Pieces on Sandford Fleming before he was knighted ...
Sandford Fleming & Time Zones - Stuck Overnight at Bundoran in 1876!
1881 - Sandford Fleming Rides in a Gondola
Time Zones for Railways in North America
International Meridian Conference, 1884 - Indefatigable Sandford Fleming
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The Fleming Expedition of 1872 - from Halifax to Victoria
Fleming was a civil engineer and surveyor. In 1872, he was Engineer-in-Chief of the Intercolonial and he had also been offered the post of chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway survey.
Back in 1862, Fleming had presented the government with the plan for an ocean to ocean railway. A decade later, we find Fleming looking for a route for the railway to the Pacific. Below is a photo of some of the people embarking on that expedition.
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| Sitting: Frank Fleming, Mrs. Fleming, Mrs. Moren, Dr. Arthur Moren. Standing: Rev. G.M. Grant, Sandford Fleming, Col. Robertson Ross Library and Archives Canada / C-002788 |
Sitting:
Frank Fleming was Sandford Fleming's son.
Dr Arthur Moren was from Halifax and the medical officer for the trip.
Standing:
Rev GM Grant was born in Pictou, NS and was educated at Glasgow University - he chose to return to Canada to conduct his ministry and was the Secretary for the group. Afterwards, he was the author of Ocean to Ocean.
Colonel Patrick Robertson-Ross, Adjutant-General of the Canadian Militia (the Canadian 'army') joined the group between Toronto and Fort Garry.
The complete list of participants is shown below. At certain points personnel changed. Fleming sometimes dispatched members to explore alternate routes.
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Ocean to Ocean, Grant's skilfully-written account of the expedition, was widely read both in Canada and in the United Kingdom. It drummed up interest in the former Hudson's Bay Company lands of the Northwest and presented the railway as an essential element of Canadian nation building.
... It describes life and travel in the west before the introduction of mechanized transportation - the familiar CPR-settlement era. Grant's record of the feats of the highly-skilled guides from Kahnawake, including their canoe competitions and 'games' is particularly interesting.
Also mentioned are those whom we might consider to be 'refugees' from their own lands - bands from the United States who fear the 'longknives' - the US Cavalry. These aboriginal people hope for survival and safety by crossing the British North American border.
History is always complex and Grant foresees some of the difficult questions facing both the First Nations and Métis ... and those of European extraction ... once their cultures meet in the west.
Grant does not dwell on aboriginal issues, however, and he does not sugarcoat ...
As the expedition travelled during summer and late fall in Canada, the relative fierceness of the native insect population is the subject of regular documentation!
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My copy is:
Ocean to Ocean; Reverend George M Grant; 1873; Charles E Tuttle & Co (1967 reprint).
At the end, a link to another publisher's version at archive.org is provided.
The images with a yellow tint are from archive.org.
The map from the reprint is reproduced below.
It is not particularly easy to read, but it shows the general routes explored.
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| from: Ocean to Ocean; Rev George M Grant; 1873; Charles E Tuttle & Co (reprint). |
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The Itinerary of the Expedition
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"Bonus Content"
The North-west Angle - July 29, above.
As the expedition passes this location, the Secretary - the Rev George Grant - writes ...
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| from: Ocean to Ocean; Rev George M Grant; 1873; Charles E Tuttle & Co (reprint). |
As the border might have been ...
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| from: Historical Atlas of Manitoba; Warkentin & Ruggles; 1970; Historical & Scientific Society of Manitoba. |
This is the JS Dennis map of 1869.
You can see the Hudson's Bay Company post at the South-west Angle of Lake of the Woods.
The continuation (above) of the 49th Parallel to the South-west Angle of Lake of the Woods would have been logical.
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However, the Mitchell Map was cobbled together from maps compiled by an American-British physician-botanist ... originally from Virginia ... trying out yet another hobby after moving to Britain.
This was John Mitchell (1711-1768). His work was sponsored by George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax (yes, 'that Halifax') and published in 1755. Halifax had complex imperial motivations.
Hopefully, it was to no one's surprise that ... a map made at such a distance did not accurately fix the true location of the origin of the Mississippi River. It was this inaccuracy which indirectly led to the North-west Angle error (seen below). After several international armed conflicts, treaties, and conferences ... this error became the official boundary.
There were worse historical boundary injustices inflicted on Canada on our behalf by the Colonial Office (and its many antecedents) as it bargained with the United States. Please, let's not be bitter.
The 'Pene-exclave' of water-locked American isolation south of Angle Inlet (below) is the only part of the contiguous United States north of the 49th Parallel. A local plaque attributes this quirk of the border to the skilled negotiations of Benjamin Franklin.
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Today's Canada - US Border at Lake of the Woods
... at the North-west Angle (Northwest Point)
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| from: Google Maps 2026. |
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Having discussed the North-west Angle, the party continues west from 'Winnipeg'.
Here is the link to the book at archive.org
end