speaks to the Innu women in their own language. The Innu women are inscribed in more stereotypical terms; now their faces range "from the sweet and even beautiful ... to the grossly animal like" (127). A sexual note is introduced, which is completely absent from the diary: the women flirt with the men and offer them "wives, temporary, if they would remain"(12,9). Mina is excluded from this jollity. "I was not invited to go into the wigwams," and she wanders over the hillside alone while the women are propositioning her men (128). There is perhaps an undercurrent of hostility. To them, she must appear a rich white "adventure tourist" (as we would say today), while they are living on what fish they could catch while the hunters are away. Concerned over the women's report that the journey to Ungava Bay would take two months, Hubbard does not share her food with the women, and she gives them just a few ounces of tea. '"We are poor,' said one, 'and we live among the trees, but we have our children'" (128). The reference to motherhood may have reminded Mina of her own childlessness, her sexual deprivation, and her feelings of emptiness and desolation after 'her husband's death. The Innu women are "animal like," living "among the trees." Their offer of sexuality evokes the "typification" of indigenous women — noted by theorists like Pauline Strong and Terry Goldie - as "Captivating Other,"

"Our wilderness friends"

23

and also suggests "the dusky maiden" who "tempts the being chained by civilization towards the liberation represented by free and open sexuality."107 Job responds, but in an appropriately chivalrous, gentlemanly (and unsexual) way, as he bows from the departing canoe and calls out, "'Goodbye, good-bye, my lady'" (12,9). The sexual temptations of the dusky maidens are safely sanitized by the presence of a white lady. In the second meeting, with the Naskapi, Mina herself is the recipient of flirtatious behaviour. "One of the young men, handsomer than the others, and conscious of the fact, had been watching me ... with evident interest." He pretends to tie his moccasin, aiming to make an impression on Mina by showing off his legs decked in fetching red leggings. This incident is not in her diary. The episode is presented in a playful way, prefaced by the comment that "[e]ven in barren Labrador are to be found little touches that go to prove human nature the same the world over" (137). There is no sense of menace or impending rape or abduction. While the young man flirts with her, the women are more hostile. The old women beg for tobacco and complain of her stinginess when she does not give them any. Knowing from the Naskapi that she can reach the post at Ungava Bay in five days, she can afford to spare some of her provisions this time — flour, tea, rice, salt, and bacon, and a few trinkets for the women. One of the women asks Mina for her sweater, a request she declines; she in turn asks for the beaded hair band of a young woman, who draws away and refuses in "resentful" tones (140). An old man complains of their poverty: "'You see the way we live and you see the way we dress. It is hard for us to live. Sometimes we do not get many caribou ... We can get nothing from the Englishman, not even ammunition. It is hard for us to live'" (135). Seeing her warmly dressed in her smart bright-green sweater with red collar and cuffs, and well-stocked with provisions, the Innu cannot help comparing their state with Mina's. The women looked "sad and wistful ... Even the little children's faces were sad and old in expression as if they too realised something of the cares of wilderness life" (138). A young mother, little more than a child herself, has just given birth and looks weak and ill. The chief picks lice out of his daughter's hair - another detail not in the diary. Mina stayed only an hour with the Naskapi. She was invited to go up the hill to visit the camp, but Elson was uneasy. The other three men remained at the canoes, as if prepared for a quick getaway. Given the fears

24

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

that they expressed to her earlier, was there any evidence that the Naskapi were prone to violent acts? Mina calls them "our wilderness friends" (141), but how friendly were they? The Naskapi had the reputation of being "surly and untrustworthy and disinclined to welcome white intruders."108 When William Brooks Cabot wished to go into the interior to visit the Naskapi, the local settlers were reluctant to act as guides, feeling that "the Indians regard their presence in the country with disfavor."109 When Stuart Cotter, then HBC agent at Davis Inlet, with one of the settlers, accompanied two Innu inland, the Naskapi "announced to the outsiders that they did not want them to go any farther into the country and actually threatened violence." Also, "it was then not so very long since some of the northern Indians had set out to rush Davis Inlet post, being denied what they asked."110 In the second edition of his book, Cabot adds: "[T]o the present year 1920 they [the Naskapi] have allowed no white person but myself and occasional countrymen to enter. In 1915 they ejected a party summarily."111 He does not mention the destruction of a cache and the slashing of one of their canoes by Innu that he and his three white companions experienced in I9io.112 Four white men constituted a threatening "invasion number" to the Innu.113 Jo Rich, of Sheshatshit, gave an Innu account ofMina Hubbard's visit: "The English people thought that he [Leonidas Hubbard] had been killed by the Indians but Missus Hubbard didn't think that way. She didn't blame the Indians." Jo Rich's mother was at the first Innu camp. "'We were afraid of them,' my mother said, 'but they called out to us, 'Don't be afraid. We are human.'114 ... Missus Hubbard passed by and went down the river and they came to other Indian camps. They were taking photographs of the Indians and the Indians didn't do any harm to them."115 Mina Hubbard encountered the Innu at an unpropitious time. The Innu had not yet seen the caribou migration and were thus short of food, and they had been unable to get supplies from the HBC post. When Wallace and Easton met the Innu a month later (18 September), they had a very different reception. The Innu had had good hunts and were lavish in their generosity, giving them the equivalent of a full deer of meat, smoked caribou tongue, and both fresh and jerked venison in return for a small amount of tea and tobacco,116 this in spite of the fact that Toma, their "chief," said that they had nearly starved the previous winter. However,

"Our wilderness friends"

2,5

Wallace and Easton had been warned that the Innu could turn nasty: "Afraid to bring out our own grub or even mention the word pemmican in their presence — Cotter had told us we might have trouble if we ran on Indians who were out of grub."117 Easton, however, commented: "They are good types to study living the hardest of lives."118 Although neither understood the other's language, Wallace got the impression that he and Easton were the first white men to have ever visited these Innu in their hunting grounds.119 Perhaps the visit of a white woman did not count, or it might be that Wallace was determined to stress his own importance and claim priority. Although the Labrador interior was regarded as an empty and uninhabited land, described by Wallace as "dismal" and "desolate wastes," an "unknown country,"120 the reader of Mina Hubbard's diary cannot help but be struck by the signs of Innu occupation everywhere. There were the portage paths (some still visible today) indicating their well-travelled routes.121 There were the ruins of an old stage made of logs for storing furs; wigwam poles at old camping places; the frame of a sweat lodge; Indian graves enclosed by pickets; goose bones stuck up on a large pole; a stage with a cache of a rifle and dried deer's meat; a tree hung with a long string of the bills of birds; steel traps; a deadfall trap belonging to an Innu trapper from Seven Islands; a paddle and a piece of old cloth marking a portage trail; and the remains of a fire on top of a hill where the Innu had been watching for caribou. Mina saw Innu artefacts, such as a wooden snow shovel, as well as trade goods - a china saucer and "agate" (enamel) dishes. Their footsteps were everywhere, to echo the title of a famous book on Labrador.122 She noted that the Innu chose beautiful places to camp and that they saw to it that their dead were buried with a view over the water. Mina Hubbard was refreshingly free from the worst aspects of the racial prejudice of her day. She never made comments like Dillon Wallace's "It is safe to say that there is not a truthful Indian in Labrador ... They are like the Crees of James Bay and the westward in this respect" (a dig at Elson?).123 She attempted to learn Cree, much to the amusement of the men.124 When she encountered Inuit at Ungava Bay, she refused to categorize them in the way other travellers did, as Other — filthy, ungainly, ugly, greasy, unsanitary.125 She enjoyed spending a night in an Inuit tent, and her sympathy for an Inuit woman dying of tuberculosis shows an essential

26

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

human kindness that transcended racial prejudices. Yet the changes she made from diary to book suggest that she may have spiced up her description of her encounters with the Innu to cater to white stereotypes of the "red man."

"Such a dear little Lady":126 Gender, Race, and Class ROBERTA BUCHANAN

Mina Hubbard lived at a stirring time for women, a time of debate over the "Woman Question." The old Victorian ideals of womanhood were being questioned. These included the concept of woman as Angel in the House and the cult of True Womanhood, which stressed the four cardinal female virtues — piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity.127 The image of the passive, submissive woman confined to the private, domestic sphere was challenged by the new ideal of the New Woman, who "proclaimed for herself what was wrong with Home-is-the-Woman's-Sphere."128 The New Woman was assertive, intelligent, active, and independent: "We're not a shy, retiring, uncomplaining generation. We're up to date and up to scuff, and every one of us is self-supporting."129 Leonidas Hubbard as a young student at the University of Michigan in 1895 may have read a warning to the "Co-ed" in Wrinkle, the undergraduate humour magazine: "They are making fun of such as you in the funny papers. They are cracking jokes about the 'new woman,' who, they claim, goes to college, insists on the ballot and rides a bicycle."130 The True Woman evolved into the New Woman.131 While the Angel in the House was a woman of the prosperous middle and upper classes, a lady, many women did not have the luxury of the choice to stay at home. They were the Working Girls, working in factories, as domestic servants, in the traditional feminine occupations of teacher and nurse, or at the newly available white-collar occupation of office worker.132 Mina Hubbard worked as a teacher and then nurse before her marriage; Dillon Wallace's unmarried sisters also earned their own livings, Annie as a stenographer and Jessie as a teacher. Like Mina, they came from farming families, and their white-collar jobs were a step up from agricultural labour. After marrying Leonidas Hubbard, Mina moved from Working Girl to Angel in the House, serving "model dinners" at their cosy suburban home in Congers.133 Her husband's death precipitated a crisis in her

"Such a dear little Lady"

27

life. So, was Mina a New Woman in mounting her own expedition into uncharted territory, in direct defiance of Dillon Wallace, and in presenting herself as a serious explorer, armed with compass, sextant, and artificial horizon? Exploration was a man's game in the early 19005, conducted in the full panoply of machismo rhetoric of penetration and conquest.134 The myth of the explorer was a male myth, as Beau Riffenburgh has pointed out; related to male hero tales of "adventure, quest, initiation and privation."135 A male historian, Eric J. Leed, has even labelled men's journeys "spermatic."136 "It promises to be a hungry trip — But it's a man's game!" Leonidas Hubbard wrote in 1903, his words echoed by Clifford Easton in 1905: "as Hubbard said 'it is a mans game' and must be played out."137 "It is here that a man's a man," Wallace wrote in the Labrador wilderness.138 Masculine culture in America characteristically saw wilderness as a place for defining virility.139 "There are no stories about female explorers," Margaret Atwood has asserted.140 How could a woman fit into this gendered discourse?141 Would she be stigmatized as a "wayward woman" or a "wandering woman," a "lady on the loose," an adventuress, involved in "passionate quests" and doing something "unsuitable for ladies" — to echo the titles of books on women travellers?142 The split between True Woman and New Woman was perhaps symbolized by Mina's expedition attire: "a short skirt over knickerbockers, a short sweater, and a belt to which were attached my cartridge pouch, revolver, and hunting knife."143 Knickerbockers (loose-fitting breeches gathered at the knee), originally men's or boys' sports attire, were appropriated by the New Woman.144 Annie Peck, the celebrated American mountain climber, in an article in Outing in 1901, recommends jettisoning the skirt in favour of knickerbockers.145 Mina's outfit suggests a compromise, the skirt ensuring that she always looked decorous and ladylike, not to be identified with the radical extremists of the women's movement who excited public scorn and ridicule — and also anxiety — by wearing pants.146 Mina's androgynous attire and male accoutrements of pistol and bowie knife reflect the ambiguity of her position as white lady and expedition leader. She appreciated being looked after by her men and enjoyed their little chivalrous attentions. Elson, perhaps, liked seeing Mina in a domestic role: "Mrs Hubbard washing took her picture three times."147 There are no pictures of Mina climbing a tree on i August, an "unfeminine" image.

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The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

Anne McClintock argues that "the cult of domesticity was a crucial, if concealed, dimension of male as well as female identities."148 At the same time, the responsibility for the safety of a white lady placed an extra burden on the men: "[W]hat makes me so scared of the rap its is on account of having a woman in the canoe," Elson writes in his diary (23 August). At the beginning of the expedition, Mina saw herself as a member of the fragile, weaker sex, dependent upon the chivalrous protection of men.149 "Long to help but didn't know how and my little strength would not be much use," she wrote on 5 July. As a white lady, she was not expected to do any of the onerous work of portaging, or indeed to carry anything heavier than her kodaks, notebooks, and rifle. She was profiting from both race and class privilege: neither white working-class women nor indigenous women were exempted from heavy labour.150 In the fur trade, aboriginal women were regarded as "necessary beasts of burden," needed to carry heavy loads of fur pelts, equipment, and supplies.151 Cree and Chipewyan women were regarded as superior in physical strength to men. In the oftquoted words of the Chipewyan Matonabbee, "Women ... were made for labour; one of them can carry, or haul, as much as two men can do. They also pitch our tents, made [sic] and mend our clothing, keep us warm at night."152 Although Mina did some sewing and mending and a little cooking, she certainly did not expect to carry heavy loads, pitch the tents, or keep her men warm at night. Indeed, the white lady's sexual purity was considered one of her most admirable sources of power and moral influence, and was a sign of white imperial superiority.153 Elson was amused at Mina's attempts to take a more active part in camp life, such as when she caught and then gutted a large fish with her bowie knife (but screamed when its head moved) or dressed partridges the men had shot.154 Mina became aware that she paid a price for her feminine privilege. She was treated as a child by the men. When she stood on a rock by the rapids, Elson told her: "If you are going to do that we will just turn round and go back to Northwest River."155 He would never have dared to talk in that tone to Leonidas Hubbard. When she protested at the slow pace of travel, she was told that the men were afraid she would get too tired or sick if they went too fast.156 Dea Birkett has argued that white, middle-class, Victorian women escaped from the constrictions of their conventional lives through travel. As explorers in colonized countries, they could exercise power over "nonEuropean peoples, and in particular adult men."157 These women assumed

"Such a dear little Lady"

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what was in effect a "temporary male status" and "masculine power" over colonized non-Europeans (137, 140). Although Mina Hubbard did not travel on the scale of May French-Sheldon with her 153 African attendants, she led and financed her own expedition and employed four indigenous/ mixed-race adult men. Like Birkett's lady explorers, she had to deal with "the underlying tensions between being defined at once as racial superiors and sexual subordinates" (141). The intersection between gender, race, and class can be illustrated by four examples in Mina Hubbard's diary: (i) the "Scaring the Guides" episode, which she relates at length in both diary and book; (2) the disagreement with the men over the return route; (3) running after the caribou; and (4) the arrival at George River Post. (i) 28 July The "Scaring the Guides" episode gives some insight into some of the perplexities of being a female in the early 19008, providing an example of how a woman had to negotiate, or manipulate, her way out of the constraints imposed on her. Mina has to ask permission to climb a hill to take photographs while the men are portaging. Treated as a child, she regresses into childish behaviour — "I felt a good deal as I used to when a child and started out to do something I knew I ought not to." She is annoyed when it starts to rain and the men have left her "alone ... without any protection." She sees this as being punished for not doing what she was told: "I was to have a lesson on the advisability of taking the advice of people who knew more than myself about some things." Mina rebels against this superior attitude: she escapes from the men by disappearing on the other side of the ridge. She feels a delightful sense of energy and liberation as she runs up and down the ridges ("like a Labrador fly," as Elson describes her later). Now is her chance to "get in my head what I was seeing." She is not deterred by feeling her neck and ears "wet and sticky ... with the blood from the bites of the flies." Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar have pointed out that much of Victorian women's literature is concerned with "images of enclosure and escape."158 Mina revelled in the spaciousness and vistas of the Labrador landscape (so different from the enclosed spaces of schoolroom, hospital ward, or house). She climbs to the top of the ridge to "see what I could. I went on and on." Her "escape" on 28 July is an escape from the constraint of gender, from the assumption of authority by "people [men] who knew more than myself," from being infantilized, treated like a child, from

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The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

being judged by her appearance (she ignores the sticky blood on her neck and ears), from being told what to do and what not to do, from having to ask permission. Her escape ends in a bargain she extracts by manipulating the fear and panic of the men. She promises she will not go away alone again if she can have someone accompany her "when I wanted to climb a mountain or do anything else that I think is necessary y»r my work and no kick about it" [my emphasis]. Her language is assertive, even aggressive, masculine. (In her book she changed "no kick about it" to the softer and more feminine "without any fuss about it.")159 Mina is in the process of metamorphosis from lady to explorer, challenging the "discursive constraints" of gender, according to which women were childlike, physically weak, and inferior. Discursive constraints are "the range of 'rules' and systems of representation and meaning within which writers negotiate."160 The men's gender gave them automatic authority over females: she was told that "they never were on a trip before where the women didn't do as they were told."161 An explorer wants to "see" and to go "on and on," break through boundaries, go beyond the horizon. An explorer has important work to do: mapping, description of unknown territory, ethnography, inscribing in a text the "seeing," bringing back and disseminating new knowledge. By referring to her "work" as explorer, Mina is invoking a counter-discourse that overrides the assumed limitations of femininity. She was proud of her bargain, but it placed limits on her autonomy. She was not allowed to go anywhere without a male protector. By contrast, the men on Wallace's expedition, including Wallace, sometimes got lost (a subject of jokes by the Mina Hubbard party). Men were expected to take risks and learn by their mistakes. (2) 17 August Mina Hubbard's tenuous authority was put in question over a disagreement over the route to be taken should they have to turn back to North West River. The men categorically refused to return by the dangerous Naskaupi River; they preferred the easier Davis Inlet route or one via the Grand River. But Mina needed to return by the Naskaupi in order to perfect her map; that route had priority. She recorded the argument she had with Elson in detail. She had to deal with a situation that was in effect insubordination. While she could not compel the men to do what she wanted, she insisted that "you [Elson] will record in my diary that I asked you to do so and you refused and state your reasons." Her language

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31

is assertive, expressing not a request but a command: "you will record." She took a tone of authority, and Elson agreed to write the men's reasons in her diary.162 In a similar disagreement about the return route on Leonidas Hubbard's expedition, Elson and Wallace obeyed Hubbard's decision, even though Wallace told him it meant "suicide" and Elson plainly stated his preference for another route. As Wallace explained, "Hubbard was the leader."163 Mina Hubbard was the leader, too, but Elson was not necessarily going to obey the orders of a woman. (3) 8 August One of the highlights of Mina Hubbard's expedition was the sight of the great caribou migration. To get a photograph of this rare sight would have been a coup for her book. But she did not get one. Again it is an occasion where the men attempted to assert masculine authority over Mina. She wants to run after the caribou, "but men said I couldn't. Geo. said 'let me take the camera.'" Mina challenges him: "I said 'Well if you can go why cannot I go?' 'Because you can't run' So I gave him the Kodak." The account shocks a modern reader, not only because of the sexist assumption that women can't run and what Susan Morgan calls "the language of masculine domination," but also because of Mina's deference to the men in handing over her camera.164 However, is this a case of "identifying a position which one has been assigned and rejecting it"?165 In the excitement of the moment, Mina does run after the caribou, and "taking his [Elson's] hand we started down the hill at top speed ... He was all at once finding out that I could run and it amused him so that he was laughing so that it was hard work for him to keep up." The image of Mina and George running hand in hand after the caribou signifies the rupture of rigid gender, class, and race hierarchies. The result is not horror, anger, disapproval, or disgust, but joyous laughter, a subversive laughter, perhaps. It is a scene of almost primal innocence in an Edenic setting, with the wild caribou "feeding on the hills and swimming back & forth." Running hand in hand shows a new, more free and equal way to relate. Perhaps it expresses the "rhetoric of emancipation" and that "joy" in the "liberated self" that Susan Morgan, in a different context, finds in the writings of Marianne North.166 Mina Hubbard omitted the hand-holding incident from her book, presumably because it might conjure up the taboo interracial romance of white woman and Metis man.

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The Text and Context of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

(4) 27 August Travel through the Labrador interior was, despite its difficulties, a kind of holiday for Mina, a suspension of the ordinary constraints of everyday life and the customary social distances between White, Metis, and indigenous individuals — an "archetypal free area."167 Arrival at the HBC post at George River reimposed colonialist class and race distinctions. From the moment Mina stepped onto the mud, supported by Mr Ford, her relationship with the men changed. While she had a comfortable room inside the house, the men were literally outsiders, camping on the hill among the willows, for Indians and "half-breed" guides were not normally allowed to stay in the factors' houses. Now she is the white lady, their employer, who graciously thanks her men for what they have done. But she regretted the change: "the sight of the two tents made the thought that I was no more to be a member of the little company seem rather a lonely one."168 Mina Hubbard ends her book at this moment, which she saw as marking the official end of her expedition. But her eight-week stay at the George River Post provides an interesting insight into the complexities of her character. As a white lady, she has a special status at the post: "yours is the first white woman's face I have seen for two years," Mrs Ford tells her, with shining eyes.169 Mina busies herself with domestic tasks: doing her laundry, making doughnuts for the men, knitting socks, making duffle mitts for Job, sewing a "waist" (blouse), and making a splendid wrapper trimmed with "feather stitching of old gold silk" (20 October). It is interesting that she makes the "wrapper" in the form of a "dickey," an Inuit woman's garment. She learns how to make moss berry pie from Mrs Ford. At the same time, she is working seriously and with increasing professionalism on her book. She counts the number of words written each day and agonizes over whether her account is interesting or "awful stuff" (3 October). Job is going to be called "Eagle" and George "Great Heart" (7 October). Should she write the book in diary form? She is annoyed at the "silliness" of Joe and Gil objecting to her "little sketch about eating too much caribou" (n September). We also see Mina as ethnographer, writing down bits of local lore, visiting the oil store where the seal oil is processed, and describing life at the post, with its annual ritual of dancing and games when the season comes to an end and the Inuit disperse to their winter camps. Mina reveals both the brighter and darker aspects of her personality: her yearning for affection in the beautiful way she describes the tenderness of

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Mrs Ford; her dreaming of Laddie; her kindness to the sick Inuit women. Yet we also see her negative side: her hatred of Wallace; her paranoid suspicions of the men. Is Elson trying to steal a march on her by publishing his own version of the expedition, aided by Gilbert, who is drawing a map of Grand Lake for him? Will the men spread rumours about her which would compromise her reputation? She also shows a competitive streak, learning to kayak and wanting to be better at it than Elson. We see her boundless energy and curiosity. She goes to visit the Inuit camp and spends a night in an Inuit tent; she takes Mrs Ford for a trip up the bay; she practises in the canoe; she goes for a walk by herself. There is also something sad about Mina. Not just that she has lost Laddie, the love of her life, but also that she feels a sense of placelessness. Where does she belong? Where is her home? Where does she fit in? What kind of life awaits her when she gets back? Like many individuals who feel they exist on the margins, she would like to belong; perhaps she could fit in at a place which was also on the margins, a place like George River. "Wish I were a man would try for a place in H.B.C service for [a] while in some of these out of the world places. Dread going back to face the crowd" (4 October). But she is not a man, so she is excluded from this possibility. Some feminists have linked the feeling of placelessness to "nomadism" and "the identification of female identity with a sort of planetary exile."170 "As a woman, I have no country," Virginia Woolf's outsider-woman asserts.171 Mina Hubbard was an emigrant; she left Canada for the United States. Her marriage to an American brought her a home and a sense of belonging, but his death seems to have left her at a loss. Her expedition to Labrador gave her a temporary reprieve, a sense of reconnection to Laddie. For a time she was queen of her own little society of her four men. Now that was over. What made her feel such "dread" at the thought of "going back to face the crowd"? One clue is in the declaration she asked the men to sign, that "he at all times treated Mrs Hubbard with respect, and ... that Mrs Hubbard was always treated with respect by the other men of this Party ... he will never, by look or word or sign lead any human being to believe" that there was anything "unbecoming honorable Christian men and woman."172 The language of the declaration is melodramatic — "by look or word or sign" — and suggests Mina Hubbard's fear of being ostracized as unrespectable, a "loose" or "wayward" woman. She was well aware that a woman travelling unchaperoned with four men was transgressing

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The Text and Context of Mina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

the social mores of the time. On the way home in the King Edward, she had to deal with the hostile innuendos of the government surveyor, Mr O'Sullivan, who told "unclean yarns" in her hearing, a deliberate attempt to embarrass and humiliate her (13 November). He had previously told her, "'Well Mrs Hubbard your name will go down through time with the history of Labrador'" (8 November); but perhaps it was not deemed appropriate for a woman to achieve such fame and glory. George Elson summed up Mina's achievement in his own way in his diary: "I want to say that our little Lady Mrs Hubbard has done very very well ... She has done what no other Lady could do, Im sure."173 She had also done what her husband had been unable to do, but Elson makes no comparisons in that direction. Caspar Whitney, her husband's former employer at Outing magazine, praised Dillon Wallace: "In exploration, America has also played a part ... through the successful penetration of Labrador by Dillon Wallace."174 He does not mention Mina Hubbard's expedition, a disapproving silence intended to wipe out her achievement. There is a telling moment of self-censorship in Mina Hubbard's diary. On i September Mr Ford, the HBC post manager, was discussing previous explorers in Labrador, and she realized that only she and John McLean had crossed from North West'River to the George River Post. "So it is M.B." — that is, Mina Benson — she was about to write, but then wrote "Mrs." over the "M.B." and, more conventionally, "Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard." She subsumed her identity as Mina Benson Hubbard under her husband's name. Then she crossed out the whole passage, as if it were somehow too presumptuous or immodest to claim so much. However, she made use of male explorer strategies such as naming the landscape after patrons, friends, and family, claiming to be the "first white" person to see it, and using writing and publication as a way of staking her claim to fame. Like other women explorers, she also confirmed the scientific seriousness of her expedition through learned societies like the American Geographical Society and the Royal Geographical Society. Mina was excluded from the male camaraderie of whiskey and cigars in the captain's cabin, from the male networking of the Masonic lodges to which Wallace and Captain Blandford belonged, and from the all-male city clubs in St John's and Halifax into which Wallace was welcomed.175 Wallace was given the flag of the Arctic Club, the flag of his Masonic lodge, and an American flag to fly in the "unknown" country he was penetrating.176 Hie framed photograph of Wallace standing proudly by the Arctic

"So wild and grand and mysterious" 35

Club flag at Lake Michikamau still hangs in the Explorers Club in New York.177 Although she too received advice from the Arctic Club, Mina was not given a flag to fly. Flags were a male sign of conquest, dominion, and possession.

