_foex populi_--A little
beauty--Calling River--Another ancient woman and her memories--Our
return to Athabasca Landing.

Conclusion

Introduction

The important events of A.D. 1857, and the negotiations which led
to the Transfer of the Hudson's Bay Territories--Former Treaties
and the Treaty Commission of 1899.

The terms upon which Canada obtained her great possessions in the
West are generally known, and much has been written regarding the
tentative steps by which, after long years of waiting, she acquired
them. The distinctively prairie, or southern, portion of the
country and its outliers, constituting "Prince Rupert's Land,"
had been claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company since May, 1670, as
an absolute freehold. This and the North-West Territories, in
which, under terminable lease from the Crown, the Company exercised,
as in British Columbia, exclusive rights to trade only, were, as
the reader knows, transferred to Canada by Imperial sanction at
the same time. It is not the author's intention, therefore, to
cumber his pages with trite or irrelevant matter; yet certain
transactions which preceded this primordial and greatest treaty
of all not unfittingly may be set forth, though in the briefest
way, as a pardonable introduction to the following record.

The year 1857 was an eventful one in the annals of "The North-West,"
the name by which the Territories were generally known in Canada.
[An important event in Red River was begot of the stirring
incidents of this year, namely, the starting at Fort Garry, in
December, 1859, by two gentlemen from Canada, Messrs. Buckingham
and Caldwell, of the first newspaper printed in British territory
east of British Columbia and west of Lake Superior. It was called
the _Nor'-Wester_, but, having few advertisements, and only a limited
circulation, the originators sold out to Dr. (afterwards Sir John)
Schultz, who, at his own expense, published the paper, almost down
to the Transfer, as an advocate of Canadian annexation, immigration
and development.] In that year two expeditions were set afoot to
explore the country; one in charge of Captain Palliser, [Strange
to say, Captain Palliser reported that he considered a line of
communication entirely through British territory, connecting the
Eastern Provinces and British Columbia, out of the question, as
the Astronomical Boundary adopted isolated the prairie country
from Canada. Professor Hind, on the other hand, in t