Tag: Canada Essays

Mallory Novicoff has written an essay about her visit to the McCord Museum in February of 2023, which you can read here.

During her visit, Mallory examined early photographs of Western Canada from the Red River settlement, taken during the 1858 Assiniboine and Saskatchewan expedition led by Henry Youle Hind and photographed by Humphrey Lloyd Hime. The visit aimed to understand the Red River landscape, Métis and Anishinaabeg lifestyles, and the voyageurs’ navigation methods. Hime’s photographs provide invaluable insights into the mid-19th century life, architecture, and people of the Red River settlement, including portraits of Cree-Métis individuals. These images are significant for their historical and cultural value, they are early visual records of the region’s diverse inhabitants and their interactions.

Mallory Novicoff has written an essay about Frances Simpson’s journey with the Hudson’s Bay Company, which you can read here.

Frances Simpson’s diary provides a detailed account of her journey with the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), highlighting interactions with Indigenous peoples and reflecting on social dynamics in the Canadian West during the early 19th century. On May 2nd, her party received a warm welcome at the Lake of the Two Mountains by chiefs of the Iroquois, Algonquin, and Nepisang tribes. Simpson’s observations often included descriptions of the people’s appearance and dress. Her interactions with Indigenous and Métis women were strained. The arrival of British women like Simpson disrupted the customs of the fur trade, and caused an increase in the rarity of marriages to country wives. Simpson’s account of her journey, which concluded at the Red River settlement, is marked by both the hardships of travel and the kindness of HBC men. Despite the physical comforts of her new home, she experienced loneliness and homesickness. The isolation described in Simpson’s diary shows how the arrival of British women in the Canadian West underscored increasing class and racial distinctions.

Mallory Novicoff has written an essay, which you can read here, about the life of Frances Simpson (1812-53), one of the first British women to travel across Canada in a canoe.

When she was a child Frances Simpson’s father lost his estate, and control of the people he enslaved, in British Guiana, so Frances grew up in a modest situation. Despite this, she was able to gain knowledge of botany, which would later be reflected in her diary. She married her cousin, George Simpson, a high ranking official in the Hudson’s Bay Company who was already in an unofficial partnership with a “country wife,” a Métis woman named Margaret Taylor. Frances’ diary documents her journey from Britain to Canada, as well as her expeditions in Canada. It provides valuable insights into the social history of early Canada, detailing the challenges of the journey and showcasing the reliance on Indigenous guides and voyageurs.