"So wild and grand and mysterious":178 The Aesthetics of the Labrador Landscape ROBERTA

BUCHANAN

Labrador has been infamously categorized as a barren wasteland, "the land God gave to Cain," in Carrier's famous phrase, "composed of stones and horrible rugged rocks."179 The Canadian North has often been represented as empty, inhospitable, and alien.180 Yet Mina Hubbard views Labrador as a land of incomparable beauty, teeming with life, far from desolate or empty. How to account for this discrepancy? Mina's perception of Labrador can be set in the context of the controversy over how Canadian writers perceive the wilderness, their "mental concepts," to use J. Wreford Watson's phrase.181 One view, put forward by Northrop Frye, is that " [n] ature is consistently sinister and menacing," and that Canadian literature conveys "a tone of deep terror in regard to nature ... a terror of the soul."182 The Canadian wilderness was seen as alien and threatening, "unknown and unknowable," "hostile," "disorderly," and even "repulsive," according to Gaile McGregor's findings in The Wacousta Syndrome: Explorations in the Canadian Langscape.183 Other critics dispute this view. Susan Glickman attacked Frye, Kline, Atwood, and McGregor for misreading and distorting Canadian responses to wilderness. "Everyone learns to interpret the world according to local conventions of thought and language," Glickman asserts, and she traces Canadian descriptions of nature to concepts of the picturesque and the sublime, which might include terror and awe, but which also emphasized the beauty of landscape. These conventions had a long tradition in European poetry and landscape painting, and were disseminated by widely read works on aesthetics, such as William Gilpin's on the picturesque and Edmund Burke's on the sublime and the beautiful.184 The Home Book of the Picturesque (1852), combining essays and illustrations by American writers and artists, popularized "landscape aesthetics" in North America.185

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The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

Women writers found this way of looking at landscape more congenial than the machismo rhetoric of male exploration culture. Elizabeth Bohls, in a study of the Romantic period, found that "landscape aesthetics ... particularly attracted women writers," and that "the lexicon of landscape aesthetics found a plausible place in women's travel writing."186 Mina Hubbard describes the Labrador landscape primarily in the language of aesthetics. The key word in her diary, constantly reiterated, is "beautiful," sometimes repeated as much as four times in one entry. One can see the influence of what Bohls calls the "aesthetic discourse" of landscape in the adjectives Mina uses: magnificent, grand, wild, mysterious, splendid, picturesque, glorious, tempestuous, fairy like, a "very fine" view (23 July), a "pretty grove" (27 July), "a charming nook" (5 August). Even a bog is a "picturesque Labrador bog with its tiny ponds and ridges and scattered tamarack" (27 July). "The view was magnificent in all directions" (28 July). "The panorama of mountain and lake and river was wonderful," she exclaims on i August. A panorama was a painting that presents "an entire view of any country, city, or other natural objects, as they appear to a person standing in any situation" and turning quite around.187 Mina gives a sense in her diary of "turning quite around," and the reader moves with her through the Labrador landscape with its ever changing vistas. Like other explorers, she was influenced by cultural "modes of perception" drawn from aesthetic concepts of the picturesque and sublime, "viewing tracts of land as if they were landscape paintings."188 She viewed Labrador with a painterly eye, looking for "color effects." In describing red rocks with black streaks and purple patches among the "fresh green" of poplar and white birch, she commented: "I have never before seen such color effects not even in beautiful Williamstown" (19 July). Her descriptions of reflections in water are reminiscent of a favourite motif in landscape painting: "river smooth as glass, reflections perfect, coloring on hills exquisite" (20 August); or, "[t]he water lying among [the islands] like satin and almost black so deep is the evergreen coloring reflected in them" (19 July). True to the conventions of "aesthetic charting," Mina also composes a landscape in terms of background, middle distance, and foreground.189 For example, "Around the horizon the clouds hang in grey and silver masses and rising to meet them on the west the Mealy Mts snow clad blue & silver blending almost imperceptably into them. Air clear as diamonds. Deep rich blue on nearer hills and rocks" (21 June). The variations of tone

"So wild and grand and mysterious" 37

— grey and silver, blue and silver, deep blue — and her conveying of "light intensity" are also conventions of landscape painting.190 Sometimes Mina's descriptions are evocative of painters' attempts to render the sublime. Turner's watercolour Among the Mountains, with its pale washes and misty effects, conveys "a mood of expansion and exaltation in the face of the ineffable and ungraspable reality of nature."191 Mina, too, reaches out for the "ineffable" in her inscribing of landscape: "Clouds lay like delicate veils along the hillsides sometimes dipping down almost to their feet. It is all so wild and grand and mysterious" (10 July). (By contrast, Dillon Wallace's simile for clouds is prosaic: "Light clouds like bunches of cotton."192 Nothing of the sublime there.) Mina's fondness for rainbows and sunsets and her sensitivity to light effects also evoke Turner's paintings of the "picturesque sublime." The sublime could inspire fear and terror as well as awe and delight. At one point on the Naskaupi's wild and foaming rapids, the landscape takes on more sinister overtones: "Banks high on either side dark wooded and coming down between them a gale of warm wind almost as from a furnace ... Most weird experience. Wondered if what lay beyond that narrow opening would be as much like Hades as the entrance was suggestive" (i July). The reference to Hades is an interesting example of the mythologizing of landscape, a favourite device of nature writers such as Thoreau. Mina is referring to the episode in the Aeneid when the hero Aeneas must descend into Hades to visit the "waste dominions of the dead" and confront its horrors.193 However, Mina does not have to descend into hell. She can rely on the courage of her men, who are "brave and skillful and good," to carry her through the ordeal safely. The threat of entering Hades, with its suggestion of darkness, danger, and death, then dissolves as the ominous "narrow opening" widens out into another richly tinted landscape, with lakes, islands, evergreen-covered points, gravel flats covered with "bright fresh green," and "high ridges ... deep rich blue in evening light." Hades gives way to paradise (i July).194 The day ends with Mina and Elson looking at the sunset on the river. "'I was just thinking how proud I am of this river,'" Elson says, appreciative of the river as a kind of force and spirit in itself.195 Anna Jameson, in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, complains that the Canadian wilderness was full of "all manner of creeping and living things not pleasant to encounter."196 Mina Hubbard, too, encountered unpleasant creeping things, the notorious Labrador blackflies

38

The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

and voracious mosquitoes, but she took them in good part. The Labrador she describes is a joyful place. Seals are playing in the rapids, fish are jumping, eagles flying, birds singing, weasels racing up and down over her tent, "ducks geese ptarmigan, caribou ... a mother duck with her pretty flock of little ones ... loons everywhere ... Spiders running round over my face all night ... Saw a muskrat" (12 August). She did not seem to mind the mice, weasels, and spiders in her tent in the middle of the night, but rather partook in the joy and energy of the life around her. She also expresses a special empathy for living creatures. She' cannot bear to watch the death throes of the caribou shot by Elson (2,3 July), and pulls her hat over her eyes. She shoots to miss. In the little vignette she creates of the shooting of ptarmigan on 5 August, she sees the birds as a "little family" when the mother bird and her "little ones" are shot. What will the father bird do now? Will he wish he had shared the fate of his little family? She makes the reader see it, perhaps feel it, as "one of the endless succession of wilderness tragedies" (5 August). Game birds are not just meat for the pot; they too have feelings and relationships, loved ones. The birds "take on life." Taking life is killing; taking on life is recognizing nonhuman animals as Other, sentient, feeling beings endowed with consciousness, in the distinction made by ecofeminists Carol Adams and Marjorie Proctor-Smith.197 Is she being "ecocentric," to use a recent term, meaning cultivating "the virtues of reverence, humility, responsibility and care"?198 Lorraine Anderson concludes that "there is no such thing as a woman's view of nature," but "there is a feminine way of being in relationship to nature. This way is caring rather than controlling; it seeks harmony rather than mastery; it is characterized by ... appreciation rather than acquisitiveness."199 Can we see Mina Hubbard as part of what Lawrence Buell called the "environmental imagination"? Nothing could be further from Mina Hubbard's Labrador experience than Leonidas Hubbard's. He soon dropped his fancy of the "goddess" Nature whispering "her most precious secrets" in his ear.200 While Mina found Labrador kind, Leonidas found her "heartless." He felt an increasing sense of weariness and disgust with his surroundings: "You paddle miles & miles into bay after bay, bay after bay, with maybe no result, till you are hopeless - ugh."201 The wilderness became a series of "awful, heartless ridges."202 Dillon Wallace describes himself as being ravaged by the landscape: "The partridge at my belt was torn to shreds, my shirt was torn my knife scabbard and pistol holster ripped and I was in a completely

Diary or Journal?

39

worn out condition. Holes in my mocasins. My face was badly bitten by flies and mosquitos."203 The Labrador wilderness is seen as alive, but in a malevolent way, as it tears, rips, and bites the poor traveller. Wallace certainly has no empathy with the partridge hanging at his belt, nor does it occur to him to think of it as having been torn from its "little family." Weakened by hunger exacerbated by attacks of diarrhoea, Leonidas longed to return to the urban world of restaurants and cakeshops, the cosy domestic world of delightful dinners with Mina at home in Congers. In contrast, Mina, at the end of her expedition at George River Post, yearned to stay in "one of these out of the world places." Her descriptions of Labrador are one of the most interesting and memorable features of her diary, as they reveal the wonder and beauty of the "Big Land," as Labradorians affectionately call it.

Diary or Journal? Generic Questions ROBERTA BUCHANAN

It has become customary to distinguish between a diary (brief descriptive entries, daily reports on events) and a journal (lengthy introspective entries, narratives, commentary, reflections, kept regularly for private use).204 Mina Hubbard herself uses the word diary rather than journal.205 She defines diary as "a daily record of events,"206 but what we find resembles more Virginia Woolf's conception of diary as "some deep old desk or capacious hold-all" containing a medley of ingredients.207 As expedition journal, Mina's diary is in part log — of distances travelled, weather, observations for latitude, flora and fauna, topography and ethnography — which has led Lisa LaFramboise to refer to it as Hubbard's "field notes."208 But the diary is so much more than a stark objective record of external facts than that term denotes.209 Mina's diary contains self-exploration as well as exploration of Labrador; it is a record of her development and growth both as leader of her own expedition and as explorer. Recently, feminist critics Sherrill Grace, Lisa LaFramboise, and Wendy Roy have been fascinated by Mina's negotiation of identity and authority.210 Her diary also contains an emotional and spiritual journey to her dead husband, whose absence is intensely felt; it is thus, in part, a grief diary.211 To quote Lisa Dempsey, it "still throbs with the urgency" of her attempt to "assuage the pain of her

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The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

grief."212 At the same time it is "relational," chronicling her relationships with the men on her expedition, sometimes recording snatches of conversation or repartee, so that the reader hears voices other than her own, a polyvocal text.213 Women's diaries are sometimes characterized as "bitch books,"214 a place where it is safe to vent anger and frustration, and we can certainly see this at times with Mina Hubbard, especially in her caustic remarks about her rival, Dillon Wallace. In this miscellany, Mina's diary can be placed within that wider tapestry of women's private writings, used, in Gail Godwin's words, for "confiding secrets ... for wailing and bitching ... for recording interesting conversation and details I know I would forget later, for self-analysis and ... as a form of prayer."215

The Geographic Context: The Naskaupi and George Rivers, Then and Now BRYAN

GREENE

The Hubbard-Wallace expeditions of 1903 and 1905 proposed to travel by canoe from North West River in Labrador to the Hudson's Bay Company's post at the mouth of the George River in Ungava Bay. This involved travelling up the Naskaupi River to its headwaters, crossing a short portage at the height of land, and descending the George. The Upper Churchill hydro development of the early 19708 included the construction of a dam at Orma Lake on the upper Naskaupi. Water levels in the river below the dam are much lower than they were in 1905, and the headwater lakes have been submerged beneath Smallwood Reservoir. The river retains some of its majesty, however, and is still eminently canoeable. The Naskaupi may be divided into five parts for purposes of description as a canoeing river. The lower section, including Grand Lake and the first few miles of the river as far as the mouth of the Red Wine (Map 6, p. 122), is flat water, offering little impediment to the canoeist, except perhaps for high winds on Grand Lake. The next section, approximately thirty-five miles long, from the mouth of the Red Wine to Seal Lake (Maps 7, 8, 9, pp. 128, 154, 164), has been termed "the lower gorge of the Naskaupi."216 This section is a delight for the modern, experienced whitewater canoeist, travelling downstream. It consists almost entirely of runnable, demanding class II to class IV

The Geographic Context

41

rapids.217 For the Innu, the trappers, and, in 1905, Mina Hubbard, travelling up the river, it was a formidable obstacle. The Innu avoided the lower gorge by a long (sixty-mile) portage route that left the Naskaupi opposite the mouth of the Red Wine and rejoined it at Seal Lake (Map 9, pp. 164— 5). This route involves thirty-one portages, the longest of which, from the Naskaupi to the first lake, is five miles. The old Innu portage route is still plainly visible and easily followed in its northern half (north of Nipishish Lake), where the trails between the lakes are deeply worn into the caribou moss. South of Nipishish the woods are thicker, there is less lichen woodland, and the trail is overgrown for long stretches. Wallace, attempting to follow the Innu route in 1905, found similar conditions; he lost the trail south of Nipishish but regained it farther north. In the closing years of the nineteenth century, the North West River trappers had extended their traplines up the Naskaupi as far as Seal Lake. Their route followed the Naskaupi for twenty-five miles above the Red Wine portage to the brook Mina named the Wapustan River. Here a newer, shorter portage route, west of the Naskaupi, led to Seal Lake (Map 8, p. 154). Gilbert Blake was familiar with the new route and George Elson had every confidence in Job Chapies's ability with the canoe pole, so Mina's party toiled on up the Naskaupi to the mouth of the Wapustan. The Wapustan is a small, shallow river with numerous waterfalls and many rapids. There is very little canoeable water in the six-mile stretch of the river that forms part of the portage route. Two portages north from the Wapustan the route enters Dorothy Lakes, from which a small brook, canoeable after the first rocky mile, leads down to the west side of Seal Lake.218 The full route, from the Naskaupi River at the mouth of the Wapustan to Seal Lake, is twelve miles long. The Hubbard party covered it in a little over five days. The third section of the Naskaupi reaches from Seal Lake to the beginning of the upper gorge, a distance of about sixty miles (Map 10, p. 170). The river passes through Wuchusk (Mina's Wachesknipi) and Caribou Lakes in this section, and is, for the most part, deep, wide, and smooth, with a slow current. This smooth flow is interrupted by a short rapid a mile or so above Seal Lake, by the more formidable Seal and Cascade Rapids twenty miles upstream, and by one or two smaller rapids above that. All these rapids were bypassed by short, well-marked Innu portage trails. The quiet water ends rather abruptly just above the mouth of a major unnamed tributary flowing into the Naskaupi from the south (Map n, p. 188). The upper gorge of the Naskaupi extends for fifteen miles above

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The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

this point. The upper gorge is spectacular, with nine major waterfalls, three deep, rock-walled canyons, and almost continuous heavy rapids. The Innu avoided the waterfalls and canyons of the upper gorge by a twenty-fivemile portage route north of the river (Map 12, pp. 198—9). The route leaves the river just below the rapids and travels northwest to Bibikwasin Lake, where it turns south to rejoin the river at Marie Lake, well above the gorge. The downstream end of this route consists of an almost continuous ninemile portage, up out of the valley of the Naskaupi to the lake immediately east of Bibikwasin. The old trail is now largely overgrown in- this area and very difficult to follow. Trie portages between Bibikwasin and Marie Lake are shorter, and the trail is well defined where it passes through patches of lichen woodland. Wallace, attempting to follow this route in 1905, missed the turn to the south at Bibikwasin and continued west, making his own difficult way through the lakes of the upper plateau to Lake Michikamau without returning to the Naskaupi. Mina Hubbard's party was aware of the existence and location of the Innu route around the upper gorge, but did not follow it. Instead, they tracked, poled, and portaged for four miles farther up the Naskaupi, then scouted a portage route south of the river to avoid the worst rapids and falls of the upper gorge (Map n, p. 188). The first part of their route is difficult. The portage from the river to the first sizeable lake is four miles long and passes through fairly thick woods. A few small ponds give little relief from the portaging. A forest fire passed through this area in the late 19805, leaving blackened timber near the lower end of the portage route. The last five miles of the route are much easier, through lakes with intervening short portages. The route rejoins the Naskaupi immediately above Maid Marion Falls, still five miles below Marie Lake and the end of the upper gorge.219 Mina's crew completed this portage in a little over two days. They then negotiated the upper part of the gorge above Maid Marion Falls in a day and a half of hard river travel, portaging around Gertrude and Isabella Falls. The final section of the Naskaupi consists of the headwater lakes (Maps 13, 14, pp. 202, 214), most of which have now been flooded by the Upper Churchill hydro development. Before the construction of the dam at Orma Lake in 1970—71, this section was a canoeist's paradise, with large, island-studded lakes connected by short stretches of rapid river. This system culminated in Michikamau, the second largest lake in the Labrador-

The Geographic Context

43

Ungava Peninsula,220 an inland sea whose wave-washed granite shores reached to the edge of the northern barrens. Mina's "field of light"221 now lies beneath the waters of Smallwood Reservoir, the old shorelines drowned, the new ever changing in the annual drawdown cycle of the hydro development. The new shores are often hidden behind long stands of trees killed by the flooding. Smallwood Reservoir has no attractions for the modern canoeist. The flooding associated with the Upper Churchill hydro development extends almost to the headwaters of the George. But the George has not yet been dammed, and the river is essentially unchanged from Mina Hubbard's day, although the cabins of hunting and fishing outfitters have replaced the camps of the Innu along its banks. The upper section of the George consists of a series of lakes, from Lake Hubbard to Advance Lake (Map 15, p. 234), connected by wide, bouldergarden rapids. The lakes are often shallow, with many rocky islands and submerged rocks. The rapids are runnable riffles, for the most part, shallow and hard on canoe bottoms at normal midsummer water levels.222 The headwater lakes give way to a rapid river section that reaches some forty miles to the mouth of the Riviere de Pas (Map 16, p. 250). This section really begins about four miles below Advance Lake at Mina's Canyon Camp, where the river splits briefly into three branches, all of which contain short sections of canyon or small waterfalls requiring short portages. The river begins to flow in a distinct valley from this point on, becoming a major waterway. There are many class II to class IV rapids between here and the mouth of Riviere de Pas. This section requires great care, much lining and lifting over ledges (see annotation 62, page 131), and some portages. The third section of the river, from Riviere de Pas to the north end of Indian House Lake (Map 16, p. 250), is mainly flat water, although there is some current in places where the river narrows. Below Indian House Lake the George is a truly majestic river, flowing in almost continuous rapids for 130 miles to Ungava Bay (Maps 17, 18, pp. 260, 266). Rapids in this section are long and heavy, usually with big waves in midstream and a route for canoes close to the shore. Expert canoeists with proper equipment may be able to run the whole distance, except for the i.5-mile carry around Helen Falls. There are several hunting and fishing lodges on this stretch of the river now.

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The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

The final section of the river, below Mina's 26 August campsite (Map 18, p. 266), is affected by the high tides of Ungava Bay. The last rapid is a mile wide, more than a mile long, and a difficult run at low tide. It disappears completely when the tide is high. Canoeists reaching this rapid at, or just after, high water can enjoy the assistance of the outgoing tide as they travel down the bay; those hitting it at low water will have a difficult rapid to run, followed by a struggle against the incoming tide. The modern settlement at the mouth of George River, Port Nouveau Quebec (or Kangiqsualujjuaq), is on the east side of the estuary, about eight miles downstream from the site of the Hudson's Bay post at which Mina Hubbard and Dillon Wallace ended their trips in 1905.

Scientific Results of the Mina Hubbard Expedition BRYAN G R E E N E

The major scientific contribution of the Mina Hubbard expedition was Mina's map of the Naskaupi and George Rivers, which served as the basis for official maps of the region until the advent of aerial mapping in the 19305. The final map (see Map 4 at end of book) was published in four colours, at a scale of twenty-five miles to the inch, using Low's map as a base. It was drafted by cartographic technicians at the American Geographical Society223 and has a professional appearance that George Richards, the young geology student who prepared Wallace's map, was not able to match. Mina Hubbard, as far as we know, had no training or experience in geography or any other scientific discipline when she decided to undertake her Labrador expedition. She did, however, take a sextant and artificial horizon to determine latitude, whereas Wallace confined his surveying equipment to compasses. Her map is surprisingly accurate, considering her lack of experience and the reconnaissance nature of her journey. Although Mina's map compares favourably with modern maps of the area, it is apparent from her diary that she had considerable difficulty determining latitude. A comparison of the observations recorded in her diary with the latitude of the locations on modern maps shows that she consistently places herself north of her actual position, by amounts ranging from twelve to twenty miles. The reason for the errors is not immedi-

Scientific Results of the Mina Hubbard Expedition

45

ately apparent. Mina herself attributes them to the use of water instead of mercury in her artificial horizon.224 Mina, well aware of the deficiencies in her observations for latitude, used her record of distances travelled each day and three control points where latitudes had been established by Low (North West River, Lake Michikamau, and the mouth of George River)225 to make adjustments to her final map to minimize the errors. For example, the position on Michikamats Lake where she recorded her 54° 56' 39" reading on 9 August is actually shown on her map at latitude 54° 44'. This is very close to its latitude on modern maps. This position agrees with her diary record of distance travelled (nine miles on 5 August, four on 8 August, three on 9 August) from the Michikamau control point, rather than her latitude observation, which would have placed her thirty-five miles north of Michikamau. Similarly, the latitude observed on 24 August, just north of the Pyramid Hills, given in her diary as 57° 53' 28", is recorded in her book as 57° 43' 28",226 and the location is shown at this latitude on her map. The general result of these adjustments is a marked reduction in the northward bias that her map would otherwise have shown. Mina Hubbard's contributions in other scientific areas are less significant. Her descriptions and photographs of the Innu may have some historic and anthropological value; she gives an interesting description of life at a remote Hudson's Bay Company post at the beginning of the twentieth century; she provides anecdotal evidence for the decline of the George River caribou herd;227 and she documents the herd's migration across the lakes of the upper George in August of 1905. But her descriptions of rocks and plants stress the aesthetic, not the scientific. There is none of the prosaic identification of species and lithologies that characterize scientific reports, no botanical lists and geological descriptions such as we find in Wallace's The Long Labrador Trail. Reviews of Mina's book, and of her lectures before geographic societies, are consistent in their evaluation of her achievements — there is praise for the mapping and polite mention of Mina's notes on other scientific disciplines. Mina herself, at the end of her book, gives a realistic summary of the results of her work: "Results — The pioneer maps of the Nascaupee and George Rivers, that of the Nascaupee showing Seal Lake and Lake Michikamau to be in the same drainage basin and what geographers had supposed were two distinct rivers, the Northwest and the Nascaupee, to be one and the same, the outlet of Lake Michikamau carrying its waters

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The Text and Context ofMina Hubbard's Expedition Diary

through Seal Lake and thence to Lake Melville; with some notes by the way on the topography, geology, flora and fauna of the country traversed."228 Both Mina and her reviewers provide accurate assessments of her scientific achievements. But her book and her diary reveal more than the dry measurement of a region's features found in scientific reports. She writes with a feel for the country, an appreciation that could only come from someone who was very comfortable with her surroundings, from an author writing about home. In her book, but especially in the diary, she writes from the heart, not the head, and the result is a view of Labrador that is absent in most other accounts. She describes an organic whole, interior Labrador as it was in 1905, the sun and the rain, the Innu and the caribou, the twinflowers and the rapids, the beating heart of one of the last great wilderness areas on earth. Her book reminds one of Aldo Leopold's view of the limitations of science: "There are men charged with the duty of examining the construction of the plants, animals and soils which are the instruments of a great orchestra. These men are called professors. Each selects one instrument and spends his life taking it apart and describing its strings and sounding boards ... A professor may pluck the strings of his own instrument, but never that of another, and if he listens for music he must never admit it to his fellows or to his students. For all are restrained by an ironbound taboo which decrees that the construction of instruments is the domain of science, while the detection of harmony is the domain of poets."799 J Mina Hubbard hears the music, detects the harmony, and through her we, too, can still hear its receding echoes. That is the real appeal, and the true value, of her work.

The Life of Mina Benson Hubbard F I N D I N G HER WAY, 15 A P R I L 1870 - l6 J U N E 1905

Anne Hart

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Introduction On first reading Mina Hubbard's A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador, I was captivated by its narrative of a woman explorer proceeding with such elan through the unmapped interior of Labrador, complete with air mattress, hot water bottle, and four trusty guides. At that time, I knew nothing of the hidden currents of high emotion that ran through her expedition, but even then I began to wonder about her life before and after Labrador. Surely a woman who could accomplish such an unconventional feat in 1905 would hardly go on to lead a dull life. An added nudge was realizing that Mina was a Canadian. Before then, like others who had first read Dillon Wallace's The Lure of the Labrador Wild, I had vaguely thought of Leonidas Hubbard's wife as an American. So began my journey. In the course of it, I discovered a person of intense passions and many contradictions. Who could have prophesied that the life of a farm girl from backwoods Ontario would turn out like this? Early on, like Jack in the Newfoundland folk tales, I came upon treasures thought lost — three weather-stained notebooks, the original diaries kept by Mina Hubbard, George Elson, and Leonidas Hubbard on their longago expeditions into Labrador. In due course, thanks to the generosity of their owner, Betty Cawkill Ellis, they were repatriated to Newfoundland and Labrador and into the care of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives of Memorial University Library, with which I was associated. Many other surprises lay ahead. Ever exploring, ever complex, Mina did not disappoint me. Inevitably, there have been challenges in writing this biography, particularly in the matter of the first thirty years of Mina's life — her childhood in Bewdley, high school in Cobourg, ten years as a country schoolteacher, three years of nursing training in New York. For these years, primary documentation (apart from photographs) has proved scanty, and I have had to rely mainly on family memories and local informants, buttressed by secondary research on, for example, late nineteenth-century schooling in Ontario and the training of licensed nurses in American hospitals. In the last weeks of 1899, with two letters Mina wrote to her sister Rachel as her nursing training came to an end, the lights really begin to come up. A few months later she met an ambitious young journalist, Leonidas Hubbard, and their subsequent marriage — ended in 1903 by his harrowing

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The Life ofMina Benson Hubbard

death in Labrador — provides documentation (albeit, mostly through his eyes) of the next few years of her life. It is with her husband's death, and her conviction that he was greatly wronged by the 1905 account of his expedition, The Lure of the Labrador Wild, by his companion Dillon Wallace, that Mina redirected her life — up to then a modest chronicle of schoolteacher, nurse, and devoted suburban wife - along unexpected paths, a pattern she would repeat for the rest of her life. Most notably, her aggrieved widowhood led her to a race through Labrador against Wallace himself and turned her into a writer — first of the highly personal diary she kept during her remarkable expedition in the summer of 1905 (now published for the first time in this volume, thanks to the impeccable work of Roberta Buchanan and Bryan Greene) and then, in 1908, of her more formal book, A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador (long out of print, in 2004 it saw rescue by Sherrill Grace with a fine new edition). The diary and the book provide a great deal of insight into the Mina Hubbard of 1905, but it was into comparatively unknown waters that I plunged in my search for the later Mina. Here, family interviews, correspondence, contacts, and archival research accumulated to reveal a further engrossing story, as rife with surprises and undercurrents as had been her well-documented way through unknown Labrador. Following the trails next taken by this Canadian farm daughter as she transformed herself into an assured public lecturer and successful author, married into a distinguished English upper-class family (with a myriad of stimulating and stormy results), and went on to live - ever the Canadian patriot - into an independent and intellectually lively old age, has been an adventure in itself. Mina Hubbard has not always been an easy subject, and I am sure she went to her dramatic death with many secrets safely kept. Like the elegant leopard, she could change her spots, as testified by the multiple layers of her identity and the range of ways in which her life and character can be interpreted. A stubborn perfectionist, tender to those she loved, implacable to those she found wanting, ever alert to beauty, she is a compelling, often endearing, subject. It is a pleasure to be associated with this work towards a greater knowledge and recognition of a remarkable Canadian woman and explorer.

Finding Her Way, 15 April 1870 - 16 June 1905 Mina Benson was born on an Ontario backwoods farm in 1870, halfway through the reign of Queen Victoria. She was a baby with something of a special status. Born in the province of Ontario in the Dominion of Canada — a nation newly minted just three years before — she was a genuine firstgeneration Canadian, a distinction she would speak of with pride in later life. A folklorist might add that there was something else special about this baby - that as a seventh child she had begun life in the manner of a proper folk hero and there would be good stories to tell about her someday. Her parents' pioneer farm was situated near Bewdley, a village seventeen miles northwest of the town of Cobourg on Lake Ontario. Bewdley sits at the west end of its own distinctive body of water, the twenty-three-milelong Rice Lake. Inland from it lie the rolling Rice Lake Plains, and draining through them to the lake is a large stream, Cold Creek (sometimes called "Sackville's Creek" in past days). In the late eighteenth century, the resident Mississaugas began to lose their independence to the wiles of European fur traders. By the Indian treaty of 1818, they surrendered their territories on Rice Lake to the British Crown and retreated to a reservation of a few thousand acres. The door was now open to loyal British settlers, much encouraged by the Crown as a bulwark for the sensitive Lake Ontario border between its colony of Upper Canada and the United States. Over the next few decades, Cobourg was a transit point to the back country, which soon sprouted rutted roads and rough cabins. The settlers who came were a mixed lot — "late loyalists" from the United States, paid-off British military officers expecting to become landed gentry, estate tenants from England and Ireland, some of them very poor. In the beginning, the officer families poised themselves apart at the top of the social scale, but soon they, like the others, were subsumed by common denominators - back-breaking toil year round and great loneliness in isolated cabins. At first, the Rice Lake Plains were somewhat overlooked as incoming settlers rolled through to catch steamers paddlewheeling across the lake to the Otonabee or down lake to the Trent, gateway rivers to the back townships. Because there were few mature trees on the plains (generations of Mississaugas having burned them over to grow corn), they were thought

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to be incapable of supporting crops and orchards.1 As comparatively late as 1832, Gideon Page, an English immigrant, reported: "The country was generally in a rough state ... I do not think there was a church, school, post office or store ... except in Cobourg. All the north part of the township was a wilderness. The land was thinly covered with scrub oak and brushwood, wild grapes, lupins, ladies slippers and tiger lillies."2 But gradually, as the few settlers who had risked the wild grapes and tiger lilies began to demonstrate, it was realized that under the grass and scrub of the Rice Lake Plains lay large tracts of fertile land comparatively ready for cultivation. By 1846, the Cobourg Star was able to report: "Nearly 50 families are now living on this heretofore unappreciated tract of open country ... of which upwards of 40 have located in the last 2 or 3 years."3 Around 1846, a remarkable family group disembarked at Cobourg. It was the Bensons from Ireland, seven Protestant brothers and sisters, some of them still very young: Samuel, John, James, George, Robert, Mary, and Jane. One would like to know more of this family migration of brothers and sisters all on their own. Were their parents dead? The only knowledge that family memory seems to retain is that they left County Cavan to escape the Irish potato famine and that their voyage lasted six weeks. County Cavan is situated in north-central Ireland, an area, historian Donald Akenson has pointed out, "in which the increase in poor rates (caused by local destitution consequent upon the potato failure) was most pronounced. These rates fell most heavily upon the small tenant farmers, and they led the flight from Ireland, exchanging the proceeds of their last cash crop in Ireland for a ticket to a New World."4 It may have been a situation like this that brought the Bensons to the decks of an immigrant ship bound for Quebec City. (They, however, may have had more wherewithal than just the last cash crop: the wife of one of their descendants is remembered locally as having a sideboard and some hand-painted china brought from Ireland.) If their parents were still alive, saying goodbye — presumably forever — to seven children setting off across the Atlantic on a notoriously long and disease-ridden voyage would have been a terrible wrench, with many urgings that they all stay together, and especially to the older ones to take good care of the youngsters.5 And they must have done, for all seven survived their hazardous journey. Presumably, this included a mandatory spell of quarantine at Grosse-Ile - famously a graveyard for voyageweakened or cholera-stricken immigrants — before taking passage up the

Finding Her Way, 15 April 18/0 —16June 1905 53

Left: James Benson; right: Jane Wood Benson (courtesy of Joanne Matteson)

St Lawrence, into Lake Ontario and finally to their destination, a Cobourg wharf. In 1847, after what was probably an unsettling winter of crowded lodgings and bargainings with land agents, Samuel (27), John (21), James (20), and Robert Benson negotiated a mortgage from the Bank of Upper Canada on a group of newly opened hundred-acre lots in the 7th concession of Northumberland County's Hamilton Township.6 These were situated in Cold Creek Valley on the now-promising Rice Lake Plains and lay along a recently built road (appropriately, the Cavan Road) near the southwest end of the lake. Here the family went to work. A picture now emerges of hard-working, respectable, God-fearing Bensons establishing modest, mixed farms and gradually paying off their debts to the bank. Two of the brothers moved on — Samuel perishing at sea, Robert settling in Australia — but John, James, and George built homesteads close to each other. In due course, they and their two sisters married into local settler families.

