Anthony Henday came to Alberta in 1754/55. But his exact route cannot be defined in certain fashion. This trip, and later ones, took Henday across much of the southern prairies in what is now Saskatchewan and Alberta.
It could be that Henday saw the Rockies from perhaps Calgary or Airdrie or other places where you can see the Rockies, such as from Wood Hill and from many places in today's Rocky View county near Airdrie.
but Henday never used that term. His reference to Arsinie Watchie ("shining hills") may be reference to them but that is inconclusive - it seems he used the term to refer to hills when he was nowhere close to where he might have seen the Rockies.
But Alberta historian James MacGregor was convinced that Henday had seen the Rockies. so anything is possible.
he would not be the first to see the Rockies but only the first to see them north of Colorado in any event.
Henday is said to have been the first European to enter today's Alberta. But even tht might not be true. A French post in the 1750s may have been located in Alberta at about Rocky Mountain House or possibly Calgary or Edmonton or another place - no way to know which, at this late date. (see Montopedia blog "De Niverville" for more info)
(Should Edmonton have a De Niverville freeway instead of the Henday, by any chance?)
There is great uncertainty of Henday's route -- his original journal of his trip and any notes in his own hand cannot be found. His journal was copied in four different and contradictory versions. (Stephen. A Puzzle Revisited) His trip as presented in the journals cannot always be put in a modern context, due to there being no landmarks he identified that are still extant today. The prairies did not have any distinct features. No large waterfalls, pyramids, standing permanent structures such as explorers recorded in other parts of the world.
We know Henday visited one or two French trading posts along the Saskatchewan River, but even they, being built out of wood, would have vanished from human detection within 50 or so years.
A conjecture of Henday's route in detail was formulated and presented to the public by L.J. Burpee in 1907, under the name "York Factory to the Blackfeet Country." http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/35/4.html?qid=peelbib%7Csaskatchewan%7C%28peelnum%3A000035%29%7Cscore
This publication of the Royal Society of Canada actually has his name as Anthony Hendry.
Title York Factory to the Blackfeet country : the journal of Anthony Hendry, 1754-55 / edited by Lawrence J. Burpee and read May 15, 1907.
Other title Journal of Anthony Hendry, 1754-55
Creation Date 1908
Format p. 307-364 : ill., folded map ; 25 cm
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Using the HBC Journals as his source, Burpee had the explorer's name as Hendry. (But I will use the more familiar name Henday in this blog.)
Burpee supposed that Henday passed through Walker Lake (which Henday called Christineaux Lake), not Lake Winnipeg as is sometimes supposed, then up the Minago River to Moose Lake, then to the Saskatchewan River at a point downstream of the French trading post of Fort Basqua (The Pas). Henday's visit to that French post, and his visit the next spring to Fort Basqua's sister fort, Fort Poskoyac (La Corne) on the way out of the bush, are the only two recorded visits by a British explorer or trader to any French fort west of Lake Superior, up to the close of French rule in Canada. <ref>http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/35/4.html?qid=peelbib%7Csaskatchewan%7C%28peelnum%3A000035%29%7Cscore</ref>
Burpee supposed that Henday got as far west as about Airdrie in the autumn of 1754. Turning north, he spent the period from February to April along today's Red Deer River, building canoes. When the ice broke up in the spring, he paddled down the Red Deer to where it meets the South Saskatchewan (just east of about today's Empress, Alberta), and then down the South Saskatchewan River, then down the Saskatchewan River back to York Factory.
It is documented Henday's group passed the French Fort Paskoya "Pasqua"/"Basquia" or "Paskoway Yay," today's The Pas, on July 15, 1754, as recorded in his journal. There he may have met Louis de la Corne, Chevalier de la Corne, the western commander, or, if not, then likely he did meet him the next spring when Henday was on his way back to York Factory. (Belyea, A Year Inland, p. 54)
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When Henday came west, he had no idea of the Rockies existing (unless the French at Pasquoa told him of rumours they had heard), and had no English name for them. Thus no way to know if his Arsinie Watchie ("shining hills"), noted as being seen on
The French were convinced that not far to the west lay the Mer de l’Ouest, believed to be a North American Mediterranean, connected to the Pacific by a strait (perhaps that which had been allegedly discovered on the Pacific coast by Juan de Fuca in 1592), and linked on its other shore with the rivers and lakes along which the French were advancing. The belief distorted all views of western Canada's geography because it could not coexist with a range of mountains running north–south — the Rockies did not appear on maps until late in the 18th century.
