View topic - A P Low's map and the Hubbard tragedy

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PostPosted: February 17th, 2009, 8:56 am 
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jmc wrote:
. But it is also an object lesson in how much easier navigation became once aerial photography began producing accurate topographic maps, and explorers no longer had to grope blindly through a maze of islands and peninsulas, indistinguishable from the mainland at water level.

-jmc


I'd say partially true. Even with accurate topos the "maze of islands and peninsulas, (are) indistinguishable from the mainland at water level, as Davidson & Rugge so clearly illustrate in their "Wilderness Canoeing" book. But one can grope with confidence if it's known that there's a passage thru the islands & pens.

I would also argue that if you have a map in your hand based on arial photography, that you are still a navigator but no longer qualify as an 'explorer". And that's the problem I have with Wallace or others possibly blaming Low's map for their misfortune. The stated object of the Hubbard trip was to explore the 'unknown' (to 'boldy go', one might say, where no paleface has gone before). So they could hardly complain(and apparently, in fact, they did not) that inaccurate maps led them astray.

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PostPosted: February 17th, 2009, 9:31 am 
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I'm embarrassed with my "contributions" to this thread and really would like to let it sink, but jmc told me at WCS how Pike Lake got that name; over to you.

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PostPosted: February 17th, 2009, 10:54 am 
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Well, Allan

After re-checking the maps, I find my explanation at the symposium for Pike Lake was wrong. So you are not alone. I think the modern map maker, seeing "Mary Lake" on the Wallace map and "Pike Lake" on Mina's, just attached Pike Lake to another good-sized lake in the area, more or less at random.

I think Wotrock makes a good point about "explorers" and "navigators" for the most part. But I will still claim to have "discovered" - often to my dismay - a number of things at ground level that were not entirely obvious from an aerial map.

-jmc


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PostPosted: February 18th, 2009, 12:22 pm 
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No need to be embarrased at all, Alan. I, for one, have found this thread to be quite interesting. Now that the thread seems to have petered out a bit, I'd like to make a couple of comments related to the expeditions but not to the maps.

One is an opinion that I have voiced elsewhere on CCR but I'll repeat here just for the hell of it. I guess that the expeditions must be named for whoever does the financing and comes up with the original idea, but as far as the trip itself, George Elson was very much the real leader on Mina's trip. Apart from the financing, Mina was a burden on the trip. The ideas of chivalry current at the time would not allow MIna to do much work of any kind. In fact, I'm not sure she even helped paddle. George was les the leader on the first trip since he deferred decision making to Hubbard and Wallace. Nevertheless, Wallace's second trip would not have been possible w/o Elson because he would not have made it back out.

The second thing is the suggestion made in Great Heart that Elson aspired to start a romance with Mina but was held back because she was white and he was a 'breed'(to use the term used back then. My comment is that Elson deserved better than Mina. He was a 'diamond in the rough', but a diamond nonetheless. Mina was vengeful and small-minded, no heroine in my books.

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PostPosted: February 18th, 2009, 1:08 pm 
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Think I got the facts straight on this one at least.
I looked for George Elson's grave the last time I was in Moosonee/Moose Factory (1993). I found his wife's grave in the St Thomas graveyard but not his.
I read later that he is indeed buried there but in an unmarked grave.

There's my summary of the discussion:
Mary Lake is correctly identified on today's topo.
Pike Lake is not; it was wiped out by the flooding.
Windbound Lake also was wiped out by the flooding, as were other lakes listed by jmc.
Brad Bassi's map of "Hubbard"'s route is incorrect in the Mary Lake area.
Anything else?

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PostPosted: February 18th, 2009, 1:31 pm 
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Pike Lake, as identified on modern topos, was not flooded. It exists on both the pre-and post flooding topos, a little southwest of Mary lake.

My guess is that the error on the Bassi map comes from Mina replacing the "Mary Lake" on Wallace's map with her name of "Pike Lake" - the Bassi map has the Hubbard route ending in the "modern" Pike Lake, if I recall correctly.

-jmc


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PostPosted: March 24th, 2010, 8:06 pm 
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Hi All

This thread is ol now but I have been interested in this story for a long time. My comments are based on my experience as a professional outdoor guide, ski, mountaineering, sailingsea kayaking. Basically, anyone can lead a canoe trip if nothing goes wrong.

Elson was a professional outdoorsman though not necessarily an "explorer". Hubbard and Wallace were amateur sportsman. Wallace would have no business making decisions and Hubbard, noble as he was in intentions, was not much better. They might have done better if they had hired Elson to lead the expedition to cross Labrador and followed his advice as Mina did.

"Intrepid" white explorers got into big trouble and were barely saved by the "half breed" who was actually the most savvy of them all.


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