I live in a small town, just to the west of Edmonton.
When I drive into Alberta’s capital, I often take a road that circles the city.
It’s named after a man who died over a century before the city even existed.
And…. it’s quite possible he never even saw this region.
Why does it carry his name then?
It’s all because of an epic journey he took west250 years ago where he went further than any European before him.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx, and today.
I’m sharing the story of the man who inspired future explorers with tales of his first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains– Anthony Henday!
In January 2024, I shared the story of the first recorded European to visit what became Alberta and Saskatchewan.
In 1691 the story of Henry Kelsey, set out to find new trading partners for the Hudson’s Bay Company.
His journey became legendary, but the company wasn’t eager to send out more people.
They were more than happy to have First Nations come to them.
Henry Kelsey’s story ended on Nov. 1, 1724, when he died in England at only 56 years old after leading a full and adventurous life.
A year later, a baby was born on the Isle of Wight, who one day would continue Kelsey’s legacy.
He was baptized on Christmas Day 1725 in Shorwell, and he was given the name…
Anthony Henday.
Anthony Henday’s early life is shrouded in mystery.
We can do our best to wave away the mists of time and guess he was likely born poor.
As a teenager, he survived on his own and loved the thrill of adventure.
Both skills would come in handy in the future but at the time they got him into trouble. You see…Henday was a smuggler and had been for a while, but his career of crime ended in 1748 when he was caught and convicted.
At the time, that meant banishment rather than imprisonment.
For the next two years, he couldn’t go home, so maybe he spent his time wandering the streets of London. We don’t know for sure… but we DO know that in 1750Henday joined the Hudson’s Bay Company.
He started out as a net-maker and labourer, the lowest position one could have in the company, which did not know he was a convicted criminal.
Or perhaps they did, and they simply did not care.
What mattered most to the Company at the time was the fur trade in North America, and things there were heating up.
(PAUSE MUSIC TRANSITION)
You’ll remember in 1670, King Charles II gave the Hudson’s Bay Company a monopoly over what was known as Rupert’s Land —a 3.8 million square kilometres area one-third of modern-day Canada, stretching from Labrador and Baffin island, to the Rocky Mountains.
For decades, no one challenged the Company’s control over this Mini-kingdom.
By the mid 1700s, French voyageurs were venturing deeper into North America, to trade with First Nations and divert goods from ever reaching The Company’s forts. If the French took over trade the Hudson’s Bay Company could not survive.
The Company was facing threats from multiple fronts because at the same time, Arthur Dobbs, a British Army officer and colonial administrator, was actively trying to end their monopoly t.
He felt the Company had zero interest in exploring the region they controlled, nor in finding the Northwest Passage so they should not have a monopoly over the territory.
A British Parliamentary Inquiry in 1749 ruled that the Hudson’s Bay Company could keep its charter.
But the message was clear.
Explore or lose your rights over the land.
Aside from Henry Kelsey decades earlier no one else had really gone into Western Canada.
James Isham, the Chief Factor at York Factory, knew that to keep the charter they had to send someone deeper into the continent to lay claim to it for the Company.
As a bonus, this intrepid individual convinced the First Nations to trade with the British, and not the French.
The higher-ups at the Hudson’s Bay Company agreed.
They sought a volunteer.
Enter… the man of the hour…Anthony Henday He was likely already bored as a labourer and was keen to go on an adventure.
Henday was accepted as the leader of an expedition.
He was tasked with going into the interior of present-day Western Canada to convince the First Nations to travel to Hudson Bay to trade their furs.
On June 26, 1754, Anthony Henday, Attickasish, a Cree interpreter along with several other Cree, set out from York Factory on their mission.
Like with Henry Kelsey before him, this journey was not about surveying or mapping this was about meeting the First Nations, nothing more.
Since Henday did not map his route, we don’t know for sure which way he took but we know he travelled southwest through present-day Manitoba, Saskatchewan and into Alberta, along major rivers.
On July 15, 1754, he passed the Paskoya, a French Fort near The Pas, Manitoba.
Henry Kelsey had previously camped in the area during the winter of 1690.
He had named it Deering’s Point in honour of Sir Edward Derring, the Deputy Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He wrote in his diary of the place,
“At Deering’s Point after the frost
I set up a certain cross.
In token of my being there
Cut out on it ye date of year.
And likewise, for it verify the same.
Added to it my Master’s name.”
Now, the area had been renamed Fort Paskoya and was under French control.
It was established at around 1740 and was named after the Cree word for narrows.
It was one of four forts running up a chain of lakes from Lake Winnipeg which formed a defensive wall in trade as they detoured furs away from Hudson Bay and down towards the Great Lakes region.
Henday wrote,
“I don’t very well like it, having nothing to satisfy them on what account I am going up the country and very possibly they may expect se to be a spy.”
French traders threatened to seize him and send him to France.
The size of the Cree company he traveled with deterred them from doing so.
Around the Carrot River region in northern Saskatchewan, Henday set out on foot and the number of Cree travelling with him grew.
Every day, a new family heading west joined their caravan.
By now Henday had a Cree woman as his companion.
She has no name in his journal; he simply refers to her as his “bed-fellow”.
I should know The Hudson’s Bay Company edited her out of his journal when it was published, as relationships with Indigenous women were frowned upon.
Henday continued his journey and crossed the South Saskatchewan River near Saskatoon around August 21, 1754.
The large party used rafts made by stretching moose skins across willow frames.
A few weeks later, on Sept. 6, Henday met a group of Assiniboine who had never traded with white men before.