To search for this western sea and to find new fur areas was the task of the last great French explorers, the La Vérendrye family. Much of their exploration took place in what is now the US, but toward the end of the father's life he turned back to the north. In 1739 one son, Louis-Joseph, reached the Saskatchewan River. As there was no knowledge of Kelsey’s route, Louis-Joseph is often seen as the first European to encounter the river.
Communications with Aboriginal peoples told him of "very lofty mountains" to the west, but geographers obsessed by inland seas, westward-flowing rivers and a nearby Pacific could not make sense of these assertions. More important was that French posts were being built in a steady westward progression — on or near Rainy Lake, Lake Winnipeg, Cedar Lake and finally, in 1753, Fort St-Louis near the Forks.
(from Canadian Encyclopedia online
[Henday came through French posts on the Saskatchewan when he began his 1754-17545 journey so possibly he heard of these rumoured "lofty mountains."
But his instructions never asked him to look for them but instead actually referred to investigating the rumours of a great inland sea (which could not exist if there was a great mountain range cutting off connections to the coast).
The instructions Henday was given were reprinted in Belyea's book
meet up with Natives in the interior - the Kisckachewon, Missinneepee, Earchethinue Asinepoets - and get them to come to the Bay to trade.
investigate water levels in rivers and asses conditions for boat travel
observe soil, trees, mineral resources
"Observe when you pass the Missinneepee Country and down near to the Earchithinue country whether the great Lake is a lake or not, or whether it is an open sea, as I have been informed by several it is a sea where ships are seen to pass by, Be particular in coming at the truth of this, which is material point."
[not sure what "great lake" is referred to here - or ships either -- perhaps some confusion with one of the Great Lakes, or a great under-estimation of the size of the continent or of the world, or both. A Native may have had little concept of how big European ships were so thought any little canoe was "a ship"]
come back by August 10th [As if! The HBC obviously had no idea how large Western Canada was. Henday did not stop going west until Nov. 9 (three months after he was to be back at the Bay). In early August his daily report says sleet and cold wind, and after that, it seems, he either did not travel or travelled North. He did not come back until late the following spring (June), about ten months late.
see below]
first, to know the situation of the country Indians, "then please God we may better be able to send the following year for to winter and bring foreign Indians down to trade."
[unless I mis-read this, it seems Henday was never ordered to over-winter. or Henday mis-read it, or he realized by the time August came, that he was nowhere close to stopping his westward journey and late was late, so why not just over-winter this year instead of someone doing it later?
The pleasant company of his female Native guide might have encouraged him to stay.]
if you encounter French or wood runners, they may try to waylay you, but if you are friends with Native, they might help protect you, don't molest the French or wood runners unless they are the first transgressors. [paraphrased]
get your guides to show and learn the Earchithinues about canoes.
check out Nelson River and Churchill for trees and location for a post
be wary of French. They may pretend to be friendly.
if you encounter anyone coming to the Bay, send a report. [have them carry a report of your findings]
Converse with the guides to learn their language so you can "exhort and encourage the Natives to trade"
Take all the observations and remarks and mention such in your journal.
[unfortunately Henday's original journal has been lost, and we have just four versions - contradictory and partial only - to go by, as mentioned above.]
August 10th
Henday was to be back at the Bay by Aug 10th but extant versions of his journal make no mention of missing that deadline.
Instead just prior to that date, on July 31 he made his first contact with the "Assinnee Poetuc" (Blackfoot). (Belyea, p. 250) [The Earchethinue (or Archithinue) term includes the three Blackfoot tribes, plus the Sarsi and Gros Ventres. ("The North West trade gun," Alberta History Review, 1956)]
He had come out of the woods and was in what Natives called Pusquatinow, "the edge of the woods", in today's maps that looks like where parkland stops and the true prairie begins. He noted grasslands except in the valleys.
likely that was east of Wainwright/Chauvin,
(perhaps he was as far east as Watson SK, which is east of Saskatoon)
MacGregor figures he was, at the point in time, near today's Watson SK,
and announces "at last he was very near the Muscoty Plains ["mosquito prairies"?]
