Northern Waterways Reference Collection

Author: Mair, Charles and Roderick MacFarlane

Title: Through the Mackenzie Basin: A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 (also "Notes on the Mammals and Birds of Northern Canada")

Year: 1908

Publisher: Toronto: William Briggs

Pages: 551

Source: Google Books  

Description: "When Through the Mackenzie Basin was published in 1908, it marked the culmination of the literary career of one of Canada's most passionately nationalist writers, Charles Mair. Then an official with the federal immigration service, Mair had accompanied the Treaty 8 Commission and the Half-Breed Scrip Commission throughout what is now Northern Alberta as one of its official secretaries during the summer of 1899. Notes compiled while on this excursion were used as the basis of his subsequent account, which is a lively and detailed description of the people, events and scenery witnessed at the time. The work is presented from the perspective of a lover of the wilderness and a strong apologist for the British Empire, whose reputation and expressed world view could warrant his designation as the Rudyard Kipling of Canada.

"As a documentary source Mair's book ... was written by a first-hand witness to ... the signing of Treaty 8 at Lesser Slave Lake, and certain other adhesions that followed. Mair was also a direct participant in the details of the initial distribution of scrip in the region that summer. In addition to the official documents, his account has come to constitute the most detailed published source for the interpretation of these events, although obviously written by a decided government apologist" (from Virtual Museum Canada: "The Making of Treaty 8 in Canada's Northwest" ).