Father Aeneas M. Dawson and Canadian expansionism.

McEvoy, Frederick J.

Aeneas M. Dawson was one of the most prominent Catholic priests in nineteenth century Ottawa. A Scottish immigrant, he was not a success as a pastor but was well known as an orator, poet and author. Of his many writings he was most proud of his work on the Canadian west which he promoted as a potential paradise. However, his attitude towards native people embraced the sense of European superiority held by most of his contemporaries.

Aeneas M. Dawson etait l'un des pretres catholiques les plus eminents a Ottawa, au 19e siecle. Immigrant ecossais, il n'avait pas beaucoup de succes en tant que pasteur, mais il etait bien connu en tant qu'orateur, poete et auteur. Parmi ses nombreux ouvrages, celui qui le rendait le plus fier etait son livre sur l' ouest canadien, qu 'il promouvait comine un eventuel paradis. Cependant, son attitude envers les aborigenes contenait le sens de superiorite europeenne, qui se retrouvait chez la plupart de ses contemporains.

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The latter part of the 1850s saw a movement in the united province of Canada, spurred by George Brown's Globe, to begin the full-scale settlement of the North West Territory, long the domain of the Hudson's Bay Company. Although the movement petered out at the time, interest in western expansion was revived after Confederation, with members of the newly-formed Canada First movement prominent among its advocates. One of the founding members of that group was a Roman Catholic priest, Aeneas McDonell Dawson, a prolific author who applied his pen to the promotion of the cause. Settlement of the west, however, did not mean the occupation of a hitherto empty land, for the west, including the Pacific coast, was inhabited by numerous tribes of native peoples--First Nations, in current parlance--and Metis, who combined native and European ancestry. Like most Canadians of his time, Dawson did not have a high opinion of these people and shared the general tendency to ignore their claim to land they had long occupied.

Aeneas McDonell Dawson was one of the most remarkable priests to serve the Archdiocese of Ottawa. A poet, a scholar, a translator, and a noted orator, his abilities combined with his genial personality made him a welcome addition to the small intellectual circle of the Ottawa of the second half of the nineteenth century. His work had an international reputation, favourably reviewed at home and abroad. His treatise on the temporal sovereignty of the pope was, in 1860, the first book to be published in Ottawa. He was the author of many other books including biographies of Pope Pius IX and St. Vincent de Paul, as well as an exhaustive history of Scottish Catholicism from the Reformation to his own day. He was a member of many organizations including the prestigious Rideau Club, whose membership included all the leading politicians of the day. From 1865 until their withdrawal in 1870 he served as chaplain to the British forces stationed in Ottawa, becoming a great favourite in the officers' mess. A frequent guest of governors general, he was invited by Lord Lorne to become a founding member of the Royal Society of Canada in 1882. He was also known for his cordial relations with non-Catholics, earning him the nickname of the "protestant priest." (1)

He was born in Scotland in 1810, one of nine sons of John Dawson and Anne McDonell. He studied for the priesthood in France and Scotland and was ordained in 1835. The following year his parents and most of his siblings emigrated to Canada, renting a farm in Nepean, a rural area outside what was then Bytown (now Ottawa). Although his brother William made an attempt to bring him to Canada in 1842, it was not until 1854 that he followed his family to Bytown. He was appointed the first pastor of St. Andrew's parish, the first English-language parish in Ottawa. It was later renamed for St. Patrick, reflecting its predominantly Irish congregation. He was not a great success as a pastor. Despite the winning personality which gained him so many friends in social circles, he was constantly in conflict with members of his congregation and with Bishop Joseph-Eugene-Bruno Guiges, who found his administrative shortcomings exceedingly frustrating. Finally in 1861 the bishop transferred Dawson to the cathedral where he could fully employ his oratorical talents with no administrative burden. In the 1870s he served as pastor in a rural parish, where the difficulties of his first pastorate were repeated. He continued to write extensively until his death in 1894. (2)

Dawson's interest in the west was shared by, and possibly derived from, other members of his family. His brothers William and Simon were both deeply involved in western issues, on the ground and in the political arena. In 1841 William was appointed Crown Timber Agent at Bytown. Though dismissed from this position in 1845, by 1849 he was working for the Woods and Forest Branch of the Crown Lands department, becoming superintendent of that branch in 1852. In 1857, with the campaign for the annexation of the North West Territory underway, William prepared a report challenging the Hudson's Bay Company's title to its lands, later testifying before a select committee of the legislature. The next year he was himself an elected member and introduced a bill incorporating the North West Transportation and Land Company, of which he became the first president. The company quickly won a contract to deliver mail to the settlement at Red River. (3)

