On The Road With Captain Palliser 1857-1860

By Joyce McCart

First Choice Books, 276 pp., $18.95

When Capt. John Palliser and John William Sullivan arrived in Victoria on Jan. 2, 1860, they had already done their best to shape the history of Western Canada.

Palliser's expedition, with Sullivan serving as an assistant surveyor and secretary, had spent the previous summer exploring a huge area in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan - the area known today as the Palliser Triangle.

In Victoria, they explored the Hudson's Bay Company fort, which Palliser noted in a letter was "splendidly supplied with almost every kind of merchandise." Also, since women were in short supply, "female servants are in universal demand."

They visited Esquimalt, and were entertained by Gov. James Douglas and officers of the Royal Navy.

Sullivan left for England within a few days, but Palliser stayed in the area for more than two months, with a side trip to New Westminster and Fort Langley while he was here. He left Victoria on March 20, bound for San Francisco, and after crossing at Panama, he made it to England that summer.

In the summer of 1859, Palliser had determined that a huge area on the Prairies was too dry to support farming. He said it was like a desert, and did not compare with the more fertile land to the north, which would be more suitable for settlement.

His recommendation was clear: Do not bring settlers into the triangle.

Critics said that Palliser had seen the land during a dry spell, and that it could be turned into great farmland regardless of what he said. In 1878, the route of the first railway across the Prairies was surveyed across the triangle, encouraging the establishment of stations, towns and farms.

And so it was that the land in Palliser's triangle was divided into half-milesquare quarter-sections and made available to eager wannabe farmers, including my grandfather, who laid claim to a quarter close to the Alberta-Saskatchewan border but gave up on it soon after.

The settlers soon learned that Palliser was right. When they broke the land with their plows, they removed the protective sod and exposed the topsoil.

Before many years, the topsoil had turned to dust.

The winds took the topsoil away, destroying farm after farm. Conditions were at their worst during the depression years of the Dirty Thirties, when drought and wind combined to create massive dust storms that spread across three provinces.

The farms were worthless. The poor suckers who had planned to create lifelong security on their homesteads were forced to abandon their dreams, swallow their debts and move on.

The quarter-sections have been consolidated into rangeland, supporting grazing cattle but rarely being used for crops.

If only everyone had listed to Capt. John Palliser, who got it right a century and a half ago.

On The Road With Captain Palliser is an excellent look at Palliser's work in Canada, well-written and solidly researched. Author Joyce McCart, who lives in Innisfail, Alta., has gone further than other historians in analyzing Palliser's reports of his travels, and linking them to modern-day landmarks.

She also tells us how to duplicate those travels - which roads to use, which villages to visit. Several maps help us understand where Palliser went and how we can get there ourselves.

As a result, we can see the same views that Palliser saw, and in many cases reach the same conclusions. Much of the land has returned to its original state; signs of the foolish attempts to farm it are hard to find outside of the areas served by irrigation systems.

McCart has considered the works of previous researchers, and has reached her own conclusions about where Palliser went. In many cases she has identified his route down to an individual lake, or hill, or coulee. There is nothing like research on location to truly understand what happened.

This book is an important contribution that follows McCart's previous work on the routes taken by explorer David Thompson.

The most surprising element is that that the Palliser book, unlike the Thompson book, was self-published.

This book has better writing, a higher standard of research and a more professional look than many of the books coming from regular publishers these days.

McCart's work shows what can be done if there is passion for a subject and a commitment to quality.

On The Road With Captain Palliser is one of the year's best books on Western Canadian history, and should be part of any serious library of Prairies material.

The reviewer, the editorial page editor of the Times Colonist, is the author of The Library Book: A History of Service to British Columbia.