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James, the third brother, born 1827, married Jane Wood, born 1831 near Thorne, Yorkshire, who had emigrated with her family at the age of six.7 She and James seem to have met the prescription for good pioneering laid out by Catharine Parr Traill in The Canadian Settler's Guide; "If the man be of a hardy, healthy, vigorous frame of body, and of a cheerful, hopeful temper, with a kind partner, willing to aid both within doors and out, the mother of healthy children, then there is every chance that they will become prosperous settlers."8 Today, this lovely area south of Rice Lake is tidy farmland reminiscent of pastoral England; nevertheless, in reading the writings of Catharine Parr Traill, her sister Susanna Moodie, and, more recently, novelist Jane Urquhart on pioneer life on backwoods farms north of Lake Ontario, one is astonished by its page-turning challenges.9 Some Benson descendants remember hearing stories of early want and hard times. Very little lingers of the near-contemporary story of Jane Wood Benson, but one thinks of her in reading of Catharine's and Susanna's trials. Over some twenty years, Jane bore twelve children. Eight survived: William, Jennie, Mary, Annie, Rachel, Harriet, Mina, and Albert.10 Mina Adelaide Benson was born on 15 April 1870.° Who would this seventh child turn out to be? Years later, her eldest daughter, Mahlo Ellis Hollywood, said of her: "My mother was the youngest of the daughters and very, very beautiful and very elegant. I think that her Irish ancestry must have had a great deal to do with her beauty and her elegance, and her fiery nature underneath her amazing self-control." Elegance, beauty, selfcontrol, and a fiery nature would someday, in various combinations, make Mina Benson a person to take notice of, a force to reckon with. By the time she was born, hardscrabble days in the Ontario bush were pretty well over. In full throttle, Susanna Moodie wrote: "The solitary stroke of the axe ... is only heard in remote districts, and is superseded by the thundering tread of the iron horse, and the ceaseless panting of the steam engine in our saw mills and factories."12 Though things were quieter than that on the Cavan Road, by 1870 the three Benson brothers' families were well established in a triangle of snake-rail-fenced farms bursting with children. The house that Mina's father, James Benson, built was torn down in 1935. Donna McGillis, a local historian, recalls interviewing a man who helped dismantle it: "It was a vine-covered one-storey timber frame built with good carpentry of fine wood, the walls planked and walled like a barn with floor joists of clear pine and a cedar roof." Mary Lean Lander, a

Finding Her Way, 15 April 1870 -16 June 1905 55

Mina as a young child (courtesy of Donna Benson Creates)

descendant of John Benson's, Mina's eldest uncle, remembered it as "low, sort of long, a plain little wooden house." This brings us to a. frisson that runs through the early Benson story — that John Benson was more prosperous and successful in worldly terms than his younger brother James, Mina's father. John's two-storey house (still standing) was much larger, and his farm occupied 449 l/i acres compared to James's 150 l/2.13 There are hints that the older brother's larger acreage and bigger house, and his marriage to Agnes Sackville, a daughter of James Sackville Sr, the locally important owner of a large sawmill on Cold Creek, made the John Bensons regard themselves as rather superior. A granddaughter of John's, Gertrude Benson Manley, grew up in his house and could recall only once setting foot in the nearby home of the James Bensons. Her cousin Mary Lean Lander said the same thing and also had a childhood impression that James was not considered as "steady" or as

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The Life ofMina Benson Hubbard

good a businessman as John. But others must have had more confidence in Mina's father, for he was made a justice of the peace for Bewdley, and the Hamilton Township Council appointed him its reeve for 1861-62, deputy reeve for a number of years thereafter, and collector of township taxes from 1877 to 1888. There is also a mention that he built and maintained a cheese factory for some years.14 In the twentieth century, something else was remarked locally about James Benson — that his and Jane's descendants tended to be "intellectual, skilful, musical." Mina grew up in a thrifty Methodist family of strict beliefs. Her father was one of the first trustees of the Plainville Bible Christian Church, whose "adherents believed higher education corrupted their people. Worship resembled the meetings of the Quakers."15 John Benson's family went further. As Plymouth Brethren, they followed an even stricter Calvinist code and were part of a congregation that later built their own Baptist church on Sackville land at Bensons' Corners, where today Cavan Road meets the main county road.16 A daughter-in-law of Mina's, Betty Cawkill Ellis, recounts that in old age Mina could still recall the names of twenty-seven varieties of apples grown on her parents' farm; she could also remember skipping across logs floating down the creek ("Of course she had marvellous balance all her life and was physically very fit"), endless cooking, baking, preserving, ironing, scrubbing, and milking, and other details of a busy childhood growing up in a hard-working family on a rough side road. There were few frills and only simple amusements — the school concert at Christmas, the occasional sleigh ride solely for pleasure, the township picnic on the 24th of May, the Queen's birthday. But there was probably no staying on after dark for strict churchgoers like the Bensons, as dancing and drinking were apt to follow. Just a few miles to the east, perched scenically on the lake, a different sort of world was evolving in the pretty village of Gore's Landing. Here, a wealthier, more leisured class pursued pleasures such as duck hunting, sport fishing, and canoeing. Already, a scattering of summer homes were being built, concerts held, oyster suppers eaten. The Bensons were not of this world. "The relationship between the farming community on the plains and the villagers of Gore's Landing was an uneasy one. The practical farmers disdained the impractical 'gentlemen' of the village."17 Mina, growing up, must have seen - and perhaps longed to experience a bit of it - the beautiful cedar canoes of Gore's Landing skimming down the lake in the annual Rice Lake Regatta. "The strongest, most durable and

Finding Her Way, 15 April 18/0 -16June 190$

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Mina and her brother Bert, ca. 1881 (courtesy of Donna Benson Creates)

lasting canoe that has ever been invented" was the boast of its builders, Dan Herald and his sons of Gore's Landing. In time, such was the canoe's fine reputation, it simply became known internationally as "The Rice Lake Canoe."18 At about the age of six, Mina began following her sisters, brothers, and cousins half a mile down the Cavan Road to Bensons' Corners. There, beside the creek and the sawmill, stood S.S.#i5, known as "Sackville's School."19 It was a perfect example of the many one-room "common" (elementary) schools dotted over rural Ontario according to a centrally prescripted pattern. True to the word "schoolhouse," it looked like a house (and a pretty one at that). It stood on an acre of land, with a playground, a well, and a privy. From the belfry on its roof, its bell could be heard at

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The Life ofMina Benson Hubbard

The school at Bensons' Corners (courtesy of Mary Lander)

least three miles away — "rung in the morning to hurry children to school and again in the evening to tell parents they were starting on their way home."20 Inside, it was furnished with a pot-bellied stove, rows of wooden desks and benches, a blackboard, and a picture of Queen Victoria on the wall. Mina had now entered into the kingdom of Adolphus Egerton Ryerson, an enlightened and revered figure in distant Toronto. Over the previous three decades as superintendent of education, Ryerson had literally invented the universal and compulsory school system of what was now the province of Ontario. Mina's older siblings probably learnt their three R's from Irish textbooks, as Ryerson considered the Irish national education system the best in the English-speaking world and borrowed heavily from it.21 By the time Mina went to school, however, spinoffs from his final legacy, the Ontario Education Act of 1871 outlining a more homegrown curriculum, were beginning to filter down in the form of Royal Readers and Ontario Readers. Mary Lean Lander had a hunch, from documents she had seen as a child, that her grandfather John — perhaps not a product of the vaunted, non-compulsory Irish school system — signed his name with a mark rather

Finding Her Way, 15 April 1870 —16June 1905 59

The Benson sisters and brothers, ca. 1883: Mina second from right (courtesy of Donna Benson Creates)

than a signature. However, the Canadian-born Bensons would have gone to school until at least the allowable leaving age of fourteen. And, at about this age, Mina became part of a small minority. "Between 5 and 6 per cent of Ontario pupils in the 18705 worked their way through the four classes or 'books' of the elementary school in seven or eight years, sat for the 'entrance' exam, and proceeded on to high school."22 If parents were so inclined and could afford it, high school for the tiny slice of such graduates of Mina's school, one of the farthest north in Hamilton Township, meant the Cobourg Collegiate seventeen miles away and boarding in town. That Mina and others of her siblings were sent to high school tells us that James and Jane Benson were ambitious for their children, had managed to find a way in their own minds around Bible Christian beliefs that higher education would corrupt them, and were able to manage the necessary financial sacrifices, including the high school fees. Going off to a big school and boarding in town must have been exciting for a country teenager. Though families like the Bensons would have chosen their daughters' landladies carefully, being out from under the

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The Life ofMina Benson Hubbard

parental roof must have been a comparative independence. And there was lots to see in Cobourg. Following several decades of prosperity as a supplier and jump-off point for immigrants, its entrepreneurs had an illfated fling in the i86os at railroad building. Things picked up again in the 18708 after "Pittsburgh industrialists had gained control of the Cobourg Peterborough Railway and the iron mines at nearby Marmora. They liked Cobourg, with its maple-lined streets, fine houses, and genteel, rather English atmosphere ... they made the town 'Newport North,' one of the most fashionable resorts in North America."23 Perhaps Mina, when she went off to Cobourg in its glamorous i88os, felt a bit as Jane Austen did when she went off to Bath. In an engraving contemporary to Mina's day, the Cobourg Collegiate on King Street East is a largish, rather fairy-tale-looking building of neo-classic design. For the two years Mina attended it, her studies were a mixture of literature, grammar, history, Latin, and mathematics, with an added option — if she chose it — of studying commercial bookkeeping. By 1885, physical education and games were also on the menu, as "collegiate institute status was made dependent on the provision of a suitably-equipped gymnasium."24 In her gymnasium, quick, "marvellously balanced" Mina probably shone. Outside the classroom, there was another strong influence during her schooling years. Both Betty Cawkill Ellis and Mahlo Ellis Hollywood remember her speaking with gratitude of a well-educated clergyman, a stimulating teacher and friend of the family from whom the Benson children learned much. Undoubtedly this was Joseph Scriven (1819-86), a remarkable preacher and the composer of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," often cited as Christianity's most popular hymn. Scriven lived in the Bewdley area for thirty years and died in 1886 when Mina was sixteen. Born in Ireland to a military family and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he came to Bewdley in about 1857 as tutor to the family of a retired naval officer. Already attracted to the Plymouth Brethren, he was formally baptized in the waters of Rice Lake by James Sackville Jr, a Plymouth Brethren lay preacher. Sackville, a brother-in-law of Mina's Uncle John, lived close to the Benson homesteads. Scriven became an ardent preacher himself, often on the streets of the nearby town of Port Hope, where he was sometimes mocked and pelted with mud. In Bewdley, "Scriven gathered around himself a Plymouth Brethren Congregation, making converts by his preaching and manner

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61

of life and 'acting as a sort of spiritual adviser to numerous families.'"25 In his latter days he sank into depression and was taken into James Sackville's home for care, from which he wandered one hot August night and drowned in Sackville's millpond on the Cavan Road. Mina must have carried a vivid memory for the rest of her life of family shock and speculation when Scriven's death was discovered next morning. "I wonder," said Betty Cawkill Ellis, "if he was the one who interested Mina in Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner'? She was struck by Coleridge's simple but compelling words, and I think his style she emulated in her book." With her completion of high school at the age of sixteen, the direction Mina now took could almost have been predicted. Bright, personable, the daughter of a respected farm family, she was a perfect candidate for one of the few professions open to young rural women of her day. She opted to become an elementary schoolteacher, by virtue of a fourteen-week course at the County Model School in Cobourg, and thus joined a band of women (sometimes called "the Arabs of Ontario") holding third-class teaching certificates and making salaries of around $260 a year (considerably less than equivalent male teachers). Theirs tended to be a "here this year, there the next" profession, further upheaved by a high dropout rate, mostly to marriage and their perceived "natural destinies" as wives and mothers.26 From about September 1886 to June 1896, Mina taught school, first (living at home with her parents) in her old school at Bensons' Corners and later at Glourourim school a few miles south. The words of Grace Forsythe, born about 1888, bring a country schoolteacher like Mina to mind: "In a one-roomed school, with a stove in the middle, children three in a seat at times, and often 100 enrolled. She [the teacher] stood on the platform with her pretty crisp white apron trimmed with embroidery ... as a protection from chalk dust. Her dark skirt was ankle or floor length, and was worn with a pretty white or colored blouse."27 Mina stood on just such a platform for ten years. From what we learn of her subsequently, it is safe to assume that she planned her lessons painstakingly and perhaps, from time to time, came out from behind a proper schoolmistress demeanour with something unexpected: a quick throwaway line or tease, joy over a few wildflowers, sharp anger against a perceived treachery. The only existing recollection that survives of her during this time is one told to Mary Lean Lander by her mother, Mina's first cousin: "When she was the teacher at Glourourim School, her father

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would go over in his buggy on Friday afternoon to bring her home for the weekend." While this is a pleasant clip-clop glimpse, it does little to illuminate Mina's life from the time she was about sixteen until she was twenty-six — usually momentous years. Towards the end of them, she must have been dangerously close to being labelled a spinster schoolmarm, still attached to her parents but with — for variety — the occasional summer visit to one or another of her sisters' homes. Were there admirers? Did she have beaux? She was, after all, a very attractive young woman - small, slim, with pretty brown hair and large brown eyes — and the expectations of her marrying must have been high. There had been a flurry of young Bensons marrying during these years, including the five older sisters, Jennie, Mary, Annie, Rachel, and Harriet, but not Mina. Despite the Victorian dread of spinsterhood, if any significant courtships did occur during her twenties, none of them succeeded in bringing her to her "natural destiny." Perhaps she was in no hurry to get there, a foreshadowing of future determinations to choose her own way. Nevertheless, towards the end of the 18905, there was probably concern in the family — especially amongst the sisters — over bright, serious, good-looking little Mina, to whom nothing much seemed to happen. Might a different profession be the answer? No more honorable or lucrative employment for women is open at the present day than the comparatively modern profession of the trained nurse. To the educated, healthy, refined, lady-like young woman who shrinks from the publicity of the clerk's position, has not a taste for teaching, and marks the overcrowded state of the typewriters' market, the calling of a nurse offers special inducements. The calling is honorable — none more so — it offers broad fields for Christian usefulness, steady and sure employment, and liberal remuneration.28 In 1896 or early 1897, Mina traded in one respectable female profession for another and left for New York City to train to be a nurse. After quiet Bewdley, this must have been an enormous change, but her departure was not as groundbreaking as it may seem. Her sister Rachel, six years older, and two of her cousins, Annie Benson and Florence Henderson, also trained to be nurses in New York. (In the 18905, the school of nursing at the Toronto General Hospital was beginning to emerge as a creditable institution; prior to that, "it was almost impossible to attract girls of the desired type to the profession of nursing in Canada.")29

Finding Her Way, i$ April 1870 -16 June 1905 63

Perhaps all those years as a schoolteacher, Mina had been yearning to be a nurse and had been saving her money to become one. Or perhaps - because she was fond of her aging parents and had not wanted to hurt them — her decision was an acceptable cover for flight, an itching to get away from waking up each day to sameness: orchards, woodlots, year after year of Royal Readers, endless rounds of church, older sisters married and gone, and not-so-subtle inquiries as to why she hadn't. Before she ever got to New York, Mina must have heard many stories from Rachel and her cousins about life as a nurse-in-training under the strict Nightingale-inspired regimes then flourishing in the better American nursing schools. They would have warned her not to expect to see much of exciting, racy New York, for nursing students were almost as confined as nuns, working and studying up to eighteen hours a day in high-walled buildings. Everyone at the school, from the upper-class board down to the ward matrons, would expect her to practise constant obedience, devotion, and moral purity. It would all begin with a six-week probation of hard labour: fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, cleaning windows, washing dishes, scrubbing floors and bedpans "with the superintendent at her heels, ready to pounce on her for the slightest mistake."30 This was a winnowing-out of the weak, unfit, or romantic — the latter being any who might have "pictured themselves in glossy white linen stooping to soothe the brow of a sick (but handsome) young man."31 Assuming that Mina survived all this — and, farm girls all, her sister and cousins would have been confident that even the meanest superintendent would see how well she could wash and scrub — at the end of six weeks she would ceremoniously receive her first nursing cap and solemnly pledge, in the spirit of Florence Nightingale, to uphold the standards of her new profession. (There is a charming photograph of Mina doing just this; it is also an example of a good fortune that would be with her for most her life — the ability to look about ten years younger than she actually was. In it, it is as if her ten years as a schoolteacher had never been.) Three years of training were required for one to become a graduate nurse.32 Mina spent hers in the New York borough of Brooklyn, at the Brooklyn Training School for Nurses and the General Memorial Hospital of New York.33 If "Mrs Seth Low" was any indication, the school tended to be snobbish. Most nursing schools paid their heavily worked students a tiny monthly allowance, but in 1889, "in an article in Trained Nurse, Mrs

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The student nurse, 1897 (courtesy of Betty Cawkill Ellis)

Seth Low, the lay president of the Brooklyn Training School for Nurses, objected to the payments because she felt such remuneration interested women who only wanted the salary."34 In theory, the actual educating of the students took place on the wards amid all the necessity of caring for patients. This learning-bydoing was supplemented by lectures. These were usually given in the evenings, after a ten- to twelve-hour workday. In the i88os and 18905 much of this lecturing was done by the hospital's physicians, when they remembered to show up, who frequently pitched their talks either too high or too low for the students. Nursing students were expected to take careful notes and to be able to recite what they had "learned."35

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After three years, the long haul was over and the graduating nurse would have "in her possession, at its close, a profession which makes her independent of the frowns of fortune, gives her tremendous power for good to humanity, and fits her for the position of wife, mother and homemaker as no other."36 On 13 December 1899, as her training neared its end, Mina sat down to finish a letter she had started two or three days before to her sister, "Dear Ati" (Rachel). This is the first taste we have of Mina's voice, and considering the strong-willed and self-reliant person she later became, it is a voice surprisingly unsure. From the news the letter carried, one would expect her tone to be entirely triumphant. On the day she began to write it, "Miss Lawson" (probably the head of the nursing school) had just informed her that she would be recommending her for an upcoming position as "Supt. of Dr. Bull's private hosp." On the day she finished it, she had just learned the results of her final exams: "My average is 97% and I stand at the head of the list. Of course I am very much pleased I got 92% on written 98 on oral and 100 on hospital work." As well, Miss Lawson was now working on a second possibility for her: "another very good position that has just become vacant. As Matron of the Orthopaedic Hospital here in the city." To those around her, it must have seemed that all good things were falling into Mina's lap. Despite this, much of the rest of the letter is taken up with anxieties and self-doubts: There has really been so little to write about and so little time to write and when we had a little time were either too tired to write or had to go out. It has been pretty hard work here. But now that the time is drawing near when I shall have to start I'm afraid somewhere else I begin to rather dread it ... I shall have to begin to feel so anxious about what is to become of me. I don't mean I am worrying but you know how I dislike change and as I have not an over amount of self confidence I can't help feeling that it is doubtful whether I shall succeed or not. On 22 December she wrote Rachel again, envying her the "fine sleighing and very cold weather in the north" and wishing "to be with some of you for Christmas. Really I won't know how to keep Xmas after this I think. It is so long since I was with my friends on that gay day." Then came

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further worries over her future: "I do wish I could get something for the ist Jan. If I don't I suppose I shall have to try for privates work ... Oh dear I wonder what is going to become of me ... Was down town yesterday and bought a trunk. It almost 'broke' me to pay for it but it had to be done."37 What is to become of me ... what is going to become of me are doubts one would hardly expect from Miss Lawson's star pupil. It's evident from these letters that Mina had emerged splendidly from the tense, judgmental years of her training, and that the Brooklyn Training School was confident that, in her, it was graduating a very good nurse — and one who, at the age of twenty-nine, was a reassuringly mature one, ready for senior positions. In light of this high regard, the voice we hear in Mina's letters home is startlingly anxious, almost adolescent. Before many more years would pass, she would demonstrate how very gutsy and independent she could be, but this is a Mina fearful of trying her wings. What did become of her was that five months later, having obtained an excellent position as assistant superintendent of the S.R. Smith Infirmary on Staten Island,38 she was assigned a patient ill with typhoid fever, Leonidas Hubbard, Jr, a young journalist recently arrived in New York. Hubbard had been born in southern Michigan in 1872 (two years after Mina). Like Mina, he had grown up on a hard-working pioneer farm. She would later write tenderly of Leonidas's "dream," begun in childhood under the apple trees on his father's farm as he lay "with elbows resting on the pages of an old school geography ... open at the map of Canada, and there on the other page were pictures of Indians dressed in skins ... of white hunters also dressed in skins, paddling bark canoes; winter pictures of dog-teams and sledges, the driver on his snow-shoes, his long whip in hand. The boy would have given all the arrow-heads he had for just one look at what he saw pictured there."39 His parents were Ellen Van der Voort, a descendant of seventeenthcentury Flemish emigres, and Leonidas Hubbard, Sr, a restless outdoorsman from Ohio who, as a young man with his gun on his shoulder, carved a farm out of the Michigan wilderness. Their son's childhood "was apparently one of parental indulgence, outdoor pleasure, and literary romanticizing. Tales of frontier life and the Indians stirred him deeply ... His was a simple, dogged, idealistic nature. Lack of confidence was something he did not experience; his faith in his Saviour was complete."40 At sixteen, Hubbard enrolled in Indiana's Angola Normal School, where he pledged himself to God and was baptized into the Congrega-

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67

Leonidas Hubbard (courtesy of CNSA)

tional Church of Christ. Three years later he began teaching in northern Michigan, where "he did his first real exploring. Here were clear, cold streams with their trout and grayling, and here, when his work admitted, he hunted and fished and dreamed out his plans, his thoughts turning ever more insistently to the big, outside world where his heroes did their work."41 Unlike Mina's, Hubbard's career as a country teacher did not last long. In 1893 ne enrolled at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to study towards a bachelor of letters. As with everything else, he threw himself into campus life with gusto, always in pursuit of the "big thing." His life in the University was one of varied and unceasing activity ... He was an enthusiast in athletics, and found his field in running and boxing. The contest was as the wine of life to him. He was active in the literary and debating societies, and prominent in the Student's Christian Association, attending and taking part in the work of the local branch of the Church of Christ. His first newspaper work was done as an amateur on the college press ... He possessed the "news

68

The Life ofMina Benson Hubbard

sense" to an unusual degree, delighting to take "beats" from under the very feet of his brother reporters.42 After graduation in 1897, Hubbard worked first as a reporter with the Detroit Evening News and then as press clerk for the lower house of the Michigan legislature.43 In 1899, determined to break into big-city journalism, he went to New York. In the spirit of Horatio Alger, he arrived with less than five dollars in his pocket. For several days he literally starved on the streets. In the nick of time he was taken on as a reporter with the New York Daily News, and he soon began picking up editorial work on the side with the Saturday Evening Post. He worked furiously to establish himself until, in May 1900, an attack of typhoid cost him his job. Dangerously ill, he was taken to the S.R. Smith Infirmary in New Brighton on Staten Island. Today this infirmary, with its four massive corner towers, stands derelict, but in a late 18905 advertisement, it proudly described itself as a "thoroughly equipped" loo-bed general hospital, and noted, in particular, its "new Isolation Wards."44 Into one of these, and into the care of Mina, poor Hubbard was brought.45 Then began a hospital romance worthy of the dreams of the most giddy young probationer — "in glossy white linen stooping to soothe the brow of a sick (but handsome) young man." Nurse Benson, in the full glory of a graduate uniform characterized by "charming frills and laces, layers of starched petticoats, long, full skirts, tight bodices, and long, stiff cuffs and high collars,"46 would have been well dressed for the role, but her patient, strictly speaking, would not have been called handsome. Though a wiry athlete in his college days, Hubbard was short of stature, slight (he never weighed more than 130 pounds), and, when wearing spectacles, had an owlish look. His great charm — and it is well documented that almost everyone who knew Hubbard loved him — was his irrepressible enthusiasm and generosity of spirit. Intense, endearing, and competitive, his head full of romantic fantasies of the untamed wild, Hubbard loved to yarn about his grandfather fighting Indians in Ohio and his father hunting and trapping in Michigan. How epic he must have made all this seem to his enthralled nurse. The story of hard-working Bensons settling in peaceful Bewdley could hardly have compared. It is quite likely that he was the first man to make Mina Benson really laugh. In the quarantine ward of the Staten Island Infirmary they fell in love.

Finding Her Way, Jj April 1870 -16 June i(>o little river (shipu, river; -ish, diminutive). The brook is not named in A Woman's Way.

148

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16 June — 27 December 1905

ing place. Proposed making camp. Gave me blues to think of spending Sunday there. Said I wished they would go on to head of rapid with camp stuff. Geo said too far to leave other stuff behind but it was finally decided to go on. Reached head of Northpole Rapid.85 Beautiful camping place. Rapid very fine. So glad not to have to spend Sunday in other place Glad also to have made a little more headway. Had just made camp when it started to rain Job shot another partridge. Had rather hard work keeping up to Geo over last mile of portage. He wanted to carry my rifle but would not let him. He says I can walk faster than Wallace. But at my best can't keep up to men with their heavy loads.

SUNDAY 9 [July]

Another very beautiful Sunday in a beautiful camp. Sun shining, big heavy fleecy silver clouds, sky — deep beautiful blue, water 20—30 ft below our camp, almost purple hills deep rich green and blue and purple. So glad that there is something so really comforting to me as color. It is strange too, I don't understand its having such an effect. Rained hard through the night. Had a good sleep. Breakfast at 10. Two partridges stewed and pancakes. Delicious breakfast. Had been up about three or four hours and was ready for it. After breakfast men went back for a load of the stuff I washed dishes and did my washing Geo brought me bunch of beautiful little pink flowers After men returned we had dinner. Men slept and I took pictures. Wanted so much to climb hill86 but could not go alone and after supper when men went was afraid it would be dark before I could get back and I could not see my footing Very rough walking. Talked with Geo. a while after their return. Says if we don't

85 "We were now travelling along the foot of Bald Mountain ... and passing what is known by the trappers as North Pole Rapid, which was the wildest of the rapids so far" (Woman's Way, 68). 86 Bald Mountain, which MH had seen from far down the river: "away ahead were the blue ridges of hills with one high and barren, standing out above the rest, which I named Bald Mountain" (Woman's Way, 64).