In that same year the government of Canada, which had now laid claim to the North West but had little knowledge of the territory, appointed an expedition to investigate the area, known as the Hind Expedition. Possibly with the help of William's influence, Simon was appointed surveyor of the expedition. His task was to develop an initial link between Canada and Red River. (4) His eventual report set out an expensive estimate for building such a route, bringing on a strong attack from the Globe, despite its previous support for expansion. (5) Notwithstanding their initial enthusiasm, the politicians balked at the cost. In 1860 William lost his presidency and the company lost its mail contract; it folded the next year. Simon left government service the same year, entering the lumber business in Trois Rivieres. (6)

Father Dawson became a staunch supporter of his new country, to which he devoted his literary talents. He attacked those in Britain, such as the Oxford professor Goldwin Smith, who saw the colonies as a burden to be disposed of rather than as a benefit to the mother country. Smith, and those who shared his views, believed the colonies to be an economic liability; those colonies capable of doing so should govern themselves because, in their view, "ultimate autonomy seemed a higher ideal for the colonies than perpetual dependence." (7) Those who opposed this attitude saw it as unpatriotic. Dawson dismissed Smith as "this minor light of the Oxford firmament." (8) He argued that the colonies, far from being a burden to Britain, were essential both to its status as a world power and to its prosperity. "This mighty whole," he wrote,

 contributes immensely towards, if it does not entirely constitute
 the commercial and political importance of the British people. They
 are a rich inheritance which their forefathers have bequeathed to
 them, and which they and their Sovereign confide to the keeping of
 their Parliament and their statesmen. [...] They are all intimately
 connected ... with the Colonial system, Which, to a state, situated
 as England is, appears to be essential. To such a state there is
 nothing more necessary than extensive trade which brings to the
 doors of Britain proper, the productions of foreign climes. (9)

Nations envious of British power, he believed, would see a Britain "shorn" of its colonies as being on a "downward course" and quickly seek to take advantage of its weakness. (10)

Dawson soon acquired like-minded acquaintances. Between 15 April and 20 May 1868 five young men--George Foster, Charles Mair, George T. Denison, R.G. Haliburton and Henry Morgan--came together in Ottawa where they spent most of their evenings at Morgan's discussing the state of the young nation. All were in their late twenties except Haliburton who was in his late thirties. With the enthusiasm of youth they made "a solemn pledge to each other that we would do all we could to advance the interests of our native land; that we would put our country first, before all personal, or political, or party considerations [...]." They foresaw a vastly expanded country that would incorporate the western territories of the Hudson's Bay Company and bring the colony of British Columbia into Confederation, creating a nation that spanned the northern half of the continent. This was the origin of the Canada First movement. (11) Dawson, who was approaching sixty, attended at least some of these meetings. A friend of Mair and Morgan, he was drawn to these younger men by a shared interest in literary pursuits and western expansion. At Christmas 1868 Denison and Foster met in Toronto with Morgan and a friend who accompanied him from Ottawa. Referred to as "the old gentleman," this could perhaps have been Dawson. (12)

With renewed interest in the North West following Confederation, the government decided to proceed with construction of the eastern end of the route previously mapped out by Simon, who in 1867 was appointed superintendent of road construction. (13) Such a road was a necessity if Canada were to make good its claim to ownership of the North West. The road, which became known as the Dawson Route in honour of its builder, proved its value in 1870 when it was utilised by the military expedition sent to suppress the Red River rebellion led by Louis Riel. In 1871 the Dawson Route, which consisted of both road and water, was open to travellers. It remained the main route to the west until the coming of the railway. (14)

It was now possible for Canada to begin the colonization of the west, fulfilling what the members of Canada First saw as Canada's manifest destiny. The expansionists both exaggerated the speed with which the west could be settled and underestimated the difficulties the colonists would encounter. (15) The literature they produced has been characterized as "an often one-sided and over-enthusiastic picture of the region." (16) They extolled the fertility of the soil, the beneficence of the climate and the abundance of water resources, ignoring the known aridity of some areas of the prairies. (17) They were overly optimistic in their belief that the area would be quickly settled and developed; the Dawson route, they claimed, was capable of accommodating 1500 immigrants per month, an impossibly high figure. (18)