He was able to convince them to travel to York Factory to trade furs with The Company.
A few days later, around Sept. 11, he passed from present-day Saskatchewan into Alberta.
One month later, he reached what he referred to as the Waskesew River.
Waskesew is the anglicization of the Cree word for Elk and it is believed this means he had reached the Red Deer River which flows for 724 kilometres from the Rocky Mountains through central Alberta, until it meets the South Saskatchewan River near Leader, Saskatchewan.
This was Blackfoot territory and at the time, they were at war with the Cree.
Henday was unaware of, or didn’t care about the conflict.
He only cared to resolve matters and facilitate trade, so he met with both Cree and Blackfoot leaders and was surprised to see the Blackfoot ride horses.
Horses were first introduced by the French in the mid-1600s, but no one had realized they had traveled so far west.
In the early 1700s, there were no horses and at some point, in the 1730s to 1740s, horses arrived from the east and fundamentally changed things.
This shows how much the world had already changed for First Nations in what would become Canada.
Months later when Henday share stories of the horses with his superiors they refused to believe him.
On Oct. 14, Henday counted 322 tepees on top of a hill near modern-day Pine Lake and Innisfail, Alberta.
It was a massive Blackfoot encampment.
One tepee was large enough to hold 50 people and was the chief’s home.
Henday was invited inside by the chief and met with 20 Blackfoot elders.
While Henday spoke, Attickasish, his Cree translator, translated for the Blackfoot.
Henday invited them to York Factory to trade with The Company.
While the chief appreciated the offer, he refused to leave his territory.
Travelling to York Factory meant going through Cree land and a risk of an attack.
Plus, the Blackfoot already had a trading partner they liked, The French.
Henday wrote,
“We have no hopes of getting them to the Fort. As what cloth they had were French and, by their behaviour, I perceived they were strongly attached to the French interest.”
Despite their refusal, the Blackfoot treated Henday as an honoured guest.
He was offered boiled bison meat and 12 bison tongues; a delicacy reserved only for honoured guests.
Henday spent the next few months in the immediate area, stocking up on furs and provisions.
On Christmas Eve 1754, he wrote in his journal,
“Had a fine view of Arsinie Watchie at a far distance, it being the last sight that I ever shall have of it this year.”
Arsinie Watchie was the name for the Rocky Mountains.
Henday was the first known European to see them.
It is not known if he saw the mountains from Calgary, or somewhere else in the area.
Henday believed that the Pacific Ocean was just on the other side of the mountains.
Like many future explorers he stated the water running from the mountains was salty and tasted like brine.
He believed that its source was just through the mountains.
It wasn’t of course, but the part of him that wanted to find a route to the ocean to get a massive bonus and etch his name in history wanted it to be.
In truth, he was nearly 1,000 kilometres away from the Pacific Ocean.
When not dreaming of the Pacific Ocean, Henday hunted bison.
Today, if I want to see one, I can drive an hour to Elk Island National Park where about 700 bison live.
But back in the 1700s, they were everywhere.
Massive herds numbering in the tens of thousands would cause the land to shake under their feet as they ran across the land.
For Henday, seeing a great herd would have been awe-inspiring.
Several times they had to alter direction for kilometres just to get around a large herd.
He wrote in his journal,
“I went with the young men a buffalo hunting, all armed with bows and arrows. Killed seven, fine sport. So expert are the natives, that they will take the arrows of them when they are foaming and raging in pain, tearing the ground up with their feet and horns until they fall down.”
Once spring arrived, he returned to York Factory.
It is unknown which route he took, some believe retraced his steps, while others theorize, he went north to the mouth of the Sturgeon River.
This is just east of present-day Edmonton It is possible he reached Fort Saskatchewan in early March 1755.
This is the reason an Edmonton road carries his name.
About a month later, around April 27, he continued east, reaching Fort Paskoya on May 26 and York Factory on June 23.
His journey took him 2,900 kilometres through Western Canada by canoe and on foot.
In his report he suggested that a group of men should go inland to trade directly with the First Nations.
James Isham, the company man in York Factor, agreed, but when he took it to the leadership, they were hesitant.
For his work, Henday was given a £20 bonus.
A week after Henday returned to York Factory, he was told to go back out with William Grover, a company official, to visit some of the forts deeper in the interior.
Grover couldn’t handle the journey and within a month the men were back at York Factory.
By now, despite his relatively young age Henday was also beginning to slow down.
The long journey to meet the Blackfoot had taken its toll.
In 1756, Isham sent into the interior to establish a settlement about 800 kilometres west of York Factory.
Henday couldn’t accomplish the mission.
Ill health forced him to return.
Two years later, he wintered, near York Factory, at Ship River and he was so ill that a party had to be sent out to retrieve him.
It is believed that Henday traveled west again in 1759 with Blackfoot or Cree to build a trading network but there is little evidence of this journey in the records.
All that is known is that in June 1760, he appeared at York Factory with 61 First Nations canoes.
After this it would officially take the company another 25 years to send another man to the interior.
His name was Samuel Hearne.
For his part, Anthony Henday
left the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1762 because he did not believe his efforts were properly recognized.
Little else is known about his last journey, but it was clear he was unhappy.
He had made good money, saving £113 of the £120 he was paid for his time with the Company.
It wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough to live on for a while and from this point on, he disappears from history.
We don’t know what he did after he left The Company, or even when he died.
Perhaps he returned to smuggling.
Or maybe he spent his time back home in England, sitting at a table with a mug of ale, dreaming of the awe-inspiring mountains he saw things no other living European had seen.