Red Wine River to Wapustan River, 29 June -10 July

149

have any accidents and all keep well we will be at Ungava in 40 days.87 That would be great. Sure then to catch Pelican.88 Flies very bad this eve. Fine breeze kept them quiet most of day but towards eve very bad. Hated to put up my veil to eat supper. Could hardly eat. Finally Geo came to my rescue and waving a grub bag round my head kept them off while I finished supper. Could not keep them out of the tent to-day. Came on in numbers. Could not tell where from. But they were nothing compared with outside. Trouble is when sun shines the heat in tent is so bad. Geo. says still that this is nothing to what they will be. Neck and face round my hair swollen and very sore to-night. When rubbed with Almond Cream feel as if were covered with very strong mustard plaster Wrists & hands also swollen and sore. Job has a way of disappearing and reappearing so suddenly and quietly. This eve while we were at supper he walked silently in with rifle under his arm, his eyes shining. He has very fine eyes and how they do shine. He is so full of energy and in his work, goes straight to the point without the slightest hesitation When you see these men in the bush you need no further explanation of their air of quiet self confidence. Job had been up the river as far as the brook.89 Our flour & bacon lasting well Geo telling me stories to-night about his childhood experiences.

July MONDAY 10 1905

3 miles Cold last night. Coldest night yet I think. Heard sound of voices about 4 A.M. Then all quiet. Almost six sound of steps. Men going past with loads. They had been for the stuff left back Saturday night. Went on past and half an hr. later returned and I heard them getting breakfast Job had caught two rabbits in snares and we had

87 Elson was out by nine days: it took them forty-nine days. 88 The HBC supply ship, which brought the year's supplies and mail to HBC posts on the Labrador coast and Ungava Bay, "my only means of return to civilisation before the closing in of winter" (Woman's Way, 44). 89 That is, the Wapustan.

150

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16June - .27 December 1905

them for breakfast. Portaging from here to brook where we leave river fine. Geo says "Oh its just fun with this kind of walking." Says will have all stuff at the brook to-night. Have to carry all the way though. However think we can use canoes a good deal in the brook. So nice to feel that we are getting oh. Will be at Seal Lake if all goes well before the week end. Duncan no Gil says can see Seal L. from Mountain just beyond brook.90 Must try to climb it if not too far away. After breakfast washed dishes while men went on with loads. Then they came back and took camp stuff and we came on a mile or more Halted and I tried to get observation. Partly cloudy and don't think I got it just right. Puts us a little more than two miles farther north than we should be according to our dead reckoning91 Very very hot latter part of morning. Had lunch near a tiny pond the head of the brook which ran just back of my tent a little way at Sunday Camp. Flies very bad Glad to sit with smudges all round me to escape from them. When I had finished my lunch there were just 20 dead flies on my plate to say nothing of those lying round on my dress. They crawl through my veil. It is awfully hard work but the energy and persistance of the Labrador fly does not count hard work worth considering. Still the veil is some protection even from them and it keeps out mosquitoes effectually. Started again after an attempt on part of men to get a little rest in the midst of numerous smudges. It did not work very well even with a smudge for each man. Later on the trail Geo. admitted the flies are really getting to business. My face and neck very sore to-night. Even the silk veil hurts. A mile or more beyond where we lunched the trail turned up a steep bank to another sand flat above. The view from this was very fine Across the valley a long, high, well wooded hill and the river flowing right at its foot, below the moss covered sparsely wooded sand flat stretching away for more than two miles and away to the East and South the blue mts. on either side the river valley. Men took

90 This is the hill climbed by MH and Elson on 16 July and on which they built a cairn. See entry 17 July. 91 Calculation of position from compass directions and distances travelled when (solar) observations impossible.

Red Wine River to Wapustan River, 29 June —10 July

151

their loads on to where we are to cross the river and leave it to begin the ascent of the brook the trappers route to Seal Lake. Gilbert who traps up here in winter says from Seal Lake to here the river just flows down hill. That is just what it has been doing the last nearly 30 miles. Gil says mts. very high and steep on either side from here up, sometimes perpendicular and hundreds of ft high. Says does not think there is any direct fall on the river Has been up above here 15 m. in an attempt to get to Seal L. along the R. but had to give it up.92 Wish awfully we could go up and map it but think we must not try. Take too long. I remained at edge of second sand flat to enjoy the prospect while they went back for stuff left below. Waited on a bear trail. Had rifle and revolver and really wished one would come along Men like specks in the distance way below. Soon mists began to gather on the hills away to E & W. and could see showers coming. Specks began to move faster. Job led way with a canoe. Stopped to rest at foot of bank. Geo came on past and up the bank at a great rate. "The showers are coming over the mts. I was afraid you would get wet" Then I followed him and didn't I have to walk, I could scarcely keep up. Had to run part of time. Got to river just as it began to sprinkle. The last I had seen of Job he was at the foot of the hill with the canoe. Yet when we turned there was Job right behind with the canoe. Never ceases to be a marvel to me what these men can do with their big loads. Geo. put tarpaulin round me and I sat on the bags till my tent was put up. The deed was scarcely done when it began to pour. Men then soon got their own up and crawled in to wait for showers to pass. Then very shortly I heard some one begin to play mouth organ "Comin' thro' the Rye," "Annie Laurie" and others. They certainly have decidedly good taste in music. Like them all better all the time. They are gentle, considerate and polite always not only of me either but of each other as well and have such good times together. Gil is a great little worker, enjoys

92 Gilbert was correct: the river from Seal Lake to the mouth of the Wapustan constitutes a series of rapids much praised by modern whitewater canoeists travelling downstream. However, Alexandra Pratt, travelling upstream, was forced, like Gilbert, to give up her attempt to reach Seal Lake by this route (Lost Lands, Forgotten Stories, 228 ff.).

152.

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16June - 27 December 1905

himself so much with the men and always gives the impression of being so pleased and proud of being in the party. Joe is very quiet and thoughtful and gentle, has a soft musical voice and a rich soft scotch accent for all his Russian name He speaks English, quite easily and well. Job does not say much in English; but what he does say is very good English. Geo gentle, sunny tempered, fun loving, devoted. How easy I feel in the midst of them all. Could not feel more so if they were my brothers. And no one, except Laddie, was ever more thoughtful and kind to me than they have been. And how my heart aches with hunger and longing for him. It would be so perfect if he were here. How he would revel in it all. To-night our camp is on the edge of the sand flat 100 ft or more above the river Just at the bend and across on the other side our brook comes in. The river is still rapid and the sound of it comes up from below. South & W.d" N are the hills. The flat and the bank down to the river grown up with spruce and other [also?] beautiful white birch. To-night after the rain the sun came out again before disappearing beyond the hills and lit everything up with a golden light. Clouds lay like delicate veils along the hillsides sometimes dipping down almost to their feet. It is all so wild and grand and mysterious and how his heart would have beat hard with pride and joy in it all if he could be here. Along the edge of the bank I watched it for some time thinking, thinking. So very, very beautiful yet lacking that which completes and perfects. I have not his spirit, not that of the true explorer. I have to keep reminding myself all the time that I am the first of my kind to see it and I don't get any thrill out of it at all except only as I can make it honor him. When I returned to camp the men had gone to their tents. There was a little fire left and I sat watching it till it began to rain again. Then came to the tent. Made about three miles to-day. Found two beautiful little blue violets by lake where we had our lunch.

TA/oMshttt/ 7^u)er faSctt^ J^ttK& II-l8 J U L Y

TUESDAY II [July]

i Vt miles

M. [?]93

Rained a good deal in the night last night and a little this morn Men did not get up till 9 A.M. Decided not to worry. They know what they have to do and I know are anxious to do it. So I shall let them do it in their own way. Made about i 1A miles to-day Not feeling very well this morn and when we started seemed as if I could ' hardly climb over the rocks and fallen trees alone but by 3 P.M. was' feeling better and getting over ground not so much trouble to me. Got a few fine pictures of the river and brook to-day. River where we crossed it just carries the canoe down stream at locomotive speed. Find [?] brook high as river and can do a good deal of poling. Geo d" Gil portaged one load each up the brook from the river. Coming along Geo. said "It is an awful thing to get lost. If I hadn't been lost myself I would never have known what it means to be lost."94 We did some very bad shooting this afternoon. Job found an axe at Duncan's tilt95 this eve. Great rejoicing. Says we'll carry the axe with the sugar after this. Bake apple berries96 in blossom. Crossed old dried-up river bed. Must have been a big one. Found some blue violets Came along a good way on bear trail Wigwam poles round a big boulder97 where we camp to-night Geo says winter camp. 93 The same letter occurs on 7 August and 3 September; it is not clear what it means. 94 On the 1903 expedition, Elson says, "I just got turned 'round ... I didn't have any grub, and I didn't have a pistol, or a fish-hook, or any way to get grub, and I didn't have a compass, and I was scared ... I never got lost before" (DW, Lure, 91). 95 Duncan McLean, Gilbert Blake's brother-in-law. 96 Rubus chamaemorus or cloudberry. 97 "In the winter time the Indians, in making their camps, dig down into the snow to a rock to build their fire. At a number of places on our journey we found poles lying round a boulder in this way" (Woman's Way, 72).

Map 8 - Wapustan River to Seal Lake, 10-18 July

Wapustan River to Seal Lake, 11—18 July

155

July WEDNESDAY 12 1905

1 l / z miles Started about 8 A.M. Portaged some distance, then about 200 yards in canoe. Then portage again. Our brook just dropping from ledge to ledge down the hill. Seems so nice to me to get into the canoe again. What must it seem to the men who have the hard work to do. Am afraid it means portaging nearly all the way from here to Seal L. about 20 miles I think. Then we hope the hardest part of the trip will be over. Walking pretty bad this morning some places. Geo had to stop and wait for me quite a few times. Flies terribly thick. Would be awfully hard to bear without a veil. They get inside it too but that is nothing compared with being without one altogether. Waiting at one stage of portage this A.M. thought I would go down to brook and have a look at the rapid Forgot to make note of the surroundings and when I came back could not find the stuff. Geo. greatly amused. It was only a very little way too. Shower while we were at lunch. While taking picture near brook a wild duck flew past me so near it seemed as if I could almost touch him. Flew back to-night and dropped into water just above camp Geo took a shot at him with the rifle but missed. My camp to-night in the most beautiful place yet about 4 ft from the water edge and right on an otter landing place. Geo tells me "You'll have to keep your boots on to-night. That otter may come along and get hold of your toes and drag you right into the river." He said "If its a bear instead of an otter, they are all great fellows for tin or any kind of metal, he will get hold of that screw on your bed and just take it right off. You'd better put a bullet right inside and then when he takes off the screw your weight on the bed will just blow it right into his mouth and he'll think a fly has flown down his throat and cough. Then you could run. I think — Oh you keep a rifle there though don't you? — I think you could handle salt better than a rifle. You might put a little salt on his tail. Maybe you could put that otter out of business too if you had enough salt. But you must go easy on the salt for you require more than we do. We don't eat very much."98 Beautiful evening. Sat out on a big rock 98 "We ate the meat Indian fashion without salt" (Cabot, In Northern Labrador, 248).

156

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16 June — 27 December 1905

in river till after sunset. Have named our brook Wapustan River." It is too large to be called a brook. Job drjoe went fishing this eve but caught nothing, River too rapid Here the river widens out and there are a number of little rocky islands Some with a few trees. From the side our tent is on to the opposite side there is a distinct slope. Water slips over ledges of rock. Little fringes of green mark fisures in the rock. High hills on either side. Our trail on S. side of river to-day partly along caribou trail There had been a caribou along but a short time ahead of us. Beautiful sunset to-night and now beautiful evening sky and fine moon. Geo says fine day & fine breeze to-morrow. So sorry men have so much packing to do. Wish I were more like my husband and could express my appreciation and admiration for their work in the beautiful way he would if he were here. How perfect it would be if he were here. Who could believe Labrador could be so beautiful. At last nights camp woke in middle of night and heard sounds outside. At first thought some of men, then decided it was not and got scared. Thought about the bear trail, but didn't quite think it was the bear either. Presently something shook the branches of the tree my tent was tied to, and they rattled fearfully on the tent just at my head. How I jumped. Reached for my revolver and remember [ed] there were three empty cartridges in it. I had been shooting at an owl in the afternoon and missing him too. He was a good long piece away or I wouldn't have shot at him. I reloaded revolver as quickly as I could and waited. The sounds in my tent evidently alarmed the intruder and there was silence after that. Was pretty frightened for a while but got over it after time and went to sleep again. Men say probably it was a rabbit. Cleaning up my revolver this morning. It got a little rusty. Was putting some grease on it and in barrel. Geo said "Don't put too

99 Innu-Aimun for pine marten: "the martens, whose Indian name ... is Wapistan, 'Rabbit-hunter'" (ibid., 287). Martens were abundant; Duncan McLean had 250 marten traps (DW, diary, 28 June 1905). MH was renaming a river that already had a local name, Blake, after Gilbert's family; but her name is the one on modern maps. Elson calls the river "Sketer [mosquito?] brook ... or Blake River"; "followed the Wapstan river or the Blake river" (Elson, diary, 10, n July).

Wapustan River to Seal Lake, n-i8 July

157

much grease on it. If you put too much on the bullet will just slip and ." "might kill something" I finished. Then followed one of George's rare laughs. His laugh when he laughs hard is like a baby's It expresses such complete amusement. I love to hear it.

THURSDAY 13 [July]

4 miles Beautiful morning. Was going to get up early and help cook bannocks, but Geo. did not call me till he had them all mixed and when I got out they were all done and breakfast was ready. Got started at 7.30 3/4 mile portage All stuff except our camp & dunage ahead. Then little paddling. Were able to bring canoes up part way. Seemed so good to get into canoe again even for only a little way about V4 mile or less. But they were able to keep the stuff in the canoes most of the day poling and tracking up the rapids. Was such a relief even to me that there was not much packing to do and after the first portage in the morn the walking was fine. Flat rocks covered with white moss. We are getting to the top of the hills now, nearing height of land Hills seem to melt away and we look back and down to those we have passed and which 25 miles back looked so high. The last hill is a little almost cone like affair covered with white moss At noon Gilbert brought me a dandelion. I was so glad to get it. As I walked up along the bank later I saw a number of them but did not pull them also white and blue violets and another little flower much like the blue violet but not opening out wide as it does, and having a different leaf Along the river flat and growth low and walking good Always glad when able to keep near the water Where had to carry men went on fine bear trail further back. Did a little scouting towards evening. Geo scared and came after me. Missed me and was more scared. When he got back I was sitting on stuff. Reached brook where we leave Wapustan R. on 9 m. portage to Seal L. Lakes will help some. Decided to camp and had just got tents up when it began to rain. Flies and mosquitoes very bad. Took to tent for refuge and ate supper there. I am really getting to dread very much

158

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16June — 27 December 1905

putting up my veil. Gloveless hand getting to be a queer looking affair. Guess my face pretty bad too. To-day feel something of what I think must be an approach to the right thrill as we came up to the hilltops and prepare to leave our river to cross to Seal L. Before the situation has not seemed extraordinary. Now begin to feel just a little like an explorer.

July FRIDAY 14 1905

Everything wet this morn and late breakfast. Scotch mist Geo. made bannocks. I helped cook them. Did a little washing. Job & Gil went scouting to lake up brook. Report good walking about 2 miles to lake and paddling about i m. on lake. Got a partridge. Joe went up brook little way. Came back and lay in tent. While eating dinner rain came on quite heavy. Have spent afternoon in tent, sleeping some map-making and writing. Men in their tent having good time as usual. Singing some. About After I came to my tent Job haranguing the party in Indian. Joe & Geo just splitting their sides laughing. I had to laugh too just at his tones though I did not know a word he was saying. To-night at supper they were talking about the trail we had followed. Geo. turned to me and asked "Where abouts did you fire at that bear the other day? Where did you aim at?" I said "Oh any place Just at the bear." which amused him ef Job greatly. Job after supper made me a pipe out of a root. When I took it I said, as I had often heard Geo say when he took out his pipe, "Nekopetou anganesay"100 and they just shouted with laughter. Cold to-day & no mosquitoes and flies to bother. Seemed very nice to be free from them a little while. They do not do business when temp, is below 50°. Temp to-night 47°. Just a year ago Laddie at Northwest river.101

100 Cree: nikapituau akaneshau. "Every night when they'd light up their pipes, George would say to the boys, 'Nekupetan anganescen.' It meant, 'Now we'll have a good smoke'" (Davidson and Rugge, Great Heart, 265). 101 In fact, two years ago: LH arrived at North West River on 14 July 1903 (LH, diary).

Wapustan River to Seal Lake, 11-18 July

159

SATURDAY 15 [July]

2 miles Last night heard sounds outside my tent again or thought I did. Thought about that bear trail. Crawled out of bed and got my rifle, took it out of case and laid it beside me. Also took out my revolver and laid it ready for use. After a time silence and I went to sleep. This morn discovered what I was stupid enough not to notice before that my tent had been pitched directly across the trail. Glad I did not know last night. Rain last night and this morn. Late breakfast again. Rain ceased, wind dried or shook water off trees and men took load each up to lake 2 m. from here. I staid at camp and washed the dishes and boiled some bacon Camp in beautiful place Rocks covered with white moss scattered spruce and just below deep dark smooth water Wall of evergreen beyond through which the brook comes tumbling into the Wapustan. On the right the canoe lay drawn up among the green on the opposite shore where the men disappeared and above on the other side of the brook the high old stub with the blaze on it.102 Last injunction as men crossed to other side of river "Don't go away from camp." Just two years ago Laddie leaving Northwest River. So long for him to be here. When men returned shortly after i P.M. my rifle standing near against a tree. "Oh have you been away hunting" "No only ready for the bear" "That's right. It is safest way" Geo cf I went immediately to little moss covered hill short distance back, last on Wapustan R. where I wanted to get a picture. Hills all round us in distance. River at our feet. Deep rich coloring on hills

July SUNDAY 16 1905

4 miles Raining again this morning. Late breakfast after rain ceased Men went back to Wapustan for what was left. It has been a beautiful day,

zoz "Just above the brook a high, dead stub, with a big blaze on it, showed where we were to leave the Wapustan to cross to Seal Lake" (Woman's Way, 74).

160

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16June — 27 December 1905

partly cloudy with an occasional little sprinkle of rain. Men decided to move forward a little to-day. So after dinner we broke camp and started up the lake. It is a beautiful little lake103 lying N.W. Near the upper end a long narrow point almost cuts it in two the part lying S.W. from the point also running N.W. & S.E. A brook flows into each. We paddled a short distance up the brook furthest N. and then landed for a mile portage across country The brook where we left it so pretty. Think got good picture or two. Our route across not bad walking on whole. Boggy in some places and found the good of my seal skin boots.104 We came across at a pretty good pace and in about half an hour were at the waters flowing to Seal. The men made two more trips each and then our way led through three of the most beautiful little lakes105 to where a brook drops down over rocky ledges on its way to Seal Lake On either side was a high burned over hill. We landed on the west side and Geo. Gilbert and I climbed the hill. The scene was rugged and grand. In the nearer distance the great hills stood out bold and irregular and away beyond in the blue distance the range which lies beyond Seal Lake. But we could not see Seal Lake. I stood watching it a long time, the others had gone back to camp, so many thoughts crowding my mind and making me sick with longing that the one who so much more deserved it and who could have so much more appreciated the privilege might have seen what I saw. When I reached camp supper was almost ready. After, first Job ef Gilbert then Geo. ef I crossed in the canoe to the other side to climb the hill on the other side from which we felt sure we could see Seal Lake. It was 7.45 P.M. when we started. A brisk climb took us to the top 540 ft in time to see the sunset and one of the most magnificent views I have ever seen.

103 Unnamed on modern maps. 104 MH had "one pair of high seal-skin boots, one pair low ones, which M. Duclos had given me" (Woman's Way, 45). Sealskin boots "are made by the Eskimos and are watertight so long as they are not allowed to dry too hard. Therefore, whenever a Liveyere passes water he shoves his foot into it to keep his feet dry" (Amy, "The Liveyeres," 461). 105 Dorothy Lakes on MH'S map but Dorothy Lake, referring to the second and largest of the three, on modern maps. Probably named after MH'S niece, Dorothy McCall, daughter of her sister Rachel and George McCall.

Wapustan River to Seal Lake, 11-18 July

161

Geo. being a little taller caught sight of the Lake before I did and said "There is Seal Lake." It lay like a broad winding river among the hills. In all directions lay rose the hills and lying here and there among them lay little lake[s] almost fairy like in beauty. Away to the S.W. Geo pointed out the ridge of mountains they had crossed from the head of Beaver Brook, their Big river,106 and the place where he thought they had crossed when he was with Mr. Hubbard and I called them Lion Heart Mts.107 Oh what this trip would be if he were here. I have to keep reminding myself that the hills he is climbing now must be so much grander and more beautiful to escape an ever recurring feeling that it is wicked for me to be here when he is not, and Oh how desperately hungry and desolate and sad. Yet not forgetting to be grateful that I can be here. But Oh he was so brave and glad hearted and beautiful and he loved me. It is all so grand and beautiful. I never dreamed it would be so splendid, and the grander and more beautiful it grows the more I hunger for the one who made all things beautiful so much more beautiful by the spirit which he breathed into them.

MONDAY 17 [July]

[deletion] 19 miles Last night before we came down off the hill on a big boulder which stood out on the highest point Geo. placed three smaller rocks and I put one on top of all.108 We were back at camp at 9.15 P.M. and it was still quite light. When I put out my light at n a splendid moon was throwing shadows of the spruce boughs on the roof of my tent. It had seemed wonderfully fine yesterday to find ourselves on smooth

106 "Big River" is marked on MH'S map; "we considered the situation fully in the light of George's report of the big river, and we decided that to the big river we should go. This decision was not to prove an error of judgment; for the big river was none other than the Beaver - an important part of an old trail of the Indians to Lake Michikamau" (DW, Lure, 94). 107 On MH'S map; now Red Wine Mountains. 108 These rocks are still there and were photographed by Bryan Greene in July 1990 and July 1992,.

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Labrador Expedition Diary, 16June — 27 December 1905

"Geo. placed three smaller rocks and I put one on top of all" (Bryan Greene)

water again. Smooth water has come to seem very beautiful to us. It made it seem even finer to think we were on the waters which flow to Seal Lake. Last night's glimpse of the Lake from the hill top seemed inspiration to the party and this morning shortly after 4 A.M. Job's axe was heard making ready for the early breakfast. By 5.30. they were off with their first packs. While we went up the hill last night Joe caught 4 little trout for my breakfast the first fish we have had. They tasted so good. Then followed an eventful day I have seen so much that was beautiful and grand and so varied in its beauty that I feel confused and bewildered. We have reached Seal L.,109 we have seen the Nascaupee flowing out of it and to-night we

109 The name appears in Erland Erlandson's journal of his journey from Ungava Bay to North West River in 1834: "Archiconopy Lake (Seal Lake)" (Davies, Northern Quebec and Labrador Journals, 254). It is a translation of the Innu-aimun name Atshuku-nipi.

Wapustan River to Seal Lake, 11—18 July

163

camp on a fine sandy point just where the Nascaupee flows into it, 15 m. from where we entered it. It has been a gloriously beautiful day and my head fairly swims when I think about it all. It has been indescribable.] Two things bother me. My watch has gone wrong110 and I did not get my observation right to-day, But I think my map is pretty correct. All at pretty high tension to-day, wondering whether our rivals had reached Seal Lake and the Nascaupee. Stopped at Donald Blake's tilt 3 Vi miles from here. No signs of their having been there.111 Came on here. Still no signs and we felt easier. We have made about 19 miles to-day and our canoe besides went down to where the Nascaupee flows out of Seal Lake among the mountains. The entrance of the Nascaup. to S.L [Seal Lake] is as effectively concealed and would be as easy to miss as the entrance into Grand Lake, a fact commented on with a good deal of interest by the men. They agreed that they would not have thought of looking for it here had they not had with them someone who knew it. The river here is about 250 yds wide. Geo shot two musk-rats coming up the lake this eve and almost shot a seal. Gilbert pleased that we saw one. Says lots of people do not believe the trappers when they say there are seals here. The one we saw to-night was a good big one too. Saw lots of ducks and some wild geese at a distance Gulls protesting against our intrusion. Our sand bank covered almost with fox tracks. Old camping ground here112

no The calculation of latitude required that the sun's altitude be taken at noon, so a watch that had "gone wrong" would lead to an incorrect reading. in According to DW, this was Duncan McLean's tilt, which he reached on 4 August: "After dinner we paddled up Seal Lake and found Duncan McLean's tilt... On a tobogan in the tilt Geo Elson had written that all were there & well so we knew that they had beat us out although we were not racing Farther up the lake on a point we found where they had camped & a note from Gilbert Blake saying he was still with them & that they expected to reach Michikamau 'Sunday' It is hard to tell how long ago that was but I think a week or so. One of the boys also found a tooth brush" (DW, diary, 4 August 1905). The toothbrush was Elson's: see below 27 July. DW was wrong in his estimate: he was two and a half weeks behind MH. 112, This sandy flat where the Naskaupi enters Seal Lake is still a favourite camping ground of the Innu from Sheshatshit.

Map 9 — The Red Wine and Wapustan portage routes around the rapids on the lower Naskaupi. The map compares Mina Hubbard's progress with that of Dillon Wallace. Mina's party, guided by Gilbert Blake, followed the trappers' route, poling and portaging up the lower gorge of the Naskaupi for a considerable distance before beginning the Wapustan portages, west of the river. Wallace followed the traditional Innu route, leaving the Naskaupi opposite the mouth of the Red Wine, below the rapids of the lower gorge. He lost the Innu trail south of Nipishish Lake and picked it up again where it leaves the west arm of Nipishish.

166

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16June — 27 December 1005 July TUESDAY l8 1905

Rained last night and this morning Mosquitoes awful all night. As soon as I could see got up and spent half an hr killing all I could find and thought that then I should have a rest. But no. From somewhere they came on steadily fast enough to keep me busy. Seemed to come up from the ground. Men had same experience. Late breakfast. Had boiled musk rat and fried cakes and boiled rice. Musk rat very nice. Does not taste at all as it smells. Thinking much about yesterday's experience. How I wish I could describe it. Looking over my maps have come to the conclusion that yesterday's observation was correct and the others wrong.113 It puts us almost exactly where according to our dead reckoning, we should be. Was worried because I took it very carefully, it was a splendid day for it and thought if it were not right I simply could not take the observations. A comparison with Low's map114 shows his Seal Lake wonderfully near the right place, and it is only the upper end of Grand Lake which lies west. As far as i mile beyond C. [Cape] Corbeau his direction is about right. Wanted very much to explore the part of Seal L. which lies W. e^N from here115 but thinking about the possibilities of having to return across Lab. should we miss the Pelican I have decided not to. It would be very easy to get windbound here. To-day is very stormy We could have done nothing on the L. to-day. All are agreed that yesterday was the day to get to Seal L. and the Nascaupee. Yesterday this part of the L like satin. To-day very rough covered with white caps. Has been raining hard almost all day. All have slept to make up for the long day yesterday and the bad night last night. Men feel that now the hardest part of the trip is over. There are only a few short portages between here and Michikamau and we have our map

113 MH is worrying about discrepancies between her observations for latitude, her dead reckoning, and Low's map, placing her faith in one or the other as minor apparent inconsistencies dictate. At this locality her observation accords well with her dead reckoning and also with Low's location of Seal Lake, so she concludes all her previous observations are wrong. In fact, Low's location of Seal Lake is pure guesswork, based only on Innu and trapper descriptions. 114 In A.P. Low, Report on Explorations in the Labrador Peninsula, 1896. 115 MH shows this on her map as a dotted line.

