Map of the North West Part of Canada.
Indian Territories & Hudson’s Bay
Compiled & Drawn by Thos. Devine, Provincial Land Surveyor & Draftsman, by Order of the Hon. Joseph Cauchon, Commissioner of Crown Lands
Crown Lands Department
Toronto March, 1857.

Profiles of a) Route for Pacific railroad from St. Pauls Mississippi River to Puget Sound No. I, b) Mouth of Kansas River to Fort Vancouver Columbia River No. II. c) Council Bluff Missouri River to San Francisco Pacific Ocean No. III; d) Westport to the River Savier Utah No. IV Erebus & Terror Bay 1 1/2″ x 2 1/4″

Map No. 12 in Voorhis [1].

This map is labeled as “De L’Isle’s Map, 1752” in The Great Company, a history of the Hudson’s Bay Company by Henry Beckles Willson [1869–1942] [1]. Guillaume de L’Isle [1675–1726] was a French cartographer known for his popular and accurate maps of Europe and the newly explored Americas.

Map of Canada Showing Historic Forts and Trading Posts
Department of the Interior, 1930
Prepared by National Development Bureau

Map of the Province of British Columbia
Compiled by direction of the Honourable G. B. Martin,
Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works, Victoria, B.C.
Compiled and drawn in the Department of Lands and Works
by Gotfred Jörgensen C.E. 1895

Gotfred Emil Jörgensen (flourished c. 1890–1910) was a Danish-American civil engineer active in British Columbia, Canada, and Washington State in the late 19th and early 20h centuries. Jörgensen is elusive, and there is no record of his birth in Denmark or his relocation to the Pacific Northwest. He lived for a time in Seattle, where he appears in the 1891 directory as a Civil Engineer, but most of his work was done for the British Columbia Department of Lands and Works. In his earliest maps, he appears as a “draughtsman,” by 1891 he is listed as a “civil engineer,” and by 1909 he is the “Survey General of British Columbia.” It is possible he returned to Denmark in the early 20th century. He is most admired for his large-scale maps of Victoria City and British Columbia.

A General Map of the Routes in British North America Explored by the Expedition under Captain Palliser, during the years 1857, 1858, 1859, 1860. Compiled from the Observations and Reports of Captain Palliser and his Offcers, including the Maps constructed by Dr. Hector, and other authentic documents. To accompany “The Journals, Detailed Reports, & Observations” presented to both Houses of Parliament, by Command of Her Majesty, 19th May, 1863. Standord’s Geographical Estab. London, 1865

Captain John Palliser [1817–1887] was a geographer who hailed from County Meath, Ireland. After service in the military he participated in a hunting exploration among the native peoples of the American West that was chronicled in his book, Adventures of a Hunter in the Prairies, published to much acclaim in 1853.


Later that decade, the Royal Geographic Society proposed to the Colonial Office that Palliser explore Canadian territory between Lake Superior and the Rocky Mountains, which was approved by Secretary of State for the Colonies, Henry Labouchere. His instructions to Palliser was to attain a general and scientific knowledge of the regions in areas of land, agriculture, coal and minerals.


This map shows the routes taken by the British North America Exploring Expedition over its four year period. Despite a £13,000 budget that was three times the original estimate its findings provided the Government with invaluable evidence on the topographical and economic potential of the country.

A Map of America,
Between Latitudes 40° and 70° North, and Longitudes 80° and 150° West,
Exhibiting the Principal Trading Stations of the
North West Company.

The map appears in Notice respecting the boundary between His Majesty’s possessions in North America and the United States, 1817, a 12-page booklet attributed to Simon McGillivray [1785–1840]. [1] McGillivray played a role in merging the family-owned North West Company with the rival Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821.

This map is similar to Sax’s map of North America, 1818.

This map is cited by Ernest Voorhis [1859–1933] in Historic Forts and Trading Posts as Map No. 5, “America exhibiting principal trading stations of North West Co. in Davidson’s North West Co., London 1817” [2]. Gordon Charles Davidson [1884–1922] published The North West Company in 1918, containing the same map [3].

Daniel Williams Harmon [1778–1843] was a fur trader and diarist. Harmon was born in Bennington, Vermont, and died in Sault-au-Récollet (Montreal North), Lower Canada. He joined the North West Company in 1800 and gradually moved westward. He took as a common-law wife Elizabeth (Lizzette) Laval or Duval (ca. 1790 – 1862) in 1805, at South Branch House on the South Saskatchewan River. They legally married in 1819, at Fort William, Ontario, and had 12 children.

Harmon arrived in New Caledonia in 1809. There he served for ten years at Fort Saint James and Fort Fraser.

The map seems largely based on Mackenzie’s map North America 1803.