Aeneas Dawson now turned his pen to the promotion of the west to Canadians and potential immigrants. An essay, entitled "The North West Territory," was published in the Literary Quarterly of St. John, New Brunswick and in a-n abridged form in the Ontario Gazetteer. In 1870 he included the full essay as a title piece in a collection of his writing which included his attack on Goldwin Smith. (19) This work followed the general pattern of expansionist literature, though it went beyond it by devoting considerable attention to British Columbia as well as the North West. (20)

His reason for writing, he stated, was to dispute the view held by some that the North West "will be more an imaginary than a real benefit" to Canada. He stressed that he had consulted publications on the subject, spoken with "distinguished travellers"--a category which presumably included Simon--and examined evidence given before a select committee of the House of Commons. (21) He described in some detail the great rivers and lakes of the west. Of the Mackenzie River he wrote: "should [it] ever be what nature has adapted it for being, the principal channel through which a great portion of the trade of the western world must flow, there may one day be a dense population even so far north as the junction of its waters with the Arctic Ocean." (22) He praised the climate, fruitfulness of the soil and quality of the produce of the area bordering on Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba. The territory to the west of the Assiniboine and Red River Valleys he described as "no less fertile, and even more beautiful," citing Simon's report to the legislature of Canada on the suitability of the area for agriculture and colonization. (23) He quoted travellers, including Sir Alexander Mackenzie, on the fertility and abundance of the Saskatchewan country and what would become Alberta. (24) He disputed the view that spring flooding made settlement and agriculture impossible, as this only applied to a limited area; in any case, flooding could be harnessed for irrigation, as the flooding of the Nile had been in antiquity. "Who may dare say," he asserted, "that the vast countries there, which have known no sound as yet save the lowing of wild cattle and the war-whoop of the fierce red-man, shall not rejoice one day in all the blessings of civilisation, and become vocal with the glad accents of millions upon millions of happy beings?" (25) Dawson ended this section on the North West by returning to what he saw as the great importance of the Mackenzie River, which provided access to the heart of the land and would bring "the priceless treasures that might be fished up from the inexhaustible depths of the great Arctic Sea. And this will be, one day, the rich possession of the numerous people who will find their homes on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and in the fertile valleys and verdant prairies which end only where the settled country of Canada begins." (26)

He now turned his attention to British Columbia, not yet a province of Canada. Though he admitted that "many parts of it can never be inhabited, it is destined, no doubt, to afford homes at no distant period to a numerous and wealthy population." He compared British Columbia to his native Scotland, so alike in "their rivers and mountains," expressing regret that its original name of New Caledonia had not been retained. However British Columbia "without any other inhabitant than the aboriginal savage--without any other habitation than the rude tent or the wretched wigwam," was more akin to ancient Scotland which "had no other inhabitant than the barbarian, whose only clothing was paint." Just as Scotland was now prosperous and civilized, so would British Columbia be. (27) Both the mainland of British Columbia, with its fertility and gold resources, and Vancouver Island, with its fertility and moderate climate, were well adapted to settlement and agriculture. British Columbia "will rejoice ere long in numerous populations, and may even behold the commerce of the world crowding its shores." (28)

It is unfortunate that Dawson presented such a stereotyped image of natives and it is clear that he had no knowledge of the highly developed culture of the coastal First Nations, wigwams being a prairie phenomenon. It is also somewhat surprising since his brother Simon, who worked extensively with natives both during the expedition of the 1850s and during the construction of the Dawson route, knew them well and thought highly of them. He found that they "manifested a degree of thought and foresight which I scarcely could have expected of them." (29) He found their assistance indispensable to his work and received many kindnesses from them. He came to regard them with "a blend of admiration and protectiveness." (30) In his later career as a member of the Ontario legislature and of the federal parliament he would defend native interests even at the cost of alienating many of his constituents. (31) If Aeneas Dawson knew of Simon's opinion of native people it appears not to have made an impression.

In his conclusion Dawson asserted that access to the North West, far from being "extremely difficult, if not impossible," as some believed, was in fact shown by recent exploration to be "shorter than has been supposed, and comparatively easy," citing Simon's report to the government on the Dawson route in 1868. (32) That route, now under construction, would lead to significant trade. "Canada cannot fail," he wrote,

 to recognize her interest in such great public, even national,
 improvements. Trade, to the value of many millions yearly, would be
 directed to her borders; wealth would flow to her from the gold
 mines of the Fraser, the coal fields of Vancouver, the
 inexhaustible fisheries of British Columbia, and the fertile plains
 of the Saskatchewan, the Red fiver [sic] and the Assiniboine.
 Waters which communicate by means of portages, lead all the way to
 the immediate neighbourhood of Lake Superior.