Wapustan River to Seal Lake, 11—18 July

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showing pretty well where they are The Indian who made the maps for us says we are more than half way when we are here. Geo. says five days116 now if all goes well will see us close to Mich. How relieved we all feel to be here and so soon. And what a hard and difficult journey it was as far as S.L. waters. We could run down very quickly but coming up is slow work. Though the men have done wonders. We have had in all about 2,2 miles of portaging. One evening they came down in 13 min the distance it had taken them nearly half a day to take all but the camp stuff forward. They say it would take about two days to go with light canoes from here to Grand Lake.117 Made a happy discovery to-night. George looking for gun rag for me to clean up my revolver, found in his bag another pole shod which gives us 4 poles again. Men took canoe this p.m. and went across to a pt about a mile away for wood. Little wood here. Helped cook bannocks to-night. Hated to leave camp fire. Rain has ceased but cloudy still. Men regretting that no one thought to bring a pack of cards. To-night threw away cards my leaders118 were on, Geo picked them up and laying them on box in front of him said, "Where you want your ticket to?" "Michikamau" said Job. Geo stamped it and handed it to him. "Fifteen Dollars" said he and Job taking the card handed him a piece of dirty gun rag. Have been doing a little experimenting in view of the pudding I have promised to make the men when we reach Michikamau It is to be boiled rice with chocolate sauce and a little brandy in the chocolate. Geo & Joe talking to-night about their boyhood pranks. They had a pretty happy boyhood I think but Job is the most boy now. His eyes fairly sparkle and he is full to overflowing with energy and interest and is thoroughly master of his craft. Doing things is a joy to Job. Though the little English he uses is good, sometimes when I say something to him he hesitates and looks a little puzzled. How I wish I understood Indian. If at all likely to be fine to-morrow will stay here till after noon so that I may get another observation. Would like very

116 It was fifteen days before they reached Michikamau, on 2 August. 117 The men's estimate was correct: Leider and Whalley took two days to run the lower Naskaupi (Leider et al., "Labrador Trip," n). 118 Lengths of line or wire connecting the end of a fishing line to a hook or fly.

168

Labrador Expedition Diary, 16 June — 27 December 1905

much to do so but since coming to conclusion that other one is right shall not wait longer to get one. Saw another seal to-night Geo. took shot at him with his rifle but shot went high, Seal swam off to S.W. and men met him out near pt. Joe shot at him with pistol. Also missed. Tradition has it they are invulnerable. Cup of hot chocolate before coming to tent. Night cool d"good breeze. Think no mosquitoes to-night. Temp. 52°.

S 3Ibid. DW, diary, i July 1905. MH, diary, 23 June; DW, Lure, 261. "Narrative by George Elson," in MH, Woman's Way, 210. DW, Lure, 310. MH, diary, 23 June. Dickie Papers, DW to John A. Gillis, 20 July 1904; in September 1904 he sent "a small box" to Thomas Blake, and he mentions other "little shipments" (DW to Frank A. Gillis, 24 September 1904, 5 October 1904).

444

Notes to pages 16—19

56 DW, diary, 3, 8, 23 June 1905. 57 Jessie Wallace Randall Papers, DW to Annie and Jessie Wallace, 21 July 1905. 58 DW, diary, 25 June 1905. 59 MH, diary, 2 November. 60 MH, diary, 25 June; "Letter from Wallace. Meets Mrs. Hubbard," New York Tribune, 26 July 1905, 3. 61 DW, diary, 26 June 1905. 62 DW, diary, 16 October 1905. 63 Easton, diary, 16 October. 64 "Le capitaine s'empressa de porter un toast a madame Hubbard, premier Blanc a avoir explore entierement le cours de la George. Dans un coin, sans mot dire, Wallace leve gauchement son verre au succes de la jeune femme, toujours souriante et jolie" (Rousseau, "Une femme a la conquete de 1'Ungava," 25). 65 DW, diary, 19 October 1905; Easton, diary, 19 October. 66 Sawyer, letter to editor, New York World, 22 June 1905. 67 "Dillon Wallace Sends out Word from Labrador Interior," Outing (October 1905), with a sketch map of his route; "Word from Dillon Wallace. In Camp - Interior Labrador, near Lake Michikamau," Outing (January 1906); "Dillon Wallace Succeeds: He Reaches Ungava after a Successful Trip, and Begins his Long Overland Sledge Journey," Outing (February 1906), from George River Post, sent via the Pelican; Richards, "Dillon Wallace in Labrador: A Successful Trip to Lake Michikamau," Outing (April 1906), with Richards's photos and map; and the provocatively titled "Dillon Wallace Wins: After Traversing a Thousand Miles of Unknown Country, He Is Homeward Bound," Outing (May 1906) — a cable from Red Bay, Labrador. 68 Caspar Whitney, "The View-Point," Outing (August 1905), with the marginal note: "'I asked for bread, and ye gave me a stone'"; Daisy Hubbard Williams, "Hubbard's Sister Speaks," Outing (September 1905). 69 MH, Woman's Way, 141. 70 DW, Lure, 21. 71 John McLean (1849), Henry Youle Hind (1863), Lucien M. Turner (1894), and A.P. Low (1896) were the main sources of information. 72 MH, diary, 20 August. 73 Both terms can be traced to French seventeenth-century sources: Rogers and Leacock, "Montagnais-Naskapi," 185—6. 74 MH, Woman's Way, 127. Chapies, an East Cree, or James Bay Cree, was able to communicate with the Montagnais, and Elson had learned to speak the Montagnais dialect while at the North West River post in the winter of 1903-4 (126).

Notes to pages ly-20

445

75 Armitage, The Innu, 14. In the 19805, they "banned the word 'Indians' from their English vocabulary and proclaimed themselves 'Innu'" (Mailhot, The People of Sheshatshit, 38). The political struggles of the Innu Nation to reclaim Nitassinan, their homeland, are recounted by Wadden, Nitassinan, and by Innu women activists in Byrne and Fouillard, eds, It's Like the Legend. 76 The complex shiftings and interconnections among the Innu bands are described by Mailhot, The People of Sheshatshit, and Leacock, "Matrilocality among the Montagnais-Naskapi." 77 Armitage, The Innu, 14; Speck, quoted in Rogers and Leacock, "Montagnais-Naskapi," 185. Turner gives a different derivation of the name: "This word denotes the contempt the Mountaineers felt for the Naskopies when the latter failed to fulfill their promise to assist in driving the Innuit [sic] from the country" (Ethnology, 181). 78 Cooke, Naskapi Independence and the Caribou, 3. 79 Ibid., 10. 80 The Inuit were traditional enemies of the Innu; Cabot was shown "Massacre Island," where Innu slaughtered the Inuit (In Northern Labrador, 49-52). Plaice, The Native Game, discusses settlers' attitudes to the Innu. 81 Stuart Cotter, quoted in Zimmerly, Cain's Land Revisited, 144. 82 Mailhot, 26, quoting HBC Sheshatshit post journal, 17 June 1895. 83 Paddon, The Labrador Memoir ofDr Harry Paddon, 48. 84 Wallace had two maps made: one by John Ashini of the "old Indian trail from Grand Lake to Seal Lake," and one by William Ashini "to Lake Michikamau and over the height of land to the George River, indicating the portages and principal intervening lakes" (Long Labrador Trail, 15). 85 Hind, Explorations of the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula, 2:10. The Indian map "is made only to travel by. For this purpose, however, their maps are often better than ours" (Cabot, In Northern Labrador, vii). 86 MH, Woman's Way, 51. 87 DW, "The Long Labrador Trail," Outing 48, no. 5 (August 1906): 566. 88 DW, diary, 26 June 1905. 89 Easton, diary, 29 June 1905. 90 MH, diary, 13 August. 91 Woman's Way, 122. There is no mention of the Hannah Bay massacre in Mina's diary; Elson says that they had talked "about the time Hannah Bay was taken," but much later, in November (Elson, diary, 9 November 1905). 92 W.S. Wallace, ed.,John McLean's Notes, 98,101. 93 Francis and Morantz, Partners in Furs, 159—60; W.S. Wallace, ed., John McLeans Notes, 99-100.

446

Notes to pages 21—4

94 MH, diary, 14 August; the words are attributed to George and are in quotation marks. 95 Woman's Way, 123; MH, diary, 14 August; Gilbert's words are in quotation marks in the diary. 96 Sex and violence "are poles of attraction and repulsion, temptation by the dusky maiden and fear of the demonic violence of the fiendish warrior" (Goldie, Fear and Temptation, 15). Easton, too, thought that the Naskapi "conjurors or medicine men, ... whom they secretly believe can, if they wish, work harm by the aid of evil spirits, still maintain great influence over them" (Easton, "Indian Tribes of Labrador," 292). 97 Elson, diary, 17 August 1905. 98 MH, Woman's Way, 123. 99 Roy, "Maps of Gender and Imperialism," 203. 100 Ibid., 202. 101 Ibid., 203—4; quoting from the London Murray edition, 184, and the New York McClure edition, 152. The Canadian edition is identical to the London one. 102 For example, the illustration of the McLean sisters with their rifles defending Fort Pitt from Indian attack in 1885, captioned "Noble Women on the Defensive" (Carter, Capturing Women, 65). 103 Ibid., 39, 44. 104 Speck, Naskapi. Cabot surmised there was "woman stealing" among the Innu and Inuit, but cites no specific cases (In Northern Labrador, 51). 105 Pauline Turner Strong, Captive Selves, 9, 4; Carter, Capturing Women, 17. 106 MH, Woman's Way, 127; also translated "Tundra people" (Mailhot, The People ofSheshatshit, 40). William Duncan Strong's maps delineate the territories of the two bands; however, they camped together on occasion, as in September—October 1905, after MH'S visit (Labrador Winter, xv—xix; 56). 107 Goldie, Fear and Temptation, 15. 108 Press release, Field Museum, 1928, quoted in Loring, "Afterword and Bibliographic Essay," in Strong, Labrador Winter, 187. 109 Cabot, In Northern Labrador, 55. no Ibid., 97-8. in Cabot, Labrador, 101. 112 Strong, Labrador Winter, 57. Strong questioned Innu Edward Rich, who confirmed the hostility. 113 So Cabot told P.G. Downes: Cockburn, "A Most Curious Gentleman,'" 70. 114 Cp. "I sung out to them, don't be afread we are only travelling about we will not hurt you" (Elson, diary, 17 August 1905).

Notes to pages 24-7

447

115 Jo Rich, "Missus Hubbard," translated by Matthew Rich (mistakenly attributed to Edward Rich; collected in 1967), in Desbarats, ed., What They Used to Tell About, 78. Also published in Innu-aimun: Mailhot et al., eds, Sheshatshiu-Atanukana, 29—30. A new translation is being made by Marguerite Mackenzie: "Still they (the Innu) did not do anything at all to them, they did not bother them" (courtesy Marguerite Mackenzie). 116 DW, Long Labrador Trail, 135; Easton, diary, 18—19 September. 117 Easton, diary, 18 September 1905. 118 Ibid., 19 September; cp. Easton, "Indian Tribes of Labrador," 294-5. 119 DW, Long Labrador Trail, 133,134. 120 Ibid., vii, 3; Chapter 2, "On the Threshold of the Unknown"; caption of photograph of Wallace and Easton opposite p. 120: "Our Lonely Perilous Journey Toward the Dismal Wastes." 121 For example, "at foot of rapid we came on old portage trail. The blazing was old but the trail was well worn and good" (MH, diary, i August). 122 Brice-Bennett, ed., Our Footsteps Are Everywhere.

123 DW, "The Indians of the North," in Long Labrador Trail, 214. 124 LaFramboise points out that Mina's "published narrative omits her attempts to learn Cree" as well as "any hint of overly personal familiarity" with the men ('"Just a Little Like an Explorer,'" 25). 125 Wallace and Florence Tasker were particularly prone to this kind of negative stereotyping; see Buchanan, "From Hag to Heroine." 126 Elson, diary, 23 August 1905. 127 Named after Coventry Patmore's poem The Angel in the House (1854—63): see Gilbert and Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, 22—3; Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood," in Dimity Convictions, 21. 128 Sarah Grand, "The New Aspect of the Woman Question" (1894), in Ledger and Luckhurst, eds, The Fin de Siecle, 89. For the debate over the Woman Question and the emergence of the New Woman, see Bolt, Feminist Ferment; Richardson and Willis, eds, The New Woman in Fiction and in Fact. 129 Caroline Ticknor, "The Steel-Engraving Lady and the Gibson Girl" (1901), quoted in Hunter, How Young Ladies Became Girls, 390. 130 "Editorial," Wrinkle (University of Michigan) 3, no. i (10 October 1895): 5. 131 Welter, Dimity Convictions, 41. 132 Evans, Born for Liberty, 156. 133 LH, diary, 17 September 1903. 134 See Buchanan, "Is Landscape Gendered?" 135 Riffenburgh, Myth of the Explorer, 5—7; Hodgson, "The Exploration Journal as Literature," 4. 136 Leed, The Mind of the Traveler, quoted in Sidonie Smith, Moving Lives, ix. See also "Masculinity and Travel," in Wolff, Resident Alien, 123—5.

448

Notes to pages 27- 8

137 138 139 140 141

LH, diary, 20 September 1903; Easton, diary, 20 July. DW, diary, 18 September 1905. Norwood, "Heroines of Nature," 323. Atwood, Strange Things, 90. Lisa LaFramboise has discussed MH'S "careful textual negotiation of the discourses of exploration, femininity, and race" in the transformation of diary into book ("'Just a Little like an Explorer,'" 18). Robinson, Wayward Women: A Guide to Women Travellers; Robinson, Unsuitable for Ladies: An Anthology of Women Travellers; Hodgson, No Place for a Lady: Tales of Adventurous Women Travelers; Kelly, Wandering Women: Two Centuries of Travel out of Ireland; Hamalian, Ladies on the Loose: Women Travellers oftheiSth and ipth Centuries; Melchett, Passionate Quests: Five Modern Women Travellers. Lord Curzon referred to women explorers as "vagrant womanhood"; see Birkett, Spinsters Abroad, 220. MH, Woman's Way, 45. Women cyclists were called "knickerbocker ladies" (OED, s.v. "knickerbocker," 11.3). Knickerbockers were less revolutionary than the "bloomers" recommended by dress reformist Miss Amelia Bloomer, which were associated with dangerous radicalism and socialism (Welter, Dimity Convictions, 26). "Many ladies wear a skirt of moderate length until out of sight of the hotel or beyond the path of ordinary tourists, then they leave the skirt under a rock or in the mountain hut until their return"; a photograph shows Peck in her knickerbockers, woollen sweater, and boots (Annie S. Peck, "Practical Mountain Climbing," 698, 696). "Pants are allied to Power" (Mary E. Tillotson, 1885, quoted in Fischer, Pantaloons and Power, 153). "Trousers were the symbol of the male and of male domination and the proposal that women should adopt them ... was seen as a threat to the whole structure of society" (Gattey, The Bloomer Girls, quoted in Mills, Discourses of Difference, 105). The clothing of a woman traveller/explorer was a subject of much scrutiny and discussion. Elson, diary, 9 August 1905. Elson's photographs of Mina are discussed in Grace's edition of A Woman's Way. McClintock, Imperial Leather, 5. Echoing Van Kirk, "Many Tender Ties," 17. Pit-brow women wearing trousers worked shovelling coal in northern England ("belles in breeches"); European women worked for centuries at heavy agricultural labour in the fields, as did pioneer Canadian women; domestic workers were expected to carry heavy buckets of water and coal as well as do the hard and dirty work of scrubbing and cleaning in an age before domes-

142

143 144

145

146

147 148 149 150

Notes to pages 28-32

151

152

153

154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164

165 166 167

168 169

449

tic appliances; Hannah Cullwick even cleaned chimneys (McClintock, Imperial Leather, 114-18). J.G.E. Smith, "Chipewyan and Fur Trader Views of Rupert's Land," 139. In British Columbia, native women were expected to carry eighty pounds of freight (Pagh, "Imagining Native Women," 85). Samuel Hearne, "A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay," in Warkentin, ed., Canadian Exploration Literature, 113; see also Van Kirk, "Many Tender Ties,"\j—19. "By the turn of the century, sexual purity emerged as a controlling metaphor for racial, economic and political power" (McClintock, Imperial Leather, 47); see also Carol Christ, "Victorian Masculinity and the Angel in the House." Elson, diary, 4,19 August 1905. "She washed them [the partridges] good but still laid them on the sand which I thought very funney" (19 August). MH, diary, 30 June. Ibid., 26 July. Birkett, Spinsters Abroad, 129. Gilbert and Gubar, Madwoman in the Attic, xi. MH, Woman's Way, 91. Foster and Mills, An Anthology of Women's Travel Writing, introduction, 5. MH, diary, 28 July. Bryan Greene points out that MH'S safety must be Elson's prime concern; he was responsible for getting her back. DW, Lure, 224, 225. Susan Morgan, Place Matters, 16. To be fair to the men, it must be noted that Mina sometimes had difficulty keeping up with them, even when they were portaging heavy loads. At one point she describes being "half dragged" up a hill by Elson: see 2 August. Mills, Discourses of Difference, 16. Mills quotes Foucault: "the point at which one says 'yes' or 'no' to power." Morgan, Place Matters, 119. Travel provides "a setting in which constraints can be relaxed if not rejected, identities slip if not disappear, a place where lives are rejuvenated if not changed ... the archetypal free area ... temporary excursions away from the domain of paramount reality," to adapt what Cohen and Taylor say about the holiday (Escape Attempts, 114). Birkett makes the same point about Victorian women travellers. MH, diary, 27 August. Bryan Greene points out that at the end of a canoe trip, withdrawal symptoms are common to all wilderness canoeists. MH, "My Explorations in Unknown Labrador," 823.

45O

Notes to pages 53-7

170 Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects, zi. 171 Woolf ironically proposed that women form an Outsiders Society (Woolf, Three Guineas, 125,122). 172 The declaration is written (twice) at the back of MH'S diary and signed by the men; a similar declaration is written in Elson's diary and signed by MH.

173 Elson, diary, 27 August 1905. 174 Whitney, "The View-Point. The Spirit that Makes the World Go Round," 396. 175 DW, diary, 2, 8 June 1905. 176 DW, diary, 30 May 1905. 177 Explorers Club Archives, 4th floor hall, Inv #773; on brass label: "Dillon Wallace with Arctic Club Flag near lake Michikamafu], Labrador, Sept. i, 1905." I am grateful to Janet Baldwin, former archivist of the Explorers Club, for showing this to me. See the similar photograph of Wallace and Easton standing beside two flags in Davidson and Rugge, Great Heart. 178 MH, diary, 10 July. 179 Cartier, quoted in O'Flaherty, The Rock Observed, 5. 180 See Grace, Canada and the Idea of North, xvi; Watson, "The Role of Illusion in North American Geography," 22. 181 Watson argued that the "mental image" we have of the environment influences what we see and that geography is "the country of the mind" (ibid., 14.15)182 Frye, quoted in Glickman, The Picturesque and the Sublime, 50; and Kline,

Beyond the Land Itself, 47; cp "the takeover of terror," Kline, 44. 183 McGregor, Wacousta Syndrome, 5, 6, 9, 58, 59. 184 Glickman, The Picturesque and the Sublime, 9; William Gilpin, Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty, On Picturesque Travel, and On Sketching Landscape (1792); Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful (YJ 57). 185 Buell, The Environmental Imagination, 408-9. 186 Bohls, Women Travel Writers and the Language of Aesthetics, 5, 6. 187 OED, s.v. "panorama," i. The 36o-degree panorama was invented and patented by the painter Robert Barker; on a huge scale, it surrounded the viewer and was linked with the "pictorial language of the sublime" (Wilton, "The Sublime in the Old World and the New," in Wilton and Barringer, American Sublime, 15-16). 188 MacLaren, "The Aesthetic Map of the North, 1845-1859," 90. 189 Ibid., 90, 95. 190 I'm grateful to artist Diana Dabinett for pointing out the tonal variations in foreground, background, and middle ground in landscape painting. "Great

Notes to pages 37—9

191 192 193 194

195

196 197

198 199 200 201 202 203 204

205 206 207 208

451

variety in elevation, vegetation, and light intensity was sought in the landscape, but the sense of all features harmonizing was never to be sacrificed" (MacLaren, "The Aesthetic Map of the North," 90). Wilton, Turner and the Sublime., 173; no. 97, colour plate 22. DW, diary, 28 June 1905. Virgil, Aeneid, Bookvi, Dryden translation, 147. Cp. the setting of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, described as a "'wasteland'... a 'portal to the underworld,' a fantastic domain characterized by 'nightmarish confusions and deceptions'" (McGregor, Wacousta Syndrome, 6, quoting Thomas Philbrick). Elson's words reflect a native view of landscape, of respect for the land, that he and the others communicated to Mina, influencing her view of Labrador (Bryan Greene), Jameson, quoted in McGregor, Wacousta Syndrome, 29. Adams and Procter-Smith, "Taking Life or 'Taking on Life?'" Perhaps Mina was influenced by "the style and tone of women's popular nature writing" of the time, which was "marked by 'sentiment,' an effusion of feeling for their subject and an appeal to its human interest" (Littenberg, "Gender and Genre," 61). Timothy O'Riordan, Environmentalism, quoted in Buell, Environmental Imagination, 425. Anderson, Sisters of the Earth, quoted in Edwards and De Wolfe, Such News of the Land, 3. LH, "Afoot in Nature's Game Preserves," 196,199. LH, diary, 29 August 1903. Ibid., 30 August 1903. DW, diary, 24 July 1903. Bunkers, "Midwestern Diaries and Journals," 203. "I made a distinction between the diary as a form for the recording of events and the journal as a form for the expression of feelings," but Bunkers later abandoned this as "an artificial distinction" and uses the words interchangeably (Bunkers, "'Faithful Friend,'" 8). For example, MH, Woman's Way, 146. This is when Elson is telling her about the diary he kept as a boy (MH, diary, 20 July). The quotation is from Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary: see Juhasz, "'Some Deep Old Desk or Capacious Hold-All,'" 664. LaFramboise, "'Just a Little like an Explorer,'" 14. She had another notebook for field notes into which, for example, she copied inscriptions on the Innu graves (MH, diary, 8 August).

452

Notes to pages 39—45

209 Cp. Clifford Easton's notes on forestry in Labrador, which form a separate volume of his diary (Explorers Club, New York). 210 Grace, "'Hidden Country': Discovering Mina Hubbard"; LaFramboise, "'Just a Little like an Explorer'"; Roy, "Maps of Gender and Imperialism in Travel Writing." 211 The function of the diary in "grief work" is discussed by Rosenblatt, Bitter, Bitter Tears: Nineteenth-Century Diarists and Twentieth-Century Grief Theories. 212 Dempsey, "Gender, Ethnicity, and the Narrative Persona in Early Canadian Travel Writing," 22. 213 Grace, "'Hidden Country,'" 282, 284. 214 The phrase is used by Lyn Lifshin, Ariadne's Thread, introduction, 2. 215 Gail Godwin, quoted in Lifshin, Ariadne's Thread, 9. 216 Leider et al., "Labrador Trip." 217 The standard whitewater grading chart divides rapids into six classes or grades of difficulty, class one being the easiest and class six runnable only under ideal conditions in covered canoes or kayaks. 218 On modern maps the brook empties into Naskaupi Lake. Mina included present-day Naskaupi Lake in Seal Lake, and indeed, through the section now named "The Narrows," the two bodies of water are continuous. 219 Maid Marion Falls is located incorrectly on modern maps. 1:50,000 map sheet I3L/2 published by the Centre for Topographic Information, Natural Resources Canada, places it some five miles downstream from the location identified by Mrs Hubbard. 220 Lake Mistassini is the largest. 221 MH, Woman's Way, 100. 222 For an excellent detailed account of the George as a canoeing river, see Peake et al., On River, On Line. 223 MH, Woman's Way, x. 224 MH, "Labrador, from Lake Melville to Ungava Bay," 531. It is also possible that the sextant or artificial horizon was damaged in the canoe accident on 3 July (both were in the canoe that upset), or that her watch had gone wrong, leading her to take observations before or after solar noon, giving low altitude readings and correspondingly higher latitudes. 225 Ibid., 531, footnote. 226 MH, Woman's Way, 146. 227 MH, Woman's Way, 114. This marks the beginning of a decline in caribou populations that forced the George River Innu to become increasingly dependent on the trading posts, and eventually to move permanently to the Labrador coast (Mailhot, The People ofSheshatshit, 29).

Notes to pages 4 6-57 453

228 MH, Woman's Way, 154. 229 Leopold, Sand County Almanac, 153. The Life of Mina Benson Hubbard: Finding Her Way, 15 April 1870 — 16 June 1905 1 Valuable sources for the early history of Bewdley and the settlement of the Rice Lake Plains are Norma Martin, Donna S. McGillis, and Catherine Milne, Gore's Landing and the Rice Lake Plains, and Catherine Milne, Village Settlements of Hamilton Township. 2 Martin et al., Gore's Landing, 41. 3 Cobourg Star, 24 June 1846. 4 Akenson, The Irish in Ontario, 33. 5 For information and discussion on Benson settlement near Bewdley and on Mina Benson's early years, I am particularly indebted to Donna McGillis (interviews 17 August 1994, 6-7 November 1996, Bewdley and Gore's Landing); Gertrude Benson Manley (interview 18 August 1994, Port Hope); Mary Lean Lander (interview 7 November 1996, Gore's Landing); and Joanne Burroughs Matteson (interview 8 November 1996, Toronto). To avoid repetitive citations, quotations and information in the text from these informants can be taken as contributed on the dates and at the places stated above. 6 Martin et al., Gore's Landing, 42—4; interviews with Donna McGillis and Mary Lean Lander. 7 Bassett, The Life of the Rt. Hon. John Edward Ellis M.P., 246. 8 Traili, The Canadian Settler's Guide, 37. 9 Traili, The Backwoods of Canada; Moodie, Roughing it in the Bush; Urquhart, Away. 10 A ninth child, George, born in 1872, lived until 1877. 11 Ontario, Office of the Registrar-General. A copy of Mina's birth certificate issued 27 May 1946 gives her first name erroneously as "Nina." 12 Moodie, Roughing it, 674. 13 Directory and Book of Reference for the West Riding of the County of Northumberland, 306. 14 Riddell, Historical Sketch of the Township of Hamilton, 23, 28—9. 15 Martin et al., Gore's Landing, 100. 16 Milne, Village Settlements, 38. 17 Martin et al., Gore's Landing, 49. 18 Ibid., 75-81. 19 Set in the nineteenth century and "Dedicated to the Children of the Settlers on the Rice Lake Plains," Catharine Parr Traili's novel Canadian Crusoes. A Tale of the Rice Lake Plains described the future site of Mina's school: "now

454

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

Notes to pages 58-69

known as Sackville's Mill-dike. Hie hand of man has curbed the free-course of the wild forest stream, and made it subservient to his will, but could not disturb the natural beauties of the scene" (Traill, Canadian Crusoes, 22). Martin et al., Gore's Landing, 106. Akenson, The Irish in Ontario, 269. Stamp, The Schools of Ontario, j. Ashenburg, Going to Town, 4. Stamp, The Schools of Ontario, 43. MacPherson, "Scriven, Joseph Medlicott," 803—4. Stamp, The Schools of Ontario, 14—15. Light and Parr, Canadian Women on the Move, 40. Hodson, How to Become a Trained Nurse, [25]. Gibbon and Mathewson, Three Centuries of Canadian Nursing, 180. Kalisch and Kalisch, The Advance of American Nursing, 155. Ibid., 155. Ibid., 160. Morgan, Henry James, The Canadian Men and Women of the Time, 373. It is likely that the hospital was more generally known as the Methodist Episcopal Hospitalof Brooklyn, New York, and/or the New York Methodist Hospital. Reverby, Ordered to Care, 124. Ibid., 64. Hodson, How to Become a Trained Nurse, [25]. MH Papers. Morgan, Henry James, The Canadian Men and Women, 373. MH, Woman's Way, 33. O'Flaherty, "Leonidas Hubbard, Jr.," 298. MH, Woman's Way, 36. Ibid., 37. Michigan Alumnus 10, no. 88 (November 1903): 98.1 am grateful to Roberta Buchanan for this and other references to Michigan Alumnus. Hodson, How to Become a Trained Nurse, [179]. Hubbard may even have been brought to the infirmary by Mina herself. In a posthumous tribute, James LeRoy, a close friend, wrote: "The romance of his marriage to the young woman who found him and nursed him through an attack of typhoid fever, when, for the moment, fate seemed at last to have him down, is fresh in memory" (Michigan Alumnus 10, no. 94 [May 1904]:

413). 46 Kalisch and Kalisch, The Advance of American Nursing, 103. 47 Morgan, The Canadian Men and Women, 373. 48 Tyrwhitt Papers.

