Calling River: Maps and Dreams

The first recorded description of the Qu’Appelle River appears in an 1804 journal entry by the Vermont-born fur-trader Daniel Harmon. The “Calling River” was first cartographically represented in the explorer David Thompson’s Map of the North-West Territory of Canada, 1792–1812.

Henry Yule Hind
Map from theNarrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857 and the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition of 1858
Engraved by Edward Weller

James Wyld, Geographer to the Queen
General Map of Part of the North West Territory including the Province of Manitoba shewing Dominion Land Surveys to December 1882

James Wyld, Géographe de la Reine
Carte générale de la partie du Territoire du Nord-Ouest comprenant la province du Manitoba montrant les levers des terres du Dominion jusqu’à décembre 1882

Beginning with the English watercolourist Henry James Warre (1819–1898) in 1845, topographical artists and surveyors provided the first views of the valley and its lakes. There followed in 1860 the published narrative of the Canadian Red River, Assiniboine, and Saskatchewan Expedition of 1857–58, illustrated with wood-engravings based on the expeditionary watercolours of artist–engineer John A. Fleming (1836–1876), brother of the better-known Sir Sandford Fleming.

Oliver B. Buell
Untitled (figure overlooking lake, Fort Qu’Appelle in distance)

Oliver B. Buell
Sans titre (personnage observant le lac, Fort Qu’Appelle dans le lointain)

Oliver B. Buell
York and Simcoe Battalions leave the Valley to Support Middleton at Batoche following the roops en route on Touchwood Trail To Batoche

Oliver B. Buell
Les bataillons York et Simcoe quittent la vallée pour soutenir Middleton à Batoche en suivant les troupes sur le sentier Touchwood en route vers Batoche

Rev. Edward Francis Wilson
View of Standing Buffalo’s Reserve at Qu’Appelle (Saskatchewan)—then a part of the old pre-1905 Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan

L’Abbé Edward Francis Wilson
Vue de la réserve Standing Buffalo à Qu’Appelle (Saskatchewan)—qui faisait alors partie des Territoires du Nord-Ouest avant 1905, Saskatchewan

Sydney Prior Hall
Half-Breeds at Fort Qu’Appelle, August 18, 1881

Sydney Prior Hall
Des sang-mêlé à Fort Qu’Appelle, le 18 août 1881

Before the railways, access to the Qu’Appelle was chiefly via the Carlton Trail, a rough cart track from the Red River Settlement (Winnipeg) to Fort Edmonton. In 1885, during the North-West Rebellion, General F.D. Middleton chose Fort Qu’Appelle, the former Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in the heart of the valley, as the staging ground for his northward march against Louis Riel. Images from this campaign in periodicals and newspapers (often based on photographs) first brought the Qu’Appelle to national and international attention.

Charles W. Jefferys
Western Sunlight, Last Mountain Lake

Charles W. Jefferys
Lumière du soleil de l’Ouest, Lac Last Mountain

Charles W. Jefferys
Untitled [sketch for A Storm on the Prairie]

Charles W. Jefferys
Sans titre [croquis pour Un orage dans la prairie]

A commission from the Canadian Northern Railway brought the Toronto-based C.W. Jefferys (1869–1951) to the western end of the valley in the summers of 1911 and ’12. His four-part “prairie sonata” helped open eastern-central Canada’s eyes to the Qu’Appelle’s pictorial possibilities. Meanwhile, a commissioned portrait record of the valley’s tribal leaders (Cree, Assiniboine, Sioux) was being formed by Edmund Morris (1871–1913), son of Alexander Morris, lieutenant-governor of Saskatchewan and drafter of Treaty Four. This project of documenting an allegedly dying race was taken up by James Henderson (1871–1951), Augustus Kenderdine (1870–1947), Fr. Henry Metzger (1877–1949), and Nicholas de Grandmaison (1892–1978).

Charles W. Jefferys
A Storm on the Prairie (“Allegro Maestoso”)

Charles W. Jefferys
Un orage sur la prairie (“Allegro Maestoso”)

Charles W. Jefferys
A Prairie Sunset

Charles W. Jefferys
Un coucher de soleil dans la prairie

Next: Kâ-têpwêwi-sîpiy Who Calls