A | A Continent Beckoning

The lines on this map were the only "boundaries" that mattered to the Nor'Wester canoe brigades. They are heights of land that had to be portaged or (in the case of the Great Divide) traversed by pack horses.

These rivers were the main "roads" used by the Nor'Wester canoe brigades.

For the Nor'Wester canoe brigades, these lakes were crucial destinations. Each lake offered them river roads permitting them to travel in all four directions.

This crucial hub was home to the Nor'Westers home base (Montreal). Before the United States became independent, the canoe brigades often proceeded south to New York and to the Ohio country, and also southwest to the Missouri and the Mississippi. After 1803, they mostly travelled west to Lake Superior.

From this hub, the canoe brigades mostly proceeded south to the Missouri country, west to the prairies, and northwest to the huge basin of the Mackenzie River. On occasion, they also used Lake Winnipeg as a base to travel northeast to Hudson Bay, where the Hudson's Bay Company maintained its major forts.

This hub gave the Nor'Westers access to passes through the Rocky Mountains and also to the lands lying northward of Great Slave Lake.

B | A Continent Imagined

Carolus Allard was a Dutch engraver who in 1700 published a map entitled Recentissima Novi Orbis sive Americae Septentrionalis et Meridionalis Tabula. It portrayed California as a large island, north of which lay a long stretch of the North American continent labelled "Terra Esonis."

In 1729, the French fur trader Vérendrye produced a map based on information provided to him by his Indigenous guides. The guides correctly understood that the outlet from Lake Winnipeg flows north to Hudson Bay. Vérendrye didn't understand what they were telling him. He interpreted them to say that it flowed to the "South Sea" = the "Sea of the West" = the Pacific Ocean.

Jonathan Carver was a colonial militiaman who in 1766 embarked on a three-year expedition to explore the lands lying west of Lake Michigan. In 1778, he published an account of his travels, and it contained a map that illustrated his conceptions of North American geography. It was because of this map that the name "Ouragon" became associated with the fabled River of the West.

In 1787, the Nor'Wester Peter Pond prepared a map that he intended to deliver to the Empress of Russia. His plan was to first proceed to the Pacific Ocean by following the outlet of Great Slave Lake. He conjectured that the outlet river would take him to a large inlet of the Pacific Ocean that Captain Cook had explored in 1778. Once on the Pacific coast, Pond was intending to connect with Russian traders who, he hoped, would take him to St. Petersburg.

Jedidiah Morse was an American geographer who in 1797 produced a map indicating that the west-central part of the North American continent was drained by a single large "River or the West." This map might have influenced Thomas Jefferson as he planned the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

C | A Continent Explored

Beginning in 1731, the French trader Vérendrye, aided by his sons, engaged in a series of expeditions that took them westward. Their goal was to find a canoe road that would connect Lake Winnipeg to the Pacific Ocean (the "Western Sea"). They reached the Mandan country on the Missouri, the Black Hills in South Dakota, and the lower Saskatchewan River. They did not reach the Western Sea.

Between 1778 and 1811, explorers from four different nations mapped most of the Northwest Coast, from the estuary of the Columbia River in the south to Cook's Inlet in the north.

In 1778, the Nor'Wester Peter Pond left the basin of the Saskatchewan River and crossed Frog Portage to the eastward-flowing Churchill River. He next crossed Methye Portage to reach the Clearwater River, which flows west to the Athabasca River. He proceeded down the Athabasca until he reached Lake Athabasca.

On 3 May 1789, the Nor'Wester Alexander Mackenzie set out from Lake Athabasca believing he was on a course that would take him to the Pacific Ocean. On 9 June, he and his men arrived at Great Slave Lake, finding it still covered with ice. On 29 June they found the lake's outlet, a river that tantalizingly flowed westward. But to their dismay, it soon turned north. On 12 July they reached its delta on the Arctic Ocean. Mackenzie gave the river a name that reflected his mood: "River of Disappointment."

D | A Continent Exploited

The French Empire of the St. Lawrence was based on trade with the Indigenous inhabitants of the continent's interior. Settlement was sparse. French farms could be found on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. Elsewhere, the French presence was confined to trading posts.

The Nor'Wester Trunk Line was a chain of rivers and lakes connecting the western side of Lake Superior to Lake Athabasca and Great Slave Lake.  The hardiest of the voyageurs, the "Athabasca men", could travel it both ways in a single season.

Like the French Empire of the St. Lawrence, this was a trading empire, not an empire of settlements. A map of it was prepared by the Nor'Wester David Thompson in 1814, and for many years it was on display at the company's headquarters in Fort William.

E | A Continent Divided

The United States was brought into being by the Paris Treaty of 1783.  Its final territorial limits (on the North American continent) were set by an 1853 treaty with Mexico.

When the Treaty of 1783 was being negotiated, it was necessary to  designate a boundary separating the new United States from British Territories to the north.  For the northwest portion of this boundary, Benjamin Franklin proposed a line that extended due west from Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi River.  The map he used to illustrate this proposal was one made by John Mitchell in 1785, and its crucial northwest section was covered by an inset.  The inset misled the British peace commissioners.  They left the negotiating table believing incorrectly that the new boundary would permit British traders to reach the Mississippi without having to cross American territory.  They were not aware that a line running due west from Lake of the Woods would never touch the Mississippi, because its sources are well to the south of any such line.

In 1819, John Quincy Adams (then U.S. Secretary of State) successfully negotiated a new treaty with Spain.  It established a boundary separating the United States from Spanish territories to the south.  The line proceeded north and west from the Gulf of Mexico to the 42nd parallel, thence westward along that parallel to the Pacific Ocean.  For the first time, the United States had a boundary that reached the Pacific.  It gave the United States the ability to claim the Oregon Territory to the north -- territory that British fur traders at that time regarded as theirs.

When the Ghent Treaty of 1814 was being negotiated, the partners of the North West Company called for a new boundary separating the United States from British North America. The one they proposed was defined by the Ohio River, the Mississippi River, and the Missouri River. Had this line been established, it would have eventually been extended westward to the Pacific Ocean along the 42nd parallel, thereby ensuring that the whole of the Columbia River basin remained in British hands. Canadians today might regard this as a lost opportunity: had the British government pursued the North West Company's proposal, the U.S. government would have been forced to accept it, and Canada's southern boundary would today be much farther south than the current 49th parallel line.

Between 1818 and 1846, Great Britain and the United States both claimed this entire territory for themselves.  They didn't refer to it as "Esonia." The British referred to it as the Columbia District, while the Americans called it the Oregon District.

The Indigenous nations now inhabiting this entire territory can plausibly argue that it should be an autonomous state where they are the sole governors.