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Exploration of Canada between 1821 and 1851 was concentrated north of Latitude
60 degrees North and in central Ungava and Labrador. These were the last inland
frontiers in Canada, locales of the canoe. Beyond, the Arctic islands were
one more frontier, reached in sailing ships that could withstand year-round
ice floes.
Hudson’s Bay Company personnel penetrated Ungava and the interior of
Labrador, including places beyond the original company limits established
in 1670 (interactive map: Exploration 1818-1851 -> map layers: Primary routes, 1822-1834, and 1834-1845). They also took up new
responsibilities in New Caledonia (later British Columbia) and the Northwestern
area (later Northwest Territories and Yukon) in the 1820s. Scots had come
to dominate the HBC operations, judging from the many Scottish names among
the explorers. Their maps achieved new levels of sophistication, using the
rectangular grid and demonstrating better and better proportions of the land
masses. (static maps: Arrowsmith 1832, and 1854)
Exploration among the Arctic Islands fell to Great Britain, and progress there
was fitfully slow. By 1851 the gap between navigators seeking the Northwest
passage westward from Davis Strait and those headed eastward from Beaufort
Sea (Arctic Ocean) was tantalizingly close to being closed. (map layer: Primary routes,
1846-1851). But the circuit of the Russian Alaska coast remained unfulfilled,
and a full passage between Atlantic and Pacific would await another century.
By 1850 the Canadian region as a whole was known continuously north to latitude
55 degrees (about half way between the American border and the northern limit
of the Prairie Provinces and BC). The area beyond was largely unpenetrated
boreal forest and tundra criss-crossed by established routeways repeatedly
travelled. There was a shift from exploration for its own sake to creating
standard corridors of access for resource exploitation, and not just furs.
Incidental, opportunistic exploration would continue and ultimately the full
land would be revealed through aerial surveys and photography in the second
quarter of the 20th century.
