The Great Lone Land
A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America

An 1872 account by an Irish officer in the British army, covering his travels in Canada and American frontier territory.

William Francis Butler (Author)

9781108071024, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 March 2014

420 pages, 6 b/w illus. 1 map
21.6 x 14 x 2.4 cm, 0.53 kg

An Irish officer in the British army, William Francis Butler (1838–1910) travelled widely during a career which took him from India to Africa. In 1867 he made for Canada with his regiment, and he recalls his adventures in this lively account, first published in 1872 to immediate success, and followed by this second edition in the same year. The book covers Butler's risky reconnaissance mission during the Red River Rebellion, during which he met the Métis leader Louis Riel. Later chapters describe subsequent journeys into the sparsely populated Manitoba and Saskatchewan territories, as well as the US states of Illinois, Minnesota and North Dakota. In vivid detail, Butler describes the landscapes and peoples he encountered, including many Native American tribes. This region of North America was later transformed by an influx of settlers, and Butler's work captures the final days of what was then an underexplored wilderness.

Preface
1. Peace
2. The Samaria
3. Bunker
4. Chicago
5. Lake Superior
6. Our cousins
7. North Minnesota
8. Retrospective
9. Running the gauntlet
10. The Winnipeg river
11. The expedition
12. To Fort Garry
13. Westward
14. The Hudson Bay Company
15. Saskatchewan
16. The red man
17. Edmonton
18. Eastward
19. I start from Edmonton with dogs
20. The buffalo
21. The great sub-Arctic forest
22. Cumberland
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Historical geography [HBTP]