Notes to pages 69-77 455

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

68 69 70 71 72 73 74

MH, Woman s Way, 39-40. Ibid., 40. LH, diary, 20 September 1903. DW Papers. DW, draft article, 1939, for Biographical Encyclopedia, DW Papers. Randall Papers. DW, Lure, 1905, [13]-16. Letter from Isabelle Savell in Michael Hitzig, "Labrador Explorer's Congers Home Found," 31. I am grateful to James West Davidson for this reference. During her Labrador expedition, Mina would write tenderly of the domestic happiness she and Leonidas Hubbard enjoyed for two and a half years "in the little house in Wurtsboro and again in Congers ... Oh what days they were how beautiful all the world seemed then. Love & Hope grew round us then" (diary, 28 August 1905). DW, Lure, 172. Michigan Alumnus, 10, no. 88 (November 1903): 98. LH, "Paddling Your Own Canoe," 528. LH, "Off Days on Superior's North Shore," 721. MH, Woman's Way, 33. LH, diary, 24 February 1903. Whitney, "The Leonidas Hubbard, Jun., Expedition into Labrador," [643]. DW, Lure, 16-17. Savell, "The Lure of Labrador." DW, Lure, 27. "'Why I Go to Labrador,'" World Magazine, 2 July 1905, 2; reprinted in Grace, ed., MH, Woman's Way, Appendix, 226—7; also in Dw Papers. In the matter of Elson biography, a lively but misleading book is Clayton Klein's Challenge the Wilderness: The Legend of George Elson. According to Mr Klein, much of this book is fictional, including the actions and letters it ascribes to Mina Hubbard (telephone interview, September 1994). DW, Lure, 28. LH, diary, 23 September 1903. New York Daily News, 21 June 1903, 2. In 1927 Labrador was formally awarded to Newfoundland by Great Britain's Privy Council. In 1949 Newfoundland became a province of Canada. O'Flaherty, The Rock Observed, 104. Unidentified newspaper clipping: letter to the editor from Willard Glazier, 6 February 1904, Randall Papers. In 1903, just a few weeks after the departure of Hubbard's party from New York, Glazier set out for the north coast of Labrador for a second tour of investigation and discovery ("Canada and Newfoundland," 265).

456 Notes to pages 78-86

75 Mauro, "Dillon Wallace of Labrador," 52. 76 Cabot, In Northern Labrador, i6>; Davidson and Rugge, Great Heart, 29. 77 DW, Lure, 34—5. There was much more to Battle Harbour than "a little house clinging to the rocks," however. It was the main mercantile and fish trading centre of the Labrador coast, complete with large premises, a hospital, a church, and comfortable accommodations for managers and visitors. 78 LH, diary, 5 July 1903. 79 Hubbard's tragic expedition is vividly documented in his diary (MH Papers); in Dillon Wallace's diary (DW Papers) and The Lure of the Labrador Wild; and in Davidson and Rugge's Great Heart. 80 DW, Lure, 50. 81 Jerry Kobalenko's "River of Starvation," gives a graphic account of what it is like to canoe up the Susan. 82 DW, Lure, 73. 83 New York Times, 24 March 1904, i. 84 DW, Lure, 125. 85 New York Times, 24 March 1904, i. 86 DW, Lure, 161. 87 Ibid., 234. 88 Ibid., 238. 89 Ibid., 255. 90 Merrick, The Long Crossing, in. 91 DW, Lure, 249—94, relates Wallace and Elson's ordeals in the Susan Valley after their parting from Hubbard. 92 Tyrwhitt Papers. 93 Michigan Alumnus 10, no. 88 (November 1903): 98. 94 MH, Woman's Way, 41. 95 Tyrwhitt Papers. 96 NAET, 26 January 1904, 5. 97 Michigan Alumnus 10, no. 91 (February 1904): 247. 98 NAET, 25 January 1904, 5. 99 DW, diary, 27 March 1904. 100 "Narrative by George Elson," in MH, Woman's Way, 217-18. Of this time, Wallace later wrote (undated MS essay, DW Papers): "Elson lost all sense of responsibility, seemed to feel his work was done, and gave himself over to such pleasures as the place offered ... dancing or playing the violin at dances and through his attentions to the wife of one of the natives got himself on bad terms with the husband." In 1939 George Elson told Sandford Hazelwood, a railroad surveyor he met carrying a copy of Wallace's Lure of the Labrador Wild: "Wallace was totally unfit for the task he had undertaken,

Notes to pages 87—92

101

102 103 104 105

106 107 108 109 no in 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119

457

and was so lacking in woodsman's instinct that he would even get lost on leaving camp to gather a bit of firewood" (W.M.J. Hart, "Lost in the Wild," Globe and Mail, 28 June 1997, 012). Both these helpmates are well known in Newfoundland and Labrador annals, Cluny Macpherson (1879—1966) as the inventor of an early gas mask in World War I, and Abram Kean (1855—1945) as the central figure in the 1914 SS Newfoundland sealing disaster in which seventy-eight men perished. See DW, Lure, 321—34, for Wallace's account of his and Bison's journey to Battle Harbour with Hubbard's body. New York Times, 28 May 1904, 5. Tyrwhitt Papers. "Hubbard Interment," unidentified newspaper clipping, DW Papers. MH [letter] to Wilfred Grenfell, 22 March 1907, Wilfred Thomason Grenfell Papers. An English physician, Wilfred Grenfell (1865-1940), came to Labrador in 1892. Within a few years his energy and fundraising ability established a network of medical and economic assistance to fisher families in Labrador and northern Newfoundland. DW, Lure, 246. Randall Papers. DW Papers. DW, Lure, 307-12. DW, diary, 23 May 1904. Dickie Papers. MH [letter] to Harold Ellis, 4 August 1908, quoted by permission of Benson Russell. National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, s.v. "Sawyer, James Emery Cochran," "Sawyer, Lucy Sargent." NAET, 15 November 1905, 8. Davidson and Rugge, Great Heart, 179. R.G. Mauro [letter] to Pierre Berton, 2 March 1975, Pierre Berton Fonds. Mauro, "Dillon Wallace of Labrador," 53. DW, undated unpublished MS, DW Papers. Mina's suspicions of Wallace probably began the moment she read, in Wallace's manuscript, Donald Blake's words: "We saw a place when right handy to th' tent where you'd had a fire by the brook, sir," DW, Lure, 289. Betty Cawkill Ellis [letter] to Anne Hart, i July 1993: "Do you think that Mina's implacable hatred for Dillon Wallace stemmed from the fact that she truly believed he could have done more to save her husband? It was so deep-rooted that she could hardly bring herself to speak his name ... What a maelstrom of emotions!"

458

120 121 122 123

Notes to pages 03-100

Interview, 17 July 1997. DW, Lure, 339. DW Papers. "'Why I Go to Labrador,"' in Grace, ed., MH, Woman's Way, 224; also in DW Papers. 124 According to Dr James Sawyer in his "The Hubbard Labrador Expedition," 509, "George kept a careful diary of the expedition, portions of which he has since expanded into a continuous narrative." 125 "'Why I Go to Labrador,'" in Grace, ed., MH, Woman's Way, 224; also in DW Papers. 126 Tyrwhitt Papers. 127 '"Why I Go to Labrador,'" in Grace, ed., MH, Woman's Way, 224; also in DW Papers. 128 MH, "Through Lonely Labrador," 82. 129 "'Why I Go to Labrador,'" in Grace, ed., MH, Woman's Way, 224—5; also m DW Papers. 130 Ibid., 228. 131 DAB, s.v. "Bridgman, Herbert Lawrence." As a player in another exploration rivalry, Bridgman appears as a character in novelist Wayne Johnston's The Navigator of New York, a fictionalized account of the 1909 Cook-Peary North Pole controversy. 132 MH [letter] to John Gillis, 29 April 1905, Dickie Papers. 133 Sawyer, "The Hubbard Labrador Expedition," 588—96. 134 Unpaged clipping with handwritten annotation, DW Papers: "The World: Tuesday Evening, June 13,1905." 135 Annie Wallace [letter] to Dillon Wallace, 20 September 1905, DW Papers: "It seems (Geo. Grundy told me this) the World sent a man to Halifax while she was still there who offered to buy her interviews exclusively for the World. She wrote asking Bridgman's advice wh. must have been favorable ... The World sent a man to the photographer's at Wmistown [Williamstown] (as directed by her) & got her latest photo." 136 "'Why I Go to Labrador,'" in Grace, ed., MH, Woman's Way, 224; also in DW Papers. 137 Dickie Papers. 138 Ibid. 139 Ibid. 140 Cabot Papers. 141 Dickie Papers. 142 DW, diary, i June 1905. 143 Halifax Herald, 2 June 1905, 2.

Notes to pages 100—4

459

144 Literature on independent women explorers almost invariably heralds each one as remarkable for setting off by herself to the unknown - often to the horror of her parents and brothers, for who knew what unspeakable things might happen to her? While their slim ranks go back over many centuries, the age of European exploration and imperialism produced a marvellous cadre of women explorers, many of whom were contemporaries, or nearcontemporaries, of Mina's: for example, English missionary Annie Taylor, who in 1892 made her way to within twelve miles of the forbidden city of Lhasa in Tibet, the closest any European had come at that time (Miller, On Top of the World, 47—69), or Mary Kingsley, who in 1895 was the first to travel overland from the upper Ogooue River to the Remboue in Gabon (Birkett, Spinsters Abroad, 125). 145 Newspaper readers may also have viewed Mina as an example of the "New Woman." Associated with the New Woman concept was "dress reform," a revolt against the cumbersome clothing and corsetry of the Victorian era, a development much to Mina's benefit when she chose her clothes for Labrador. 146 D"W Papers. 147 Halifax Herald, 13 June 1905, i. 148 New York Evening Telegram, 13 June 1905,16. 149 New York Tribune, 13 June 1905, i. 150 World, 13 June 1905, 3. 151 Unpaged newspaper clipping with handwritten annotation, DW Papers: "The World, Tuesday Evening, June 13,1905." 152 Whitney, "The View-Point," Outing 46, no. 5 (August 1905): 619—20. 153 DW, diary, 14 June 1905. 154 "'Why I Go to Labrador,'" in Grace, ed., MH, Woman's Way, 223; also in DW Papers. 155 Davidson and Rugge, Great Heart, 381. 156 For an interesting gender analysis of newspaper coverage of Mina's expedition, June—December 1905, see Grace, "A Woman's Way: From Expedition to Autobiography," xxiv—xxx. 157 Halifax Herald, 17 June 1905, i. 158 Dickie Papers. Leonidas Hubbard had also purchased his canoe from the Old Town Canoe Company. 159 MH, Woman's Way, 45. 160 For fictionalized accounts of Mina Hubbard's expedition into Labrador, see James West Davidson and John Rugge's Great Heart and Randall Silvis's Heart So Hungry.

460

Notes to pages 353-8

The Life of Mina Benson Hubbard Ellis: Finding Her Way, 1906—1956 1 Interview, 22 July 1997, Happy Valley, Labrador. 2 For example, Mina's expedition carried more food than Leonidas Hubbard's: 392 pounds of flour compared to 120, 200 pounds of bacon compared to 25, 60 pounds of sugar compared to 30, though, in fairness, it should be remembered that Hubbard had three people to feed, while she had five. 3 Interview, 8 November 1996, Toronto. See also "The Revenge of Mina Hubbard," in Berton, The Wild Frontier, 176—208. 4 MH, Woman's Way, 119. 5 James Benson died in 1907; Jane Wood Benson died in 1917. 6 Mary Benson married Rev. James Roberts; Rachel Benson married Rev. George McCall. 7 NAET, 21 December 1905, 8. 8 "My Explorations in Unknown Labrador," Harper's Monthly Magazine 112, no. 672 (May 1906): 813-23; "Labrador from Lake Melville to Ungava Bay," Bulletin of the American Geographical Society 38, no. 9 (1906): 529— 39, reprinted as "A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador," Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society 23, no. 4 (1907): 169—82; "Exploring Inner Labrador," Windsor Magazine 27 (December 1907—May 1908): 554—61; "Through Lonely Labrador," Englishwoman's Review 278, new series (15 April 1908): 82—8. For interesting analyses of these articles as demonstrating Mina's complex identity, see Sherrill Grace's Introduction to MH, A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador, 2004, and her "'Hidden Country': Discovering Mina Benson Hubbard," in Biography 24, no. i (Winter 2001): 273—87. 9 "J.L.," unidentified newspaper article, 26 January 1907. Tyrwhitt Papers. 10 DW, "The Long Labrador Trail: The Compact with Hubbard Fulfilled," [in 21 installments] Outing 48—50 (August 1906—June 1907); DW, The Long Labrador Trail (New York: Outing Publishing Company, 1907). 11 Grenfell Papers. 12 Cooke, "Introduction," in Felix Barker, Edwardian London, [9]. 13 Gooch, "The Edwardian Decade," 22-3. 14 Cooke, "Introduction," 10. 15 Much of this account of the last fifty years of Mina Hubbard's life is based on interviews and subsequent correspondence with Donna Benson Creates, 29 January 1993, 8 November 1996, Toronto; Mahlo Ellis Hollywood, Betty Cawkill Ellis, and Judith Ellis Stevens, 10-13 May 1993, Scalby, North Yorkshire; Margaret Ellis Russell and Benson Russell, 25—26 November 1997, Reading; Janice Tyrwhitt, 7, 9 November 1996,18 February 1999,19 October 2001, 9-10 February 2004, Toronto. And also on notes by Janice Tyrwhitt

Notes to pages 359—64

16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23

24

25 26 27

461

of interviews in 1975 with Mahlo Ellis Hollywood, Scalby; Betty Cawkill Ellis, London; Margaret Ellis Russell, Reading; and Marion McCall Daly and Dorothy McCall Burroughs, Toronto (both since deceased). To avoid repetitive citations, quotations and information in the text from these major informants can be taken as contributed on the dates and at the places stated above. Unidentified, undated newspaper clipping, Tyrwhitt Papers. Tyrwhitt Papers. Bassett, The Life of the Rt. Hon. John Edward Ellis, M.P. Trevelyan, "Green, Alice Sophia Amelia," 859—61. For an interesting discussion of possible influences of Mary Kingsley's writing on Mina Hubbard, see Sherrill Grace's Introduction to MH, A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador, 2004. O Broin, Protestant Nationalism, 2—5. MH, Woman's Way, 7. "Nansenesque": in 1888 the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen (1861—1930) led the first expedition to cross the Greenland ice cap. He spent 1893—96 exploring the Arctic Ocean in his specially built ship the Fram. He and a companion travelled by dogsled farther north than anyone had been before, but were forced to turn back before reaching the North Pole (Encyclopedia Americana, s.v. "Nansen, Fridtjof"). His Farthest North is an account of his expeditions. Born in Canada, actress Lena Ashwell (1872—1957) had a long and distinguished career on the London stage. She "took over the Kingsway Theatre, inaugurating in 1907 a season of successful repertory with 'Irene Wycherley,'" presumably the play Mina, Harold Ellis, and Mrs Stopford Green went to see (Oxford Companion to the Theatre, 3rd ed., 48). MH [letter] to Harold Ellis, i December 1907. Correspondence quoted by permission of Benson Russell. Ibid., i January 1908. Interestingly, the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the doyen of geographical associations, was well known for denying women admittance to its membership as Fellows. This came to a head in 1892, when Isabella Bird attracted large audiences to lectures in London and Edinburgh sponsored by the Scottish Geographical Society, but refused to address the RGS because of its gender bias. Soon after, the RGS announced that, in view of the "increasing number of ladies, eminent as travellers, and contributors to the stock of geographical knowledge," it would "throw open the Fellowship ... to both sexes" (Birkett, Spinsters Abroad, 215). But in 1893, a motion to allow the twenty-two women already admitted to remain, but no more to be

462

28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37

38 39 40

41 42

Notes to pages 3 65—9

allowed, was passed. In 1897 Isabella Bird finally agreed to give a lecture to the RGS, the first woman to do so (ibid., 235), though it was not until 191 that women qualified by the terms of the society were admitted as Fellows. Bassett, Life, 246. Later in 1908, A Woman's Way was published by William Briggs of Toronto and the McClure Company of New York. The Canadian edition is identical to the British; the American edition lacks William Brooks Cabot's introduction. A recapitulation of Mina's business with John Murray shows a contract to print 1,520 copies at a sale price of io/6d, with a royalty of 20 per cent English and colonial sales. Her royalties for 1920 were only i2/yd and the book went out of print. I am grateful to Lisa LaFramboise for this information. In 1947, during a visit to Toronto, Mina attempted to persuade Ryerson Press to publish a second edition of A Woman's Way, without success (MH [letter] to Jacques Rousseau, 30 October 1947, Rousseau Fonds). MH, Woman's Way, 8. Ibid., 28-9. Ibid., 45, erroneously gives the date of Mina's departure as 27 July. Loring, "Princes and Princesses of Ragged Fame," viii. MH, Woman's Way, 119. Ibid., 188. Mina obviously took the title of one of her photographs, "Where Romance Lingers" (a canoe proceeding down quiet waters, MH, Woman's Way, 41), from an article of the same title by Leonidas Hubbard. Six of her photographs appeared only in the i June 1907 (833) issue of the Illustrated London News: "The Start: Mrs. Hubbard Going on Board Her Canoe on North West River"; a different version of "Washing-Day"; "Crossing the WaterShed: The View Looking North Towards Ungava Bay"; "An Indian Burying-Place"; "Crossing the Water-Shed: The View Looking South towards Lake Melville"; "The Toils of the Trail: a Portage on the Nascaupee River." I am grateful to Janice Tyrwhitt for this image. For a valuable discussion of gender issues and "autobiographic" insights that photographs convey in Mina Hubbard's narrative, see Grace, "'A Woman's Way': Canadian Narratives of Northern Discovery." MH, "Labrador from Lake Melville to Ungava Bay," 531. "A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador: a Lecture by Mrs. Hubbard Ellis," [promotional brochure] ca. 1937, MH Papers. With one exception: E.P. Wheeler made latitude and longitude corrections in the Indian Lake area on Mina's map in his "Topographical Notes on a Journey Across Labrador," 475. MH, Woman's Way, 7. Ibid., 78.

Notes to pages 369-81 463

43 Country Life, 22 May 1908; Sunday Times, j May 1908; CardiffWestern Mail, 13 June 1908. Unpaged clippings, DW Papers. 44 Review of Historical Publications Relating to Canada, vol. 12,133, 1909. 45 MH [letter] to Harold Ellis, 17 June 1908. Quoted by permission of Benson Russell. 46 Ibid., July [nd] 1908; 16 July 1908; 17 July 1908. Quoted by permission of Benson Russell. 47 As her map of Labrador testifies, Mina did not overlook her Williamstown friends. She named Mount Sawyer in honour of Dr James Sawyer (NAET, 17 May 1906, 7), and it is probable that she named Mount Elizabeth after Elizabeth Krafft. 48 MH [letters] to Harold Ellis: 4 August 1908; 14-16 August 1908. Quoted by permission of Benson Russell. 49 Bassett, Life, 247. 50 Ibid., 246. Coincidentally, in the 19505 a great-niece of Mina's, Joanne Burroughs Matteson, was married at the same address, a Victorian house that catered events such as weddings. 51 Cobourg World, 18 September 1908, 3. There are several inaccuracies in this account: the wedding dress was cream (not grey) silk and was trimmed with seed pearls (information from Judith Ellis Stevens); the Ellis collieries were in Nottinghamshire, not Wales; Mina met Harold Ellis as a result of his mother inviting her to Wrea Head (Tyrwhitt Papers). 52 Bassett, Life, 246—7. The Rt Hon. John Ellis's understanding that Mina's father had been reeve of his township for a quarter of a century was probably mistaken. According to Riddell, Historical Sketch of the Township of Hamilton, 26, James Benson served as reeve 1861—62 and deputy reeve 1860, 1863-66. 53 Tyrwhitt Papers. 54 Bassett, Life, 266. 55 Betty Cawkill Ellis [letter] to Anne Hart, 20 November 1993. 56 Bassett, Life, 79, 99. 57 During one of these times, however, Mina encountered a personage obviously not a social reformer. According to Mahlo Hollywood Ellis, "She told a story about seeing a duchess sitting alone on a sofa, and thinking she was looking lonely she'd go over and talk to her. [But] she hadn't been introduced and this duchess wouldn't speak to her." 58 MH [letter] to Albert Benson, 14 April 1912, Benson Papers. 59 MH [letter] to Jane Wood Benson, 24 September 1912, Benson Papers. 60 MH [letter] to Albert Benson, 9 December 1912, Benson Papers. 61 Ibid., 8 February 1913. 62 Harold Ellis [letter] to Albert Benson, 14 May 1913, Benson Papers.

464

Notes to pages 381-85

63 Glen Cole, a Cavan Road neighbour, was a child at the time of Mina's visit to Bewdley in 1913. In an interview with Donna McGillis, he recalled his parents attending a lecture by Mina, of whom the community was very proud. 64 MH [letter] to Albert Benson, 19 July 1913, Benson Papers. 65 Harold Ellis [letter] to Albert Benson, 17 November 1913, Benson Papers. 66 Mina's search was successful. During Margaret Ellis's infancy, a governess, Miss Dodwell ("Dodie"), was hired for three months to supervise Mahlo and John. However, she stayed with the Ellis family as a housekeeper and factotum until her death in the 19505: first with Mina in London for over twenty years, next with Edith Ellis at Wrea Head, then with Margaret Ellis at her student flat at Newcastle University and later, after Margaret's marriage to John Russell, in Reading, where she helped care for the Russells' large family. Information from Margaret Ellis Russell and Benson Russell. 67 Montessori, The Montessori Method. An Italian educator, Maria Montessori (1870—1952), advocated a revolutionary system of teaching young children through play and their natural talents rather than through strict controls. 68 MH [letter] to Albert Benson, 12 January 1914, Benson Papers. 69 Emmeline Pankhurst (1858—1928) was one of the most famous figures in the British suffrage movement. In 1903 she founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). As leader of its radical campaigns, she suffered repeated imprisonments. Her daughters Christabel and Sylvia also became prominent suffragists (Banks, The Biographical Dictionary of British Feminists, vol. i, 149—52). 70 Margaret Bondfield (1873—1953) was a notable socialist and trade unionist. She devoted much energy to improving the conditions of working women and was a leader in such associations as the Shop Assistants Union, the Women's Labour League, and the Federation of Women Workers. In 1923 she was elected to Parliament, and in 1929 became Minister of Labour in Ramsay MacDonald's cabinet (ibid., 30-2). 71 Ellen Wilkinson (1891-1947), a feminist, pacifist, and Marxist, graduated in history from Manchester University in 1913. In 1915 she was appointed national woman organizer to the Amalgamated Union of Co-operative Employees. In 1924 she was elected to the House of Commons, the beginning of a long parliamentary career culminating in her appointment in 1945 as minister of education in the Attlee government (ibid., 223—5). 72 An American, Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) was an internationally acclaimed pioneer of modern dance who used her fame to promote causes close to her heart. These included the emancipation of women, the Russian Revolution, and the independence of Ireland (Duncan, Isadora Speaks). 73 Haslam, From Suffrage to Internationalism,- 75.

Notes to pages 385-93 465

74 Lord Parmoor (1852—1941) was the father of Stafford Cripps by his first marriage to Theresa Potter, a sister of Beatrice Webb. Of the marriage of her widowed brother-in-law to Marian Ellis, Webb wrote: "Alfred has excellent taste in women. He chose the most charming of the Potter sisters ... and now he has won an exceptionally attractive woman, good as gold, able and most pleasant to look at" (Bryant, Stafford Cripps, 70-2). 75 Information from Benson Russell. 76 In the event, only 3 of the 180 British women who applied to attend the International Women's Congress in The Hague actually got there. Most of them were refused passports on the grounds of "security," and the sailing date for the remainder coincided with the Admiralty's closing of the North Sea to shipping. 77 Haslam, From Suffrage, 56. 78 According to Betty Cawkill Ellis, "Once Mina ordered initialled handkerchiefs from Marshall and Snelgrove's. When I collected them she said, 'Oh, they've put the wrong initial on. I told them MBHE and they've put MBH.' I took them back. Money was no object. The lady there said: 'But she definitely wanted the initials MBH.' She was thinking Mina Benson Hubbard, you see." 79 MH [letter] to Jane Wood Benson, i October 1917. Benson Papers. 80 Maud Gonne (1866—1953) was a famous Irish patriot, actress, and feminist, much loved by the poet W.B. Yeats. Her husband, John McBride, was executed for his part in the 1916 Dublin uprising. An exile from Ireland, in 1918 she outwitted the British government and escaped in disguise back to Dublin. Her son, Sean MacBride (1904-88), later became Ireland's foreign minister and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (Ward, Maud Gonne). 81 Tyrwhitt Papers. 82 Randolph Caldecott (1846—86) was famous for his delightful drawings for children's books, including Nursery Rhymes (1884) and The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1878) (Encyclopedia Americana, s.v. "Caldecott, Randolph"). 83 Margaret Ellis Russell, interview by Benson Russell, 1990, Reading, England. 84 Tyrwhitt Papers 85 The Everyman Theatre opened in Hampstead in 1920 and regularly "put on repertory seasons of Shaw's plays" (Mander and Mitchenson, Theatrical Companion to Shaw, 292). 86 Kipling's wife, Caroline Balestier (1862-1939), was an American. Their home, "Bateman's," was in the village of Burwash in Sussex. 87 There is a lingering conviction in the Ellis family that H.G. Wells's novel Marriage was inspired by his reading A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador. In part, Marriage tells the story of a troubled London couple,

466

88 89 90 91 92 93

94 95 96 97

98

99

100 101

Notes to pages 393-8

the Traffords, isolated in a remote "hut" in Labrador where they work out their differences. Some of his descriptions of the Traffords' journey into the interior are reminiscent of Mina's, and one of the guides in his novel "was a relation and acquaintance of that George Elson who was with Wallace and Leonidas Hubbard, and afterwards guided Mrs. Hubbard in her crossing of Labrador" (Wells, Marriage, 443). Tyrwhitt Papers. Olive Schreiner's famous novel, The Story of an African Farm, had been published in London in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. Cronwright-Schreiner, The Life of Olive Schreiner. New Encyclopaedia Britannica, I5th ed., s.v. "Theosophy." Owen, The Darkened Room, 289. Rex Raab, Clare's son, became a noted architect of a number of important anthroposophic sites and buildings throughout Europe. He was also the author of several volumes of poetry, one of which, Engine: A Year in Poems, includes a poem dedicated "To a Brave Explorer (Mrs. M.B.H. Ellis)." Its first stanza reads: "What is adventure? What discovery? / What scouts bring first intelligence to the world? / To touch, to taste, to smell, to hear, to see. / By these outriders is man's flag unfurled" (20). I am grateful to Robin Schmidt of the Forschungsstelle Kulturimpuls in Heidelberg and to Judith Ellis Stevens for this information. Campbell, Ancient Wisdom Revived, 155. New Encyclopaedia Britannica, I5th ed., s.v. "Steiner, Rudolf." Campbell, Ancient Wisdom Revived, 158. Harold Ellis [letter] to Edith Ellis, u May 1923. Quoted by permission of Benson Russell. Betty Cawkill Ellis remembers Jolan Grave telling her that Harold was very hurt when his sister Marian (Lady Parmoor) and her husband, on a visit to Switzerland, were seen driving past "Chesa Dimlej" without stopping. The British general strike occurred 3-12 May 1926. As to details of Mina's divorce settlement, upon application to the Public Records Office I was told that such court documents of this period were destroyed in World War 11 bombing. Harold Ellis died of cancer in Switzerland on 5 October 1930 and was buried in the Scalby churchyard beside his father and two brothers. According to Mahlo Ellis Hollywood, "Jolan was very anxious that my mother should come to the funeral, but she didn't." "Certificate of Candidate for Election," 21 November 1927, Royal Geographical Society Archives, London. Zara Nelsova went on to become a world-renowned concert cellist (Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, 2nd ed., 938—9). Her memories of Mina are still

Notes to pages 398-406

102 103 104 105 106 107

108 109

no

in 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

467

fresh: "Once or twice we played in her beautiful home on Redington Rd. ... At that time I was badly in need of a good Cello. A sister [in-law] of Mrs. Ellis was Lady Parmoor ... [who] was kind enough to loan me her Cello. I am sure this was through the efforts of her sister [in-law] Mrs. Ellis ... I do remember the kindness of Mrs. Ellis - her elegant way of dressing and her beautiful home" (Zara Nelsova [letter] to Anne Hart, 14 March 2001). Tyrwhitt Papers. Betty Cawkill Ellis [letter] to Anne Hart, i July 1993. Information from Norma Ellis Armstrong. In previous centuries, the Abitibi River had been a trade route for voyageurs and coureurs de bois. Tyrwhitt Papers. Ibid. Berton, The Wild Frontier, 175-208. "The Revenge of Mina Hubbard" was also the title of a dramatized half-hour Global TV production in 1974, one of a Canadian history series hosted by Berton. Davidson and Rugge, Great Heart, 350—3. Interview, 24 July 1997, Happy Valley, Labrador. Mina, well aware that she was being unorthodox in travelling alone with four men, demonstrated her caution at the conclusion of her expedition by having each of them sign a formal statement at the end of her diary that there was nothing "in the conduct of Mrs Hubbard and her party towards each other which was unbecoming honorable Christian men and women," and signed a similar statement herself at the end of George Elson's diary. Given the lawyerly language of these statements, it could be speculated that Mina - perhaps on the advice of Dr James Sawyer or Herbert Bridgman - may have come to Labrador with these texts prudentially in hand. Canon R.E. Louttit [letter] to Anne Hart, 2 May 1995. I am grateful to Canon Louttit for researching church records for references to George Elson and Ellen Miller Elson. S.P.M. Tasker, "George Elson," 46—9. Berton Fonds. Klein, Challenge the Wilderness, 415. Tyrwhitt Papers. DW Papers. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Michigan Alumnus, 42, no. 2 (18 January 1936): 212. R.G. Mauro, in "Dillon Wallace of Labrador," 57, reported on a visit he had made to the Haverstraw cemetery: "Enquiries among the remaining few townspeople who remember him [Hubbard] elicit the startling theory

468

Notes to pages 406—15 that his body was exhumed in the early part of the century and taken to England by his widow." When asked about this theory, both Mahlo Ellis Hollywood and Betty Cawkill Ellis reacted with astonishment and disbelief. Said Mahlo, "Knowing my mother's dislike of England, why would she ever have someone she loved brought from America to be buried here?"