This would also provide a route to the Far East and south Pacific. (33)

Noting that there was talk of a railway linking Halifax or Quebec City to the west coast, he stated that such a route could be easily made "along the plains of the Saskatchewan and the northern passes," while the Rockies "could be pierced without any serious engineering difficulties" in several places. Such a railway would quickly advance the colonisation process while providing the shortest route to "the remote east." (34) He foresaw the creation of a "highway of the world" which would

 with its myriad of leviathan steamboats constantly plowing the
 placid waters of the Pacific Ocean, traverse the Canadian provinces
 [and] pass through the valley of the River Ottawa. This is an
 absolute requirement of the geological structure of the globe.
 [...] Thus it is manifest that the city of Ottawa, which [...] has
 become the capital of the Dominion of Canada, must also be, and
 that at no distant day, a great commercial emporium, a metropolis
 of business, the prosperous and crowded centre of the trade of both
 hemispheres. (35)

Dawson, like other expansionists, saw the west as a hinterland for central Canada, but few would have shared his view of the glittering future of Ottawa as a commercial powerhouse.

However, the west was not settled with the speed and ease envisioned by the expansionists. The Dawson Route, while a great engineering feat of constructing a road under the most difficult circumstances, was not a success as a gateway for immigrants. It involved a long, arduous journey unsuitable for the mass immigration expected, what one immigrant termed "six weeks of hardships such as they had never experienced before." (36) In 1872 a scant one hundred immigrants traversed the route, a poor return on the hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into it. It was apparent that only a railway could suitably link east and west. (37)

A decade later, with the Canadian Pacific Railway under construction, Dawson believed that "the resources of the west should be studied and made known," (38) publishing a much expanded, book length work on the west. By then some immigration had occurred, including group migration of Icelanders, Mennonites from Russia and Franco-Americans from the New England states. (39) Manitoba and British Columbia had entered Confederation, while the future Alberta and Saskatchewan remained under the control of the federal government. "The more that is known concerning the great North-West," he wrote, "the more will the intelligent public desire to know. As regards British Columbia, so much misapprehension unfortunately prevails, that not only this work, but many more books must be written and widely circulated before the people of the Canadian Dominion learn the true value of this rich and interesting Province." (40)

Much of the description of the area echoed the earlier work, stressing the moderation of the climate, fertility of the soil and the beauty of the country, an area of such potential that "valuable settlements and happy homes for many millions of the human race will undoubtedly be found, ere long, in the great lone land of the North-West, and the cause of humanity will be more effectually served by well directed efforts to colonize, than it has ever been as yet by any event in connection with the history of our country." (41) Land, he asserted, could, for the most part, "be made available, and without any extraordinary difficulty, for the uses and wants of civilized man." (42) With the advent of the railway and postal and telegraph service "the enterprising spirit of the age has pronounced that the great 'lone land' shall be lone no more." (43)

He gave considerably more attention to First Nations people. Though he recognized that they were "the actual occupants of the land," (44) his attitude toward them was one of condescension combined with a naive trust that the government would safeguard their interests. There was, he wrote,

 nothing to be apprehended from hostility on the part of the Indian
 tribes. [...] They have sold their exhausted hunting grounds and
 are pleased with the price, and well they may, for, not only is it
 duly paid, but in addition, the children of the forest have been
 sustained ever since the failure of their game supplies, at great
 cost to Canada. The Canadian people, with truly cosmopolitan
 benevolence, are thus purchasing a country not for themselves only,
 but, also, for all who may choose to live in peace under the
 Canadian roof tree.

Saved by the North West Mounted Police from the evils of drink and the nefarious American whiskey traders, they were "more tractable than most other tribes of red men" and more willing to adopt a settled life of agriculture. (45) A considerate government had provided them with agricultural instructors and Dawson believed that missionaries should also be engaged in teaching them farming as "there is nothing that the better Indians will not do in compliance with the wishes of their priestly guides." (46) Dawson's trust in the benevolence of the government was misplaced. Government parsimony, combined with white settlers' opposition to competition from native farmers, ensured that First Nations people did not receive the supplies and modern equipment requisite to successful farming. (47)

