Fifty Years
in Western Canada

CHAPTER I

PREPARATION
[1859-1882]

E WHO is to be the subject of the present

volume is a Frenchman with an English name,

and apparently a man of ultimately English
descent. His name is as common in England as it is
rare in France. That is, no doubt, why, when he pub-
lished his book on the Northern Interior of British
Columbia, on which his fame rests with many people, a
namesake of his, a wealthy merchant in New York who
attributed much importance to family lore and genea-
logical trees, wrote him to enquire from which shire
or county of England he came. The enquirer was at
first rather nonplussed when told that the author of
that work had been born in France. His surprise,
however, turned to that satisfaction which is the
reward of a searcher who finds what corroborates
his surmise when, later, he learnt a bit of regional
history from the pen of his correspondent.

It appears that the part of France in which Father
Morice was born was, centuries ago, in the hands of the
English. This is a corner of Maine which is wedged

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