121 Daisy Hubbard Williams's statement was widely published. See, for example, Outing 46, no. 6 (September 1905): 759. 12,2 DW Papers. 123 Ibid. This letter was written in response to Wallace's plan, on contract to Outing, to affix a memorial plaque near the spot where Hubbard had died ten years before. In July 1913, he and his friend Judge William Malone, with Gilbert Blake as their guide, canoed up the Beaver River. En route, the canoe tipped and the sixty-pound bronze plaque was irretrievably lost. Forging on, they reached their destination on 27 July. With white lead, a brush made from Gilbert's hair, and a hammer and chisel, they inscribed on a boulder: "Leonidas Hubbard, Jr. / Intrepid Explorer / and / Practical Christian / Died Here / Oct. 18,1903 / 'Whither I go you know, / and the way ye know. / John XIV-4'" (DW, Lure of the Labrador Wild, nth ed., 1913, 9-12). 124 Another reason for Mina's 1936 visit may have been concern over her brother Bert Benson's financial situation. In 1935 his woodworking business, Benson and Bray Ltd, had gone into liquidation, a victim of the Great Depression. For a livelihood, he turned to making very fine violins. 125 Savell, "The Lure of Labrador." 126 Michigan Alumnus 43, no. 23 (10 July 1937): 500. 127 MH Papers. 128 Tyrwhitt Papers. 129 DW Papers. 130 Ibid. Dillon Wallace died the following year, 28 September 1939, in Beacon, N.Y., at the age of seventy-six. His Labrador expeditions had turned him from lawyer to full-time writer. In all, he wrote twenty-six books, most of them adventure books for boys, and was one of the founders of the Boy Scouts movement in the United States. By his second marriage to Leila Greenwood Hinman, he had a daughter, Leila (Ann), and a son, Dillon 3rd (New York Times, 29 September 1939: 23). 131 Public [now National] Archives of Canada, External Affairs, Canada House Series, Fonds RG-25 A5. 132 Bissell, The Young Vincent Massey, 5. Betty Cawkill Ellis has a recollection of Mina telling her that Vincent Massey (1887-1967) hinted that she might be taken on a forthcoming flight over Labrador with John Buchan (Lord Tweedsmuir, the governor general of Canada), but nothing seems to have come of this.

Notes to pages 415—32

469

133 Berton, The Wild Frontier, 207—8. This account is likely based on an interview with the Hon. Edgar Benson, a grandson of Mina's brother William. 134 Tyrwhitt Papers. 135 Ibid. 136 "She [Maria Rowntree Ellis] just longed to join him [her husband] in heaven for over thirty years, the last fifteen of which she spent confined to her room, mostly in bed having occasional heart attacks. And when they brought her round with brandy, she used to say: 'Why did you bring me back?'" (Margaret Ellis Russell, interview by Benson Russell, 1990). 137 Information from Benson Russell. 138 Brand, The National Movement in Scotland, 253. 139 Berton Fonds. In post-war Canada, Edgar Benson went on to a distinguished political career as M.P. for Kingston, Ontario, 1962—72, during which he held a number of cabinet portfolios in the Pearson and Trudeau cabinets. He served as Canadian ambassador to Ireland, 1982—86 (Canadian Who's Who, 1993, 84). 140 MH Papers. 141 Interview with Muriel Benson Campbell, 7 November 1996, Cobourg, Ontario. Quotation from Donna McGillis, "Mina Benson Hubbard," 6. 142 Interview, 27 August 1994, St John's, Newfoundland. 143 MH [draft letter] to Jacques Rousseau, 30 August 1947, MH Papers. 144 Jacques Rousseau [letter] to MH, 8 September 1947, Rousseau Fonds. 145 MH [draft letter] to Jacques Rousseau, n September 1947, MH Papers. 146 MH [letter] to Jacques Rousseau, 15 October 1947, Rousseau Fonds. 147 George Elson was buried at St Thomas Anglican Church Cemetery in Moose Factory. Ellen Elson, who died in March 1971, is also buried there (Canon R.E. Louttit [letter] to Anne Hart, 2 May 1995). 148 Tyrwhitt Papers. 149 Interview by Benson Russell, 1990. 150 MH [letter] to Jacques Rousseau, 8 May 1950, Rousseau fonds. 151 Jacques Rousseau [letter] to MH, 2 November 1950, Rousseau Fonds. 152 Tyrwhitt Papers. 153 Ibid. 154 Public [now National] Archives of Canada. Fonds RG-37. 155 Ibid. 156 Merrick, The Long Crossing and Other Labrador Stories, x. 157 Ibid., 121. 158 Tyrwhitt Papers. 159 Ibid. 160 Ibid. 161 Ibid.

4/o

Notes to pages 432-40

162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Coulsdon Advertiser, n May 1956. Tyrwhitt Papers. Ibid. Great Britain, Probate Office, London. Tyrwhitt Papers. Ibid. Appendix

1 Diary of Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, 1905. An Account of a Journey in Labrador. (Private Papers of Mrs. M.B.H. Ellis.). Public Archives of Canada, MG 30 830. Ellis was her name by her second husband. 2 Public [now National] Archives of Canada, RG 37 vol. 9, 50-11-1: correspondence of Dr W. Kaye Lamb, Dominion Archivist, 10 February, 4 March, 23 March, and 23 July 1953. Rousseau traversed part of the same route as MH on the George River and Indian House Lake: see Rousseau, "The Vegetation and Life Zones of George River," 93, 95. 3 Public Archives of Canada, Mrs. E.G. Watson, Public Record Office, London, to Dr. W. Kaye Lamb, 4 March 1953. 4 "Son journal fournit de precieux renseignements d'ordre topographique. Par contre, celui de Dillon Wallace, qui la suit a distance, la meme annee, n'a aucun interet scientifique" (Rousseau, "La flore de la Riviere George," 13). 5 Six entries are written in ink, in December, when she was back in Williamstown (i, 18, 20, 24, 25, 27 December). 6 At the bottom of the Tuesday, n July, entry she has written "See Feb zoth" but 10 February is blank; the same thing occurs on 21 August, when there is a note to see 25 May, also blank. 7 Gilman, "How Should Journals Be Edited?" 81.

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49 o

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Watson, J. Wreford. "The Role of Illusion in North American Geography: A Note on the Geography of North American Settlement." Canadian Geographer 13, no. i (1969): 10-27 Watson, Robert. "'Captain' Cotter of Cumberland." Beaver 260, no. 2 (September 1929): 260-1 Wellman, Jim. Lighthouse People: Stories of Men, Women and Children Who Worked and Lived on Lightstations in Newfoundland and Labrador. St John's: Creative Publishers 1999 Wells, H.G. Marriage. New York: Duffield 1912 Welter, Barbara. Dimity Convictions: The American Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Athens: Ohio University Press 1976 Wheeler, E.P. "Topographical Notes on a Journey across Labrador." Geographical Review 28, no. 3 (July 1938): 475-81 White, James. Forts and Trading Posts in Labrador Peninsula and Adjoining Territory. Ottawa: F.A. Acland, King's Printer 1926 Whitney, Caspar. "The Leonidas Hubbard, Jun., Expedition into Labrador." Outing 45, no. 6 (March 1905): 643—7 - "The View-Point." Outing 46, no. 5 (August 1905): 619-20 — "The View-Point. The Spirit that Makes the World Go Round." Outing 49, no. 3 (December 1906): 396-7 Williams, Daisy Hubbard. "Hubbard's Sister Speaks." Outing 46, no. 6 (September 1905): 759-60 Wilton, Andrew. Turner and the Sublime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1981 — and Tim Barringer. American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820—1880. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2002 Wolff, Janet. Resident Alien: Feminist Cultural Criticism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1995 "A Woman's Journey across Unknown Labrador: Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard's Expedition." Illustrated London News, i June 1907, 833 [u photographs] Woolf, Virginia. Three Guineas. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1977 Young, Rev. Arminius. A Methodist Missionary in Labrador. Toronto: S. and A. Young 1916 Zimmerly, David William. Cain's Land Revisited: Culture Change in Central Labrador, 1775—1972. St John's: Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland 1975

Index

Abercrombie, David, 75 Abitibi River, 399 Adams, Carol, 38 Adelaide, Lake, 23onn2o6, 207 Advance Lake, 43, 245^35 Agnes Lake, 369 Akenson, Donald, 52 American Geographical Society, 34, 44, 369 Anauta. See Ford, Elizabeth Anderson, Lorraine, 38 Ann Arbor, 67, 409-10, 413 Arctic Club, 34-5, 97, 358 Armstrong, Norma Ellis, 388. See also Ellis artificial horizon, 44—5, no, 139, 241, 371 Ashini, John, 20 Ashini, William, 20 Attikamagen Lake, 240 At wood, Margaret, 27, 35 Aurora, SS, 87 Babstock, Miss, 330-1 bakeapple, 153, 210, 217, 230, 261 Balch, David, 404-6, 413-14 Bald Mountain, I48nn85, 86 Barfield, Arthur, 434-5

Barren Ground People, 22, 349 Barren Grounds, 251 Bartlett, Captain Bob, 77-8, 323 Bartlett, Sophia, 267 Bartlett, Captain William J., 323 Basque Island, Basques, 339 Battle Harbour, 76, 79, 86-7 Bay of Islands, no bear: black, 126, tracks, 133, 147, trail, 138, 141, 151, 153, 159, 181; polar, 289 beaver, 127 Beaver Brook or River ("Big River"), 14, 81-2, 161 Benson, Albert (Bert), 54; Donna (daughter, see Creates); Ellis, Harold, and, 380-1, 386; Ethel (Minnie) Bowman (wife), 381—2, 397, 422; Harold (son), 381, 422; MH and, 377-82, 393, 397, 400, 4O7ni24, 420, 422; Orma (daughter), 2O5ni63, 369, 422 Benson, Edgar, 418 Benson, Mina Adelaide. See Hubbard, Mina Benson, Mina Robin, 422 Benson, Phyllis Shaw, 422 Benson family: 52, 369, 374, 393; Agnes Sackville Benson (MH'S

492.

Index

aunt, wife of John), 55; Annie (sister, see Ritchie); Annie (cousin), 62; George (uncle), 52—3; George (brother), 54nio; Harriet (sister, "Hatt", see Underbill); James (father), 52-6, 59, 61-2, death of, 354n5, 374; Jane (aunt), 52; Jane Wood (mother), 54, 59, 96, 374, 379> 39°> death of, 354n5; Jennifer (Jennie, sister, see Cruikshank), 54, 63, 79; John (uncle), 52-6, 58-60; Mary (aunt), 52; Mary (sister, see Roberts), 54, 62, 85; Rachel (sister, "Ati," seeMcCall); Robert (uncle), 52-3; Samuel (uncle), 52-3; William (brother), 54, 418, 421 Bensons' Corners, 56—7, 61 Berger, Thomas, n Berry Head, 126 Berton, Pierre, 354, 400, 415 Betsy, Inuit, George River Post, 292—3, 296; letter of, in Inuktitut syllables, 293, 439; mother of, 305 Bewdley, 51, 56, 60, 69, 85, 89, 98, 354; Benson graves, 421; memorial plaque to MH, 353, 436-8 Bibikwasin Lake, 42 "Big River" (Beaver Brook), 161 Bird, Isabella, 357, 361 birds: beach, 303; crow, 233, 298; eagle, 133; fish eagle [osprey], 145; geese, 163, 171-5, 223, 237, 239, 243; gulls, 163, 217, 223; loon, 210, 216, 223-4, 239; owl, 156, 215, 218; partridge, 38-9, 84, 147-8, 158, 169, 172-3, 178, 217, 239; partridge, spruce, 223; ptarmigan, 38, 209, 213, 217-20, 225, 239-40, 251, 297-8, 303, 313, 319; robin, 218; sea pigeons, 326. See also ducks Birkett, Dea, 28-9

Black Hills, 2620270 Blackned, John, 12 Blake, Annie, 14 Blake, Donald, 14, 84, 92, 117; tilts of, 140, 144, 163, 193, 303 Blake, Gilbert (Gil), 10, 116, 130, 184, 187, 192, 218, 277, 279, 305; biography of, 13—15; character of, 14, 134, 222, 270; Innu and, 14, 19-21, 240—1; his knowledge of local terrain, importance of, 14—15, 41, 132, 134, 146, 150—1, 193; his map of Grand Lake, and skill in drawing, 295, 303; MH, his views on, 14, 353, 400; MH diary, signs declaration in, 348; MH'S sketch of him, objects to, 32, 285; wages, 325; DW and, 14, 84 Blake, Lillie, 117 Blake, Mark, 85, 117 Blake, Thomas Lea (Tom), 13—14, 86, 117 Blandford, Captain James, 17-18, 34, 317-18, 323-6, 328, 345 bluebell [harebell], 264 blueberries, 228, 263 Bohls, Elizabeth, 36 Bondfield, Margaret, 384 Bridgman, Helen Bartlett, 265. See also Helen Falls Bridgman, Herbert Lawrence, 96-7, 99, in, 265, 327, 337; MH, business manager of, 342, 344, 357, 365; MH, Woman's Way, praise for, 371; MH diary and, 439 Bridgman Mountains, 267^82, 268 Briggs, S. Edgar, 102 Brittain, W.G., 403 Brogden, Norma. See Ellis Brooklyn Training School for Nurses, 63-4, 66 Buell, Lawrence, 38

Index

Burgis (Burgess), Mr, HBC, St Augustine, 334 Burroughs, Dorothy McCall, 69, 84-5, 369, 399, 416, 424. See Dorothy Lakes Button Island, 317 Cabot, William Brooks, 24, 187, 321, 371; LH and, 78-9, 87; MH, Woman's Way, introduction to, 94, 97-9. 367 Cabot Lake, 235nn2i7, 218, 237 Campbell, Lydia Brooks Blake, 13 Campbell, Muriel Benson, 421—2 Canadian Geological Survey. See Geological Survey of Canada Canadian Women's Club, 414 canoes: "canoe a beauty," 116; canoeing, on Naskaupi and George Rivers, 40—4; MH'S canoe, "Guide's Special," Old Town Canoe Company, Maine, 103; Rice Lake Canoe, "Rice Laker," 56-7, 73. See also Chapies, Job Canyon Camp, 43, 251^46 captivity narratives, 21 caribou, 19, 81, 156, 169, 176-8, 215, 223, 258; George River herd, 8, 45, 226-9, 233> 235> 239> 242~3; at George River Post, 279—80, 286, 305; migration of, 31, 45; trails, 145, 225, 230, 238—9, 242, 364 Caribou Hill, 226n2O3 Caribou Lake, 41, 174ni29 Caribou Point, 224ni97 Carlyle, Thomas, 88 Cartier, Jacques, 35 Cartwright, 112, 312 Cascade Rapids, 41, 176ni28 Cavan, County, Ireland, 52

493

Cavan Road, 53-4, 56-7, 61, 69, 422, 436 Cawkill, Betty. See Ellis, Betty Cawkill Chapies, Job, 10, 101, 109, 152, 228-9; biography of, 13; canoeist, skill as, 129-30, 133, 183, 192, 217-18, 239, 261—4; capsize of canoe, 139—40; Elson, and, 131—4, 136; finds George River, 231; Innu, and, 21, 23; "Job's dream," 259; MH, his relations with, 158, 175, 178, 181-2, 196-7, 213, 222-3, 243> 299; MH'S admiration of, 109, 145, 149, 167, 212-13, 220, 230, 271; named "Eagle" by MH, 304; signs declaration in MH'S diary, 348 Charles, Cape, 87 Chateau Bay, 85, in, 327-9 Cheever, Mr and Mrs James, 401 Chidley, Cape, 289, 317, 345 Chimo, Fort, 4-6, 18, 275, 277-9, 2^6, 288, 292, 298, 314, 322, 402 Chipewyan, 28 Chubb, Charles F., 406, 410 Churchill, Manitoba, 13 Churchill Falls, 4; damming of Naskaupi River, 2O7ni67; Upper Churchill hydro development, 40, 42-3 Churchill River. See Grand River Cobourg, 51—3, 59—61, 415, 421, 436; Cobourg Collegiate, 59—60 Cobourg Star, 52 Cobourg World, 386 Cold Creek, 51, 53, 55 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 61, 357 Colford Lake, I7ini2o Congers, N.Y., 26, 39, 73, 76, 81-2, 87, 267, 274, 371, 407

494

Index

Cooke, Alastair, 358 Copley, Frank Barkley, 89 Corbeau, Cape, 166 Cotter, Henry Stuart Martin, 16, 19, 24-5, 119-21, 123, 321, 325 Coulsdon, Surrey, 432-3 country tea [Labrador tea], 180, 210 Craig, Martha, 335 cranberries, 179—80 Crane, Jean, 353, 400 Creates, Donna Benson, 378, 397, 400, 418-20 Cree, 12—13, 19—20, 25, 72, 109, 402; DW and, 55; MH, language, and, 55, 222; phrases, 158, 181, 231, 348-9; syllables, 348; women, 28 Cripps, Charles Alfred, Baron Parmoor, 385 Cripps, Marian Ellis, Lady Parmoor, 360, 372, 385, 419 Crooked River, 126 Cruikshank, Gertrude, 2O3ni59, 369, 372. See Gertrude Falls Cruikshank, Jennifer (Jennie) Benson, 54, 62, 79, 203ni59, 372 Cruikshank, William, 2O3ni59 Cumberland Gulf, 278 Daly, Marion McCall, 69, 2O3ni57, 359' 374. 392, 399> 411-12, 4*6, 421, 424; Daly, Roland (husband), 411-12; MH, on death of, 432-8, letters from, 430-1. See also Maid Marion Falls dandelion, 157 Davidson, James West, 92—3, 103, 400 Davis, Rev. William V.W., 342 Davis family, Forteau, 329—30 Davis Inlet, 24, 30, 248-9, 253, 257, 320; Davis Inlet band, 22; MH at, 321-2

deer. See caribou Dempsey, Lisa, 39 Detroit Evening News, 68 Devil's Dining Table, in Dicker, Mrs, 284, 291, 314-15 Dicker, Will, 297, 312 Dickie, Alfred, 90 Digger, W. [Dicker?], 307 Disappointment Lake, 81 Dodwell, Miss ("Dodie," governess), 382n66 Domino Run, 112, 327 Dorothy Lakes, 41, i6oniO5, 369 Draulette, Y., 357 Duchess, The (Margaret Wolfe Hungerford), 302 ducks, 155, 163, 176, 178, 210, 211, 239, 334, 336; "ah ha' wa" (oldsquaw), 224; eider, 317-18; golden-eyed divers, 335; "sleepy diver" (black scoter), 300 Duclos, Mr, Revillon Freres, 14, 116, 119, 121, 123, 321, 323—4, 326 Dumans, Riviere, 252^49 Duncan, Isadora, 384 Eastmain, 13, 402 Easton, Clifford Hamilton, 9—11, 17—18, 99, H5n28; capsize of canoe, 10; at George River Post, 309-15; Innu and, 20, 24-5, 27; 115; MH and, at North West River, 119-20 Egg Island, 338-9 Elizabeth, Mount, near Nachvak, 31911399. See Ford, Elizabeth Elizabeth, Mount, on Naskaupi, 37in47. See Krafft, Elizabeth Elliott, Charles E., 319, 345 Ellis, Alice Hamlin, first wife of John Edward, Jr, 397, 416-17, 419;

Index

495

children of (Carolyn, David), 416; divorce, 424 Ellis, Betty Cawkill, second wife of John Edward, Jr, 49, 56, 60-1, 73, 92nii9, 94, 358, 362, 365, 375, 377, 380, 383, 388-90, 396-9, 401-4, 410, 416-17, 421, 426-7, 430-2, 435-6, 438; marriage of, and birth of Judith, 425; MH diary and, 439; World War 1 1 and, 418 Ellis, Edith, 360, 374, 389, 392, 396-7, 417, 419, 424; character of, 404; marriage of, 385; pacifism of, 385 Ellis, Harold Thornton, 360, 425; Benson, Bert, and, 380—1, 384; biography of, 362—3; death of, 398^9; and MH, courtship of, 362-5, 3702; and MH, divorce of, 389-90, 392, 396-8; MH, his opinion of, 396-7; and MH, marriage to, 372-4; and MH, married life with, 377-8, 386-9; second marriage, to Jolan Grave, 398; World War I and, 385 Ellis, John Edward, Jr, 380; birth of, 376; childhood and education of, 380, 391-2, 397-9, 403; first marriage of, to Alice Hamlin, 416, at Scalby, 416—17, divorce of, 424; MH and, 404, 425, 427, 435; second marriage of, to Betty Cawkill, 425; third marriage of, to Norma Brogden, 427 Ellis, Rt Hon John Edward, Sr, 360,

Ellis, Margaret Shipley. See Russell Ellis, Marian. See Cripps Ellis, Maria Rowntree, 359—60, 374, 376-7, 380, 392; death of, 417, 41711136 Ellis, Mina Benson Hubbard. See Hubbard Ellis, Muriel Jane (Mahlo). ^Holly-

362, 364-5; death of, will of, 375-6; on MH wedding, 372—3; women's

MH, 34, 144—5; shoots caribou, 177; signs declaration in MH diary, 348;

suffrage and, 384 Ellis, Jolan Grave, 388-90, 396-8; Bobbie, daughter, 388—9; marriage to Harold Ellis, 398 Ellis, Judith. See Stevens

wood Ellis, Norma Brogden, third wife of John Edward, Jr, 427; children (Virginia, Christopher, Andrew), 427. See also Armstrong Ellis family, 359-60 Ellworthy, Mrs, Point Amour, 330 Elson, Ellen Miller, 402, 423 Elson, George, 10; biography of, 12—13, 76, 400-3, 409-10, 413, 415-16; Chapies, Job, and, 131; character of, 152, 295, 365; childhood diaries and writing ambitions of, 174—5; diary of, 1905, 49, 429, 440; LH, and, 31, 76-8, 81-6, 209, 232; MH, continuing relationship with, 400-3, 410, 415-16; photograph of MH by, 27 — MH expedition, and, 15, 27—34, 37; concern for MH'S safety, 134-5, 147, 157, 181, 193—7, 218; disagreements with MH, 30-1, 184, 209, 248-9, 275; in Halifax, 100-1; Innu and, 19-23, 241, 245, 253, 257; named "Great Heart," 304; praise of

teaches MH canoeing, 293; teaches MH Cree, 222; teasing relationship with MH, 155-7, 181-2, 228 - memorial plaque to, 408-9; "Narrative by George Elson: Last

496

Index

Days Together," 12, 16, 93-5, 309, 368; DW and, 86-7, 93-4, 100 Elson, Lake, 23511217 Englishwoman's Review, 95 Erlandson, Erland, 4, 6, 322 Eskimo. See Inuit Esquimaux Point, 333 Explorers Club, 35, 355; MH photos at, 3441M78 Falcoz, Riviere, 259^66 Ford, Elizabeth, later Blackwell, a.k.a. Anauta, 319—20 Ford, George, Nachvak, 288—9, 318-19; Mrs George, 320 Ford, John, George River Post, 10, 32, 34, 271-3, 275-7, 279-84, 286, 288, 291, 294, 296-302, 304-5, 307-8, 312, 314 Ford, Mrs John, 32-3, 272, 274-7, 279-81, 284, 286-7, 289, 2.91-3, 296, 297, 298-302, 304, 306-7, 310-12, 314-15 Ford, Sam, 277 Ford, Solomon, 319 Ford, William R., George River Post, 276-7, 281, 283-4, 287-9, 292, 294, 296-7, 300-3, 305-6, 314-15, 319 Ford Island, 27on288 Forsythe, Grace, 61 Forteau Bay, 329-31 Fournier, Prudent, 116, 118-19, 12i> 123, 145, 189-90 fox, 163, 326 Fraser, James, Rigolet, 16, 113, 115, 119, 324; Mrs James, 113, 325-6 Fraser, Stuart, 114 Freeman, Charles E., 113 Fremont Lake, 2o8ni7i French-Sheldon, May, 29 Frye, Northrop, 35

Gasnault, Riviere, 263^73 General Memorial Hospital, New York, 63 Geological Survey of Canada, 6, 369 George River, 45, 208-10, 223, 231, 235, 240, 248, 258, 268; canoeing on, 43—4; exploration of, 4—8; seals in, 346; stone walls of, 264. See also caribou George River Post, 10, 17, 32-4, 39, 249, 269-70, 322, 347-8; MH at, 32-3, 271-314; DW and Easton at, 309-15 George's Island, 113 Georgian Bay, 378, 393, 397, 422 Gertrude Falls, 42, i93ni5O, 2O3ni59, 369

Gilbert, Sandra M., 29 Gillis, Frank, 90 Gillis, John A., 15, 90, 97-9, 107, 109, 114, 116-18 Gillisport, 90, 97, 107, 109, 114, 118 Gilman, William H., 440 Girl's Own, 299 Glazier, Willard, 77 Glickman, Susan, 35 Glourourim School, 61 Godbout, 338 Godwin, Gail, 40 Goldie, Terry, 22—3 Gonne, Maud, 391 Gore's Landing, 56-7 Goudie, Allen, 84, 86, 92, 117 Goudie, Arch, 14 Grace, Sherrill, 39, 50 Grand Falls, 335 Grand Lake, Labrador, 14, 33, 40, 80, 83, 107, 123, 163, 166-7, 269; map of, by Gilbert Blake, 295 Grand (Churchill) River, 5-6, 30, 210-11, 249

Index

Grand River Pulp and Lumber Company, 15, 90, 96—7 Grave, Jolan. See Ellis Gray Strait, 317 Green, Alice Sophia Amelia Stopford, 361-5, 374, 384 Grenfell, Dr Wilfred Thomason, 88, 318, 357 Grundy, George, 89, 97ni35 Gubar, Susan, 29 Guelph, Ontario, 407-8, 410 Guelph Daily Mercury, 407—8, 410, 415 gulls, 163, 217, 223 Guy, Mr and Mrs, Davis Inlet, 321—2 Hades Hills, 261^67 Halifax, 15, 77, 87, 90, 98-104 Halifax Evening Mail, 100 Halifax Herald, 99, 101 Hamilton Island, Labrador, 112 Hamilton Township, Ontario, 53, 56, 59, 434 Hamlin, Alice. See Ellis Hampstead Women's Suffrage Federation, 384 Hannah Bay, 13, 402; massacre at, 20, 322, 329 Harlaw, 15, 103, iO7ni Harvey, Point, 317 Haslam, Greville, 405-6, 413-14 Haverstraw, Mount Repose Cemetery, 87, 404-5, 407-9, 412-13 Helen Falls, 43, 269^86 Henderson, Donald, 4 Henderson, Florence, 62 Heydt, Herman, 405, 413 Hickman, Captain R., 109, 112, 344 Holliday, James or John, 327, 329—31, 332-4, 338-40; Holliday Brothers, 340