"The Aborigines," as he called them, "are now so greatly reduced in numbers, that it will hardly be thought worth while to take into account their habits, character or disposition as regards new settlers" although "their position and rights will be scrupulously respected under the new order which is designed to promote their prosperity and happiness[...]." (48) He believed the natives were "peaceable and order-loving" due to their close relations with the settlers at Red River and the Hudson's Bay Company. As well, "many of them have been gained by the zeal of missionaries to the mild usages of the Christian faith." (49) Intermarriage with Europeans had prepared them for "the greater material well-being and happiness of civilization" and they would "offer .no impediment" to the settling of their former lands "by civilized man." (50)

Again he was hopelessly sanguine about respect for native rights. As historical geographer Cole Harris has written about British Columbia, in words that apply equally to the North West,

 White immigrants and settlers in British Columbia in the 1860s took
 it for granted that the land awaited them. [...] with rare
 exceptions, the proposition that almost all provincial land was
 unsettled and unused--or used slightly in ways that deserved to be
 replaced by more intensive, modern land uses--was not debated.
 Natives were wanderers, primitive people who did not know how to
 use land effectively. [...] The displacement of [natives] by [white
 settlers] was inevitable, as the worldwide reach of Europe had
 shown. (51)

Dawson's own comments on the First Nations in British Columbia were redolent of European superiority. While admitting that "they exercise wonderful foresight in treasuring up supplies of salmon," he contrasted this to what he considered their usual improvidence. (52) Likewise, while they showed "wonderful ingenuity" in their methods of fishing, (53) he referred to one such method as "the barbarous art of spearing salmon." (54) While engaged in this activity, he added, "Red-skin does not paddle his own canoe, but leaves this duty to his squaw. A fleet of canoes may often be seen...impelled by the dusky dames of the tribe, whilst the swarthy Lords sit in the bows[...]" (55)

British Columbia itself he regarded as "the richest British possession on the continent of America," if not the whole empire. (56) It was important to Canada as the gateway to the east, while Canada linked the province to Britain and Europe. It was destined to become the "emporium of the trade of the Canadian Provinces, of Great Britain, of all Europe, perhaps, with China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, India even." (57) The province was a great addition to Canada, despite the naysayers who regarded it as "an unprofitable wilderness." (58)

The railway, he concluded, would make all the difference, as it had already done in Manitoba. It would attract colonists and facilitate trade. As it progressed across the west it would attract "a numerous population along its course, and a career of prosperity will have commenced, the height of which, and its wide extent and its glory no man living shall behold." (59)

While it is difficult to judge the impact of the book, it was certainly well received. The Ottawa Free Press, praising Dawson's "patriotic desire to do justice to the Dominion," felt he had shown "great facility for grasping and arranging facts and presenting [...] the peculiarities and attractions of our Great North West." (60) The Ottawa Daily Citizen "confidently" recommended it to anyone seeking knowledge of Canada's west. (61) The Toronto Mail described Dawson as "a man of superior intelligence and attainments" and declared that the book, combined with Alexander Begg's history of the North-West, "will afford the student all possible means of obtaining accurate information from every point of view on our valuable provinces of the North-West." (62)

His work was not particularly original, however, following the pattern of other exponents of expansionism who exaggerated the beneficence of the western climate and underplayed the difficulties facing potential homesteaders. Nor, despite the experiences of his brother Simon, was his attitude towards First Nations either enlightened or insightful, as he exhibited the typical sense of Euro-Canadian superiority to a backward and presumably dying race.

In that attitude he reflected the views of most Canadians of his time. To some of the expansionists the Indians might well be deserving of sympathy; all of them, however, considered their own civilization superior and believed that the development of the vast potential of the west by white settlers was both inevitable and right. (63) While some viewed natives with contempt for their supposed "barbarism," and others romanticized their way of life, all agreed that they were a dying race:

 If any single belief dominated the thinking about Canadian
 aboriginals during the last half of the nineteenth century, it was
 that they would not be around to see much of the twentieth. Any one
 who paid any attention at all to the question agreed that Natives
 were disappearing from the face of the earth, victims of disease,
 starvation, alcohol and the remorseless ebb and flow of
 civilizations. [...] Some found the idea appalling; some found it
 regrettable; some found it desirable. But all were agreed that the
 Indian was doomed. (64)

Besides, the assimilation of natives into white Christian civilization could only be in their own best interest. Dawson, himself a priest, could have no doubt about that.

