Cree Moccasin and 30/60/90 Years Ago in The Beaver

Hudson’s Bay Company employee George Simpson McTavish Jr., the son of a Scottish fur trader, brought back a pair of moccasins from Fort Churchill around 1887. The moccasins were of northern Cree or Cree-Métis production and had been adopted by European fur traders as an essential form of footwear.

Aboriginal women were well-known for producing sturdy, practical, and beautifully decorated moccasins that they would trade for European goods.

In The Beaver…

90 years ago — Dog and hunter teamwork

W.E. Anderson outlined seal hunting procedures in the June 1921 article “How the Eskimo Hunts the Seal in Winter Time.” The hunter would leave his igloo in the company of a husky dog and travel to the sea ice. The dog would locate the seal’s breathing hole in the ice and point it out to his master. When the seal returned to the breathing hole it would be caught, and both hunter and dog would be victorious.

60 years ago — A slave to exploration

Surveyor, engineer, and explorer Guy H. Blanchet wrote about his journey through the waterways of the plateau east of the Slave River in the June 1950 feature “Into Unknown Country.” From 1921 to 1925, Blanchet carried out numerous exploratory surveys in the Mackenzie and Keewatin districts of the Northwest Territories. He centred his work in the Great Slave Lake area and covered over 300,000 square kilometres by the time he was finished.

30 years ago — In search of paradise

The June 1981 article “The Widow Sinclair and Her Sea Search for Paradise” describes sixty-three-year-old Eliza Sinclair’s desire to move her family from Holmes Bay, New Zealand, to Canada — a vision she shared with her husband, British naval hero Captain Francis Sinclair. The family set sail in 1863 and eventually anchored in Victoria, British Columbia. Unfortunately, they did not find Vancouver Island suitable for their plans and moved on to another paradise — Niihau Island, Hawaii.