(it seems short-grass prairies not have many mosquitos, especially dry years and especially late summer and autumn -- and winter of course.)
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Etymology of word "mosquito":
The Spanish called the mosquitoes, "musketas," and the native Hispanic Americans called them "zancudos." "Mosquito" is a Spanish or Portuguese word meaning "little fly" while "zancudos," a Spanish word, means "long-legged." The use of the word "mosquito" is apparently of North American origin and dates back to about 1583....
(Maryland Department of Agriculture website)
so the word was around even by 1754.
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Henday crossed into Alberta around Sept. 11, already more than a month overdue on his return!
Henday did find salt water! Coincidentally about the time he was scheduled to be back at the Bay, he reported finding salty lakes. Likely this was the alkaline lake near Humboldt SK. Obviously this was no Northwest Passage...
from the Canadian Encylopedia online: "Exploration" (continued)
Anthony Henday
Even though the French seemed poised to capture the northwestern fur trade, the Hudson Bay Company was slow to react.
Attempts by the Admiralty, by private groups and, rather unenthusiastically, by the company, to find a strait on the west coast of Hudson Bay to the South Sea — the traditional English concept of the Northwest Passage — had petered out by the late 1740s, but in the following decade the company began to move in different directions.
...probes deep inland from York Factory, of which Anthony Henday's in 1754–55 was the most successful. His method of travelling and his objectives were much the same as Kelsey's. Living with a Cree woman, Henday followed the Cree along their canoe route from York Factory to the lower Saskatchewan River, across its south and north branches, to the great buffalo herds of the plains and the Blackfoot people.
At his farthest west, [possibly] somewhere near modern Innisfail, Alberta, Henday should have been within sight of the Rocky Mountains. It is a puzzle that his journals do not specifically mention the great mountain range;
As with the La Vérendryes' slightly earlier ventures, conclusive evidence of the first European sighting of the Canadian Rockies is missing.
Natives that Henday and and other early explorers encountered
Interestingly, on Oct. 1754 Henday reports coming in contact with the "Keiskatchewans," Natives separate from the Asinepoets (Assiniboines) and the Earchithinues (almost definitely the Blackfoot/Peigan/Blood - they have planty of buffalo and never eat Beaver or Fish, ... know nothing about managing a canoe, ... abide in tents ... as wood is scarce with them, they carry the poles about with them and use the dung of the buffalo for [cooking fires].... they are expert hunters and procure many furs which they exchange at a dear rate with the Keiskatchewans for guns, hatchets and other goods. (Graham's observations as reprinted in Belyea, A Year Inland, p. 270)
The Keiskatchewans must have been what we call River Cree today.
But another Indigenous nation, are also described - the Fall indians were said to live along "the southern branch of the River" (hence the South Saskatchewan or Bow) and said to speak "a harsh, guttural language peculiar to themselves.. surmised by Graham to be "a tibe that has detached itself from some distant nation with which we are not as yet acquainted ... [or] the Susee Indians. (the Sioux, it seems being the partner nation, the Fall Indians being the Gros Ventres, or Atsina)
Belyea's book (p. 348) presents Cocking's interpretation being
Fall Indians = Powestick Athinnewach or Water-Fall Indians,
who are friends with the Yeachithinnee Indians, ["Archithinues" AKA the Blackfoot confederacy AKA "equestrian Indians"*] -
Mithcoo-Athinneewoek or Blood ;
Koskiketew Watheesituck or Blackfoot;
Pironew Athinnewock of muddy Water Indians; and
Sussewuck or wood country Indians [of Cypress Hills or Foothills?] [or some branch of Sioux allied to Blackfoot]
Cocking (circa 1770s) reported that the Asinipoets [Assiniboines] liked to steal horses from the Archithinues but never rode them -
Perhaps they used travois and pack saddles to carry goods, and likely just dragged the ends of their teepee poles when they moved camp.
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