Though Dawson produced a vast amount of writing, he was particularly proud that he had revealed through his work "the great North-West and its boundless resources," which he made a point of stating on the occasion of the presentation of a testimonial to him by the citizens of Ottawa. (65) Yet his work in this regard was primarily propaganda, not a presentation of an accurate picture of the west, a trait shared with expansionist literature in general. It also propagated the view, shared by so many Canadians, that western land, even where occupied by First Nations peoples, was there for the taking. In this he was truly a man of his time.

(1) Fred McEvoy, principal author, Enduring Faith: A History of Saint Patrick's Basilica Parish, Ottawa 1855-2005, (Ottawa: Saint Patrick's Basilica, 2006), 18-23.

(2) Ibid., 6-17.

(3) Elizabeth Arthur, Simon J. Dawson, C.E., (Thunder Bay: Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, 1987), 2-9.

(4) Doug Owram, Promise of Eden: The Canadian Expansionist Movement and the Idea of the West 1856-1900, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 62.

(5) Arthur, Dawson, 10.

(6) Ibid., 12.

(7) Elizabeth Wallace, Goldwin Smith: Victorian Liberal, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957), 188.

(8) Aeneas M. Dawson, "Our Strength and Their Strength," in Our Strength and Their Strength. The North West Territory, and Other Papers Chiefly Relating to the Dominion of Canada, (Ottawa: The Times, 1870), 5.

(9) Ibid., 32.

(10) Ibid., 15.

(11) Colonel George T. Denison, The Struggle for Imperial Unity: Recollections & Experiences, (Toronto: Macmillan Co. of Canada, 1909), 10-12; Carl Berger, The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism 1867-1914, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 49-51.

(12) Berger, The Sense of Power, 51, 54.

(13) Janet E. Chute and Alan Knight, "Taking up the Torch: Simon J. Dawson and the Upper Great Lakes' Native Resource Campaign of the 1860s and 1870s," in Celia Haig-Brown and David A. Nock, (eds.), With Good Intentions: Euro-Canadian and Aboriginal Relations in Colonial Canada, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 110.

(14) Arthur, Dawson, 13-6; Owram, Promise of Eden, 118.

(15) Owram, Promise of Eden, 102.

(16) Ibid., 105.

(17) Ibid., 109.

(18) Ibid., 118.

(19) Dawson, Our Strength and Their Strength.

(20) Promise of Eden, which closely examines the expansionist literature, does not even have an index entry for British Columbia.

(21) Dawson, "The North West Territory," in Our Strength and Their Strength, 53-4.

(22) Ibid., 58.

(23) Ibid., 59.

(24) Ibid., 60, 63.

(25) Ibid., 61.

(26) Ibid., 64.

(27) Ibid.

(28) Ibid., 66.

(29) Arthur, Dawson, 11.

(30) Chute and Knight, "Taking up the Torch," 109.

(31) Ibid., 117-24.

(32) Dawson, "The North West Territory," 68-9.

(33) Ibid., 70, italic in original.

(34) Ibid., 71.

(35) Ibid., 72.

(36) Owram, Promise of Eden, 122.

(37) Ibid., 123.

(38) Aeneas M Dawson, The North-West Territories and British Columbia, (Ottawa: np, 1881), 1.

(39) Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies: A History, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 186.

(40) Dawson, North-West Territories, preface, unpaginated.

(41) Ibid., 2.

(42) Ibid., 11.

(43) Ibid., 19, italic in original.

(44) Ibid., 44.

(45) Ibid., 18.

(46) Ibid., 19.

(47) On this point see Sarah Carter, Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy, (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990).

(48) Dawson, North-West Territories, 44.

(49) Ibid., 45.

(50) Ibid., 46.

(51) Cole Harris, Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia, (Vancouver: UBCPress, 2002), 46-7. Attitudes had not changed by the 1880s--see pp. 199-200. See also Jean Barman, The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 154-8.

(52) Dawson, North-West Territories, 84.

(53) Ibid., 86.

(54) Ibid., 92.

(55) Ibid., 107.

(56) Ibid., 55.

(57) Ibid., 47-8.

(58) Ibid., 138.

(59) Ibid., 140-1.

(60) 12 May 1881.

(61) 4 May 1881.

(62) 18 June 1881. The book referred to is The great Canadian north west: its past history, present condition, and glorious prospects, (Montreal, 1881 ).

(63) Owram, Promise of Eden, 132.

(64) Daniel Francis, The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture, (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1992), 23. For attitudes in British Columbia see Barman, The West beyond the West, 154-8.

(65) McEvoy, Enduring Faith, 19.