497

Hollywood, John, 424-5, 427, 435 Hollywood, Mahlo (Muriel Jane) Ellis, 54, 60, 73, 96, 362, 365, 370-1, 375-7, 384-93> 397-9, 4Oi, 403, 4". 416-18, 421, 426-7; birth of, 375; Edinburgh University, 416; father and, 389; MH and, 404, 425, 427; MH'S death and, 433—5; marriage, 424-5, 427 Holy War, The (Bunyan), 299, 304 Hope, Lake, 81 Horse Chops Island, 112 Howland, Rev. Edward O., 87 Hoyle, Gwyneth, 15 Hubbard, Ellen van der Voort, 66; Woman's Way, dedication to, 365; "Mother Hubbard," 329 Hubbard, Leonidas Jr (Laddie), 16—17, 27, 3i, 38-9, 359, 370-1, 374, 386-8, 395—6; biography of, 66—84, 91; death, recovery of body, and burial of, 16, 84-8, 422 - diary of, 49, 91, 309, 368, 426-9, 439-40; MH, edited by, 363; DW and, 89 — and Elson, 83—4, 403; estate of, 102; grave of, 88, 404—9, 412—13 — and MH diary: character of, 152, 156, 237; grief for, 143, 158-9, 161, 172, 178, 186, 201, 204-5, 2O9> 232-3, 265, 267-8, 282, 296, 299, 307, 310-11, 319, 322-3, 325, 329-30, 343; references to in, 145, 191 - Labrador expedition of, 6-9, 12, 33-4, 75-84, 209, 436-7; and DW, 71—2; "memorial" book for, 88—9, 91-3; memorial plaque on grave at Haverstraw, 408—10; memorial tablet, University of Michigan, 409-10, 412-13; portrait of, 368, 388

498

Index

Hubbard, Leonidas Sr, 66, 365 Hubbard, Mina Benson, later Ellis: articles by, 95, 355n8, 359, 363 - biography of: birth, Bewdley, Ontario, 51; family background, 52—6; schooling, 56—61; as schoolteacher, 61—2; as nurse, 62—6; and Leonidas Hubbard: as patient, engagement and marriage to, 66, 68, 68n45, 69-70, in Wurstboro and Congers, N.Y., 70, 73-5, accompanies LH to Battle Harbour, 76-9, returns to Ontario, 79, LH'S death and, 85—8, commissions DW to write LH memorial book, 9, 89—90; in Williamstown, Mass., 89-91; attends Williamstown High School, 91; reactions to DW'S Lure of the Labrador Wild, 9, 91-4, 96, 98—9; plans own book on LH, with help of George Elson, 93—45, 98—9; expedition to Labrador, 1905: see below, return to Williamstown, 354-7; to England, 357; and Ellis family, 359—61; London, 361—2; and Harold Ellis: courtship, 362-5, 370—2; second marriage, to Harold Ellis, 372—5; children, births of: Muriel Jane ("Mahlo": see Hollywood), John Edward Jr, and Margaret Shipley (see Russell), 375-6, 380; Wrea Head, married life at, 376-7; 66 Redington Road, Hampstead, 379—83; supports women's suffrage, 383-4, 391; World War I, pacifist views, 385-6, 391; breakdown of marriage, 386—90; single parent, 391—4; political views, 392—3; anthroposophy, 394—6; divorce, 396-8; George Elson, continuing relationship with, 400—3, 4OoniO9,

410, 415—16; her children, relationships with, 403-4, 416-17, 424-7, 426—7; controversy over LH'S grave, 404-10, 412-14; memorial plaque to LH, 408—10; memorial tablet to LH at University of Michigan, 409—10, 412-13; World War II, 416-21; moves to Canada, 420; and Jacques Rousseau, 422—3, 425—8; returns to England, 424; death, inquest, and funeral, 432—5; will, 435; summary of life, 435-6 - and Canada: assists Nelsova Canadian Trio, 398; memorial plaque to, Bewdley, 436—8; patriotic feelings for Canada, 399; proposes Canadian Cultural Centre in London, 410-11, 414-15; visits to, 380-2, 393, 397-8, 399-400, 407-8, 410, 411—13, 421—4 - character of, 32-3, 50, 353-4, 377, 388, 391-2, 398, 404, 417-18, 420-2, 426, 430, 432, 435—6; as "ecofeminist," 38; freedom from racial prejudice of, 55; as "New Woman," 26—7 - diary of, u, 15-17, 26, 39-40, 439—40; as "grief diary," 39—40: see also Hubbard, Leonidas Jr; MH'S instructions as to, 439; microfilming of, 426, 428-9, 439 - expedition to Labrador, 1905, 9-12; plans for, 94—100; press speculation on rivalry with DW, 101—3; in Halifax, 100—4; outfit of, 103-4; crew of, 10, 12-15, 100-1, 151-2; on Harlaw, Halifax to Kenemich (Gillisport), 107-18; Gillisport to North West River, 118—19; at Revillon Freres post, North West River, 119-21; North West River to Grand lake, 121-6;

Index

on Naskaupi River, 126—231; capsize of canoe on Naskaupi, 139; "scaring the guides," 29—30, 193—200; dread of seeing Michikamau, 207—8; Lake Michikamau, 213— 19; sees caribou herd migration, 224—43; to head of Naskaupi and height of land, 231; on George River, 231—71; at Innu (Montagnais) camp, on Resolution Lake, 245—8; at Innu (Naskapi) camp, Indian House Lake, 252—7; at George River Post, 271-313; visits Inuit camp, 281; learns to kayak, 299-300; asks men to write declaration in diary, 287, 347—8; arrival of DW and Easton, 309; on Pelican from George River Post to Rigolet, 315-23: visits Nachvak, 318-20, Davis Inlet, 320-2, Rigolet, 323-6; on King Edward, Rigolet to Quebec City, 327—39: visits Chateau Bay, 327-9, Forteau Bay, 329-31, Point Amour lighthouse and Marconi station, 330—1, and on North Shore of St Lawrence, visits Natashquan, 331, Mingan, 334—6, Seven Islands, 337—8; arrives Quebec City, 339; scientific results of expedition, 44-6, 440 - and Hubbard family, 406-7, 410, 412-13 - lectures of, 342-3, 354-6, 362-3, 364; to Royal Geographical Society, 365, 38in63, 406-8, 410-12; reception of, 356, 408; brochure for, 410-11 - letters of: to Bert Benson, 377-82; to Harold Ellis, 363-4, 370-2; to Jane Wood Benson, 379, 390; to Prof. Jacques Rousseau, 422—3, 426, 427-8; to John Gillis, 97-100; to

499

Marion McCall Daly, 430-1; to Rachel Benson McCall, 49, 65—6; to Vincent Massey, 414-15; to Wilfred Grenfell, 35^; to William Brooks Cabot, 98-9 - map of, 30, 44-5, 193, 208, 268, 294, 369-70; of George River, 262 — photographs by, 343—4, 344H478, 359, 368, 368nn36; big rock, 195; caribou, 243; caribou country, 226—7; m diary, references to fur stage, seals in rapids, 129; George River, 263; George River Post yacht, 287; "good pictures," Naskaupi River, 184; head of Nascaupi, 213; height of land, 231; Helen Falls, 269; Innu at Indian House Lake, 255, 257; Innu cache, 236^19; Innu women, 248; Labrador bog, 189; from Lookout Mountain, I94ni53; Maid Marion Falls, 203; Marie Lake(?), 205; the Narrows, George River, 281-2, 282^16; Nachvak, Pelican, 319—20; negatives, prints and slides, 344; rapids, 206; record left on tree, Lake Michikamau, 215; Wapustan River, 159 — unpublished essay of, 420—1 — and DW, rivalry with, 15—18, 93—5, 97-103, 269, 287, 354, 356-9, 363, 369 — A Woman's Way through Unknown Labrador, 15, 21-3, 365-9; Bridgman, H.L., praise for, 371; Ellis, Harold, and, 363; Murray, John, publisher of, 357-8; reviews of, 369-70, 374 Hubbard, Mount, 213 Hubbard Jollifes, 73 Hubbard Lake, 43, 23in2io, 235^17, 422-3

500

Index

huckleberries, 179—80 Hudson's Bay Company, 3-6, 12, 19-20, 24, 33, 45, 129, 143, 336 Hurd, Ralph, 14 Illustrated London News, 359 Indian Harbour, 14, 331 Indian House Lake, 18, 22, 43, 252, 257-8, 264 Indian House Lake Post [Fort Trial] , 3". Indians. See Cree, Innu Innu (Montagnais/Naskapi), 3—8, 14, 18-26, 45, 116-17, 32.0-1; Nascaupee (Naskapi) Indians, 240-1, 252, 320-1; of North West River, 236; Seven Islands Indian, 213 — artifacts and possessions of, 236, 248; cache of, 236 - camps of, 163, 172, 204, 217, 219-20; on George River, 244; at Indian House Lake, 252—7; at Michikamau, 216; at Montagnais Point, 245n236, 245-8; at North West River, 120; at Seal Lake, 163 - clothing of, 245-8, 252, 255-7; conjurer, 241; deadfall trap of, 212; graves of, 225, 240; Inuit and, 322; maps by, 20, 116, 119, 167, 178, 180, 182, 186, 208; ritual hangings of, 231, 235, 236n224; stage of, 216, 233, 235-6; sweat house of, 216, 349; trails and portages of, 3—6, 41—2, 127, 180, 209, 233, 252-3; watch fire of, 241; wigwams of, 153, 180, 207, 216, 225-6, 235-6, 239-40, 245-8, 252, 255, 257, 264 Innu-aimun, 19; phrases, 348-9 Inuit, Ungava, 270-2, 276, 280-6, 288-90, 292, 294, 296, 300, 302, 305

— artifacts of: "adleak" (mat), 291—2; bird spear, 288; boots, 283, 286, 305, 347; lamp and pot, 283; seal spear, 294; skin boat (umiak), 305; skin tents, 347; trout spear, 302 — George River band: igloo, 289-90; MH and, 25-6, 281, 291-3; pilots, 314, 320-1; in salmon fishery, 276, 281-3, 286; shovalik, 294, 300; starvation of, 279, 281; wars with Indians, 322; weasel skin remedy, 300 See also kayaks Inuktitut, 293, 439 Isabella Falls, 42, i93ni5O, 2O4ni6o Iserhoff, Joseph C. (Joe), 10, 101, 109—12, 115—16, 131-2, 139—40, 162, 173, 184, 207, 215, 248; biography of, 12—13; canoeist, skill as, 141, 218, 263; character of, 152; MH diary, signs declaration in, 348; MH'S sketch of, objects to, 32, 285 James Bay, 218 Jameson, Anna, 37 Johnston, Mr, Marconi operator, 330 Joncas, Richard, 331-2 Julia Sheridan, 114 KakuShepies (Kaknashipish: Porcupine Brook), 147 Kangiqsualujjuaq (Port Nouveau Quebec), 44 Kaniapiskau River, 4-7 kayaks, 277, 299, 300; danger of, 301; making of, 296; skins for, 347 Kean, Captain Abram, 87 Kenemich (Kenemish), 90, 109, 118 Kennedy, William, 4 King, S.A., 12

Index

King Edward, 34, 326-7 Kingsley, Mary, 360 Kipling, Rudyard, 81, 393 Klein, Clayton, 403 Kline, Marcia B., 35 Koksoak, 322 Krafft, Elizabeth, 90-1, 94, 265, 324, 371, 37in47. See Elizabeth, Mount Labrador, 98-9, 326, 328, 408, 436-7; exploration of, 3—9; history of, 77, 771171; LH and, 71-2, 75; perceptions of, 25, 35-9, 367-8 Labrador-Ungava Peninsula, 3-9 Lacasse, Lac, 6, 245^34 Lacasse, Pere Zacharie, 6, 277, 320 Laddie. See Hubbard, Leonidas LaFramboise, Lisa, 39 Lamb, W. Kaye, 428-9 Lander, Mary Lean, 54-5, 58, 61-2 Lane, Mr and Mrs Julius, Cape Chidley, 345 L'Anse au Loup, 329 Leed, Eric J., 27 Le Fevre, M., 337-8 Leopold, Aldo, 46 LeRoy, James A., 69, 86 Lillie. See Blake, Lillie Lion Heart Mountains, 161 Little Trinity River, 339 Little Whale River, 279 Long Lake (Lac Lacasse), 245^34 Long Lake (Romaine River?), 326 Lookout Mountain, I92ni49, 194ni53, 206, 209 Loonhead Hill, I7ini2i Lost Trail Lake, 81 Louttit, Canon R.E., 402 Lovegrove, Captain George F., 17, 318, 326

501

Low, Albert Peter, 6-8, 72, 206, 278; Low's map, 8, 44-5, 80, 166, 216, 219 Low, Mrs Seth, 63-4 Lucie, Point, 129, 141. See also Sawyer, Lucy Mabelle Island, 134, 136 McCall, Rev. George, 354n6, 374; Dorothy (daughter, see Burroughs); Marion (daughter, see Daly); Rachel Benson (wife, MH'S sister), 54, 62, 65-6, 69, 85, 354n6, 411, 421 McClintock, Anne, 28 McConnell, Captain James, 112—13, 345 McGillis, Donna, 54 McGrath, P.T., 102 McGregor, Gaile, 35 Mackenzie, Peter, 17-18, 2ioni77, 311-12, 314, 317-27, 332-7, 339-40, 345 Mackenzie, Thomas, 85-6 Mackenzie Lake, 2ioni77 McLaughlin, Alonzo G., 87, 97, 102 McLean, Duncan, 10, 15, 18, 84, 86, 116, 117; tilt of, 153 McLean, John, 4, 20, 69, 184, 278, 322 MacPherson, Dr Cluny, 87 magpie, 336 Maid Marion Falls, 42, 2O3ni57 Malone, William, 13-14 Manley, Gertrude Benson, 55 Marconi, Guglielmo, 377; Marconi stations, 112, 330 Marie Lake, 42, 2O5ni62. See Underbill Massey, Alice, 414 Massey, Vincent, 414—15 Matonabbee, 28

502

Index

Matteson, Joanne Burroughs, 52n5, 372n50 Mauro, R.G., 92 Mealy Mountains, 112—13 Melville, Lake, 46, 114, 116 Mente, Charles, and wife, 73, 371 Merrick, Elliott, 84, 429—30 mice, I3in6i, 136, 180, 189, 241 Michigan, 66—7 Michigan, University of, Ann Arbor, 26, 67, 409 Michigan Alumnus, 85, 406 Michikamats, Lake, 45, 219, 223, 229, 233, 239-40 Michikamau, Lake ("Mich."), 10, 20, 42-3, 45, 72, 82, 117, 146, 166-7, 184, 186, 200, 206-11, 222, 224, 239, 312, 422; exploration of, 4-7; MH on, 213-19 Midland, Ontario, 378, 381, 422 Miller, Ellen. See Elson, Ellen Miller Mingan, 325, 334-6 Missanabie, 12-13, 76, 83, 96, 98-9, 101, 174, 321, 402 Mississauga Indians, 51 Montagnais ("Mountaineers"), 18. See also Innu, Innu-aimun „ Montagnais/Naskapi. See Innu, Naskapi Montagnais Point, 245^36 Montessori Method, 382, 392 Moodie, Susanna, 54 Moose Factory, 120-1, 322, 338 Moose River, 415 Moosonee, 13, 402, 403, 413, 415, 423 Morgan, Susan, 31 moss berries, 263—4, 275, 287, 290 Mountain Cat Lake, I35n67 Murray, John, 357-8 muskrat, 163, 166, 172, 239

Nachvak, 288-9, 292> 3°8> 317 namaycush, 206, 215, 217, 308 Nascaupee Indian. See Naskapi, Innu Nascaupee Point, 253^52 Nascopie, Fort, 5 Naskapi: derivation of, 19. See also Innu Naskaupi [Nascaupee] River, 3—6, 9, 14, 37, 72, 90, 107, 109, 126, 131, 146, 162-3, 166, 206, 210, 218, 232, 244, 291, 369, 408, 422, 438; canoeing on, 40—3; damming of, 42—3, 2O7ni67; danger of, 30, 248—9; head waters of, 40, 208—9, 2I1' 2I3> 230—1; MH on, 126—231 Natashquan, 325, 331 National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, 386 Nelsova, Zara, Anna, and Ida, 398 Newfoundland, 77, 97, 99 New Woman, the, 26-7 New York, 62-6, 68, 70-1, 76, 96, 98, in New York American, 340 New York Daily News, 68, 76 New York Evening Telegram, 101 New York Sun, 341 New York Times, 86, 404, 413 New York Tribune, 101—2 New York World, 18, 94, 97-8, 102-3, 328, 340 Nightingale, Florence, 63 Nipishish Lake, 18, 41 North, Marianne, 31 North Adams, Mass., 70, 89-91 North Adams Evening Transcript, 355-6, 401 Northpole Rapid, 148 Northumberland County, 53, 436

Index North West River, 3-6, 16, 19-20, 34, 86-7, 98, 101, 116, 118, 158, 244, 277-8, 323, 326, 367; settlers and trappers of, 13—14, 41 North West River Post, 72, 77, 81, 347-8 Oblate Fathers (Oblates of Mary Immaculate), 6, 320 O'Keefe, D.J., 86 Old Town Canoe Company, Maine, 103 Oliver, John, 320-2 Ontario, Lake, 51, 53-4, 58-9 Ontario Education Act, 1871, 591 Orma, Lake, 40, 42, 2O5ni63, 2O7ni68, 369 O'Sullivan, Mr (Henry?), 34, 324, 326-30, 337-8; teaches MH charting, 331; tells "unclean yarns," 34, 33^-3 Otonabee River, 51 otter landing, 155, 207 Outing, 27, 87, 92, 96, 98; LH and, 69-70, 72-3; MH, attack on, in, 102; DW and, 18, 34, 92, 96, 98 Page, Gideon, 52 Pankhurst, Christabel, 385; Emmeline, 384-5; Sylvia, 391 Parmoor. See Cripps Pas, Riviere de, 43, 240^30 Peary, Robert Edwin, 69, 78, 97, 323 Peary Arctic Club. See Arctic Club Peck, Annie $.,27 Peck, Rev. Edmund James, 278 Pelican, 17, 149, 166, 186, 210, 249, 257, 269, 272, 276, 286, 288, 319; at George River Post, 311; wreck of, 312 Penticost, 338 Petitsikapau Lake, 4—5

503

Pilgrim's Progress (Bunyan), 280, 290, 296 Pittsfield, Mass., 342 Plainville Bible Christian Church, 56 Plainville cemetery, Bewdley, 422 Plymouth Brethren, 56, 60 Point Amour, 329-30 porcupine, 84, 126-7, ty* H7> 2^4 Port Burwell, 292 Port Nouveau Quebec (Kangiqsualujjuaq), 44 Pratt, Alexandra, 151^2 Proctor-Smith, Marjorie, 38 Puffin Island (lie aux Perroquets), 336 Pyramid Mountains, 45, 263^72 Quakers, 56, 362, 370, 389, 392, 396 Quebec (province), 232 Quebec, The, 339 Quebec City, 52, 323-4, 339, 401 Quebec-Labrador Peninsula, 72, 78 Quebec Telegraph, 340 Raab, Clare, 385, 392-5, 397, 435; Betty (daughter), 385; Reginald (husband), 385; Rex (son), 385, 395n93 rabbits, 127, 136, 138, 141, 149, 209 Rainbow Hill, 190^145 Randall, Jessie Wallace. See Wallace, Jessie Razorback, Mount, 317 Red Bay, 329 Red Rock Hill, 13, 172ni22 Red Wine River, 40-1, 127 Resolution Lake, 22, 24511235 Revell, Fleming S., 102 Revillon Freres, 13-14, 402 Rice Lake, 51, 54, 56, 60; Rice Lake Canoe, 56-7, 73 Rice Lake Plains, 51-3

504

Index

Rich [Richards], Edward, 32211410 Rich, Jo, 24 Richards, George M., 9-10, 17-18, 99, 119-20; map of, 44 Riffenburgh, Beau, 27 Rigolet, 16, 20, 75, 77, 109, 113-14, 311-12, 323-7 Ritchie, Annie Benson, 54, 62, 85, 393 Roberts, Rev. James, 354n6; Mary Benson (wife, MH'S sister), 54, 62, 85, 87, 354n6 Romaine River, 335 Ross, Dr and Mrs George Munro, 337-8 Rossetti, Christina (by B.F. Westcott), 304 Round Head, no Round Top, 179 Rousseau, Jacques, 17, 422—3, 426—9, 436, 440 Rowntree, Joshua, 362, 372, 374 Roy, Wendy, 21, 39 Royal Geographical Society, 34, 364-5, 364n27, 398 Rugge, John, 103, 400 Rupert House, 12—13, 120, 174—5 Russell, Benson, 358ni5 Russell, John, 417, 426, 432, 435 Russell, Margaret Shipley Ellis, 381, 388, 390-1, 392-3, 397-9, 403-4, 419, 424, 426-7, 431-4; children of, Benson, 432, Hugh, 426, Ian, 426, Michael, 426, Nicola, 426, Shinaine 426—7; graduate Newcastle University, teacher, 416; marriage of, 417 Ryerson, Adolphus Egerton, 58

Sackville's School, 57 Saddle Island, Hamilton Inlet, 113 Saddle Rock, in Saguenay River, 339 St John's, NL, 77, 87, 102, 312 St John's Island, 114 St John's River, 334, 336 St Lawrence River, 3; North Shore of, 331-9 salmon fishery, 274, 280—3, 2^6, 321 Sandwich Bay, 112 Saturday Evening Post, 68 Sawyer, Rev. James Emery Cochran, 18, 91, 97-8, 175, 190, 241, 265, 321, 329, 337, 342-3, 357, 401; Elson, George, and, 401; LH, article on, 97, 321; MH, diary, and, 439; MH, lectures of, and, 342-3; MH, Woman's Way, 365 Sawyer, Lucy Sargent, 91, 265. See also Lucie, Point Sawyer, Mount, 129, 136 saxifrage, purple, 294^51 Scalby, Yorkshire, 360, 362, 416-17, 425 Schreiner, Olive, 393-4 Scriven, Joseph, 60— i sealing, 285, 328 Seal Island(s), 112, 144 Seal Lake, 10, 14—15, 40-1, 140, 146, 150-1, 155, 157-8, 160-3, 166-7, J69> 172, 175, 190, 193, 209, 222, 269 seal oil, processing of, 285 Seal Rapids, 41, 175ni27 seals: at Mingan, 334; harbour, Phocula vitulina, 129, 136, 163, 168, young ranger, 300-1, old S.R. Smith Infirmary, Staten Island, ranger, "doter," 346; harp, Phoca 66,68 groenlandica, 346, young harp, Sackville, James, Sr, 55; James, Jr, 60— i "bedlamer," 346; hood, Cystophora Sackville's Creek. See Cold Creek cristata, 346; jar, ringed seal, Phoca

Index

hispida, 300-1, "travellers," 325-6, 346; ranger, freshwater, P.v mellonae, 346; square flipper, Erignathus barbatus, 301, 302, 346-7, first year, "lazie" (lassie), 346 Seven Islands (Sept-lies), 19, 25, 337-8; Basques in, 339; Seven Islands Indian, 213 sextant, 44, 109, 134, 139, 143, 145, 270, 285, 371 Shag Rocks, 113 Shaw, Bernard, 393 Shawangunk Mountains, 69, 70, 71-2 Sherwood Colliery Company, Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, 380—1 Sheshatshit, 24 Silver Pine Lodge, 126 Silvia, SS, 76 Silvis, Randall, iO4ni6o Skinner, Alanson, 13 Slanting Lake, 259^65 Smallwood Reservoir, 40, 43, 2O7ni67 Smith, Donald Alexander, Lord Strathcona, 335 Speck, Frank G., 21 Stanton, Leigh, 9-11, 15, 18, 99, H5n28, 222; diary of, n Steiner, Rudolf, 394-6, 421, 430, 435 Stevens, Judith Ellis, 425-7, 435 Stevens, Peter, 9-10, 18, 99, H7n29 Strait of Belle Isle, 85; survey of, 329, 331 Strong, Pauline, 21—2 Superior, Lake, 74 Susan River (Brook), 9, 80-1, 86 Swampy Bay River, 4-5 Syddall, Joseph, 365, 368, 424 Tagore, Rabindranath, 393 Tasker, Florence, 13, 402 Tasker, Stephen, 402

505

Tasker expedition, 13, 402 theosophy, 394-6 Thousand Island expansion, 251 Thymer, Mrs, 432, 434 Toronto, 372-4, 399, 411, 416, 421, 424 Toronto Daily Star, 412 Toronto General Hospital, 62 Toronto Globe and Mail, 412 Traill, Catharine Parr, 54 Trent River, 51 trout, 162, 217, 291, 370; sea trout, 282, 307 Turner, J.M.W., 37 Twin Bluffs, i8oni33 twin flower (Linnaea borealis), i84ni39 Tyrwhitt, Janice, 358ni5 Underhill, Harriet Benson (Hatt.), 54, 62, in; James (husband), 2O5ni62; Marie (daughter), 2O5ni62. See Marie Lake Ungava Bay, 3-9, 25, 149, 184, 211, 231, 244, 248, 264, 306, 326, 371, 422, 428; seals in, 346; tides of, 44, 276 Urquhart, Jane, 54 Van Dyke, Henry, 205 Venison Tickle, 112 Victoria, B.C., 412, 424; Angela Hotel, 424 Viking, 90, 113 violets, blue, 129, 152-3, 157; white, 157 Virginia Hospital, Richmond, Virginia, 69 Virginia Lake, 78-9, 112-14, 323 Wacheskneepee Lake. See Wuchusk Nipi Wakwanapsk ("rock tripe"), 147 Wallace, Annie, 16-17, 26, 70, 86, 89, 99, 100, 407

506

Index

Wallace, Dillon: biography of, 70—1; death of, 41411130; diary of, 1903-4, 16; diary of, 1905, n, 440; Elson, George, and, 86, 93—4, 96; Innu and, 20, 24-5; LH and, 70-2, 75; LH family and, 406—7; "miserable dog," 99 - LH, 1903 Labrador expedition, and, 14, 38-9, 75-87, 117; LH, critical of, 86-7; LH'S death, blamed for, 102, 359; LH, memorial book, contract with MH to write, 88—9 - MH, diary of, references to in, IO9, II2-6, 126, 148, 222,

287,

290,

325, 335; on Harlaw, 15; gets her Innu map, 119; leaves North West River, 121; rivalry with DW, 269; at George River Post, 309—15 — Labrador expedition, 1905, 9-11, 20, 27, 34-5, 37, 41-2; plans for, 90; at Halifax, 99— 100, press coverage of, 99-102 — Labrador expedition, 1913, 14, 4iini23; racial prejudice of, 25 — "The Long Labrador Trail," serial, 356, Innu map in, 20; The Long Labrador Trail, n, 15, 45, 357, 363, 369—70, map in, 44, 370; The Lure of the Labrador Wild, 9, 16, 96, 365, 405; MH, reaction to, 91-3, 96, 359-60, 405 Wallace, Jessie (DW'S sister, later Randall), 16, 26, 70, 89 Wallace, Jessie Currie (DW'S first wife), 71 Wallace, Leila Greenwood Hinman (DW'S second wife), 412, 4i4ni3O; Dillon III (son), 4i4ni3O; Leila Ann (daughter), 4i4ni3O Wapustan River, 41, 156-7, 159, 182 Watson, Mrs Alex, 319, 345

Watson, Mrs E.G., 428-9, 440 Watson, J. Wreford, 35 Watteridge (MH'S gardener), 417 weasel, 210, 241 Wells, H.G., 393; Marriage, 393n87 Weyman, Stanley, 290 whale, whaling, 337—8; sinew of, 347 Whale River, 4, 278, 306, 315, 322; Whale River Post, 305 whiskey jack (Labrador jay), 189 Whitney, Caspar, 18, 34, 69, 72—3, 75, 85, 87, 92, 96, 102 Wilkinson, Ellen, 384 Williams, Daisy Hubbard, 406-7, 412-13 Williamstown, Mass., 36, 70, 89—91, 93-4, 96-7, 115, 172, 265, 327, 341-4, 368, 371, 401 Williamstown High School, 91 Williamstown Opera House, 355, 401 Wilson, J.A., Mingan, 335; Mrs J.A., 335 Wilson, Miss, 334-5 Windbound Lake, 81, 209 Wingham, Ontario, 79, 372 wolf, 219, 257, 264 Woman's Dreadnought, 391 women's suffrage, 383—6, 388, 391, 395 Wonnacott, Esme, 417—18 Wood, Jane. See Benson family Wood, Wendy, 418 Woolf, Virginia, 33, 39 World Magazine. See New York World Wrea Head, Scalby, N. Yorkshire, 360, 362, 370-1, 375-6, 380, 416-17, 419, 424-5 Wuchusk Nipi (Wacheskneepee, Muskrat Lake), 14, 41, 169 Wurstboro, N.Y., 70, 73, 274 Wyatt, Thomas, 330-1; Mrs Thomas, 330