SECTION Il. 1886. NOTA Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA. 
IV.—Brief Outlines of the most famous Journeys in and about Rupert’s Land. 
By GrorGceE Bryce, LL.D., Manitoba College, Winnipeg. 
(Read May 27, 1886.) 
AG 
Different Limits Assigned to Rupert’s Land. 
(1) Sir George Simpson, in his evidence before the committee of the Imperial Parlia- 
ment, claimed that Rupert’s Land extended from Hudson Bay to the Rocky Mountains. 
(2) It was claimed by others that the western boundary of Rupert’s Land was a line 
from Deer Lake south, about 102° 30’ W. longitude. 
(3) Probably the most generally accepted definition of Rupert’s Land, based upon the 
charter of the Hudson’s Bay Company (1670), is the region whose waters flow into 
Hudson Bay, except so far as the old Province of Quebec entered this territory on its 
southern side. 
The country lying to the west and north of Rupert’s Land was divided into 
sections :— 
(a) The territory drained by the rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean, including 
therein the region of the Athabasca, Mackenzie and Coppermine Rivers. 
(b) All the country lying on the west of the Rocky Mountains, between the Russian 
territory on the north and Columbia River on the south. 
The wide expanse of country lying west and north of Rupert’s Land was technically 
known as the “Indian Territories,” and over this an exclusive fur-trading license was 
given to the Hudson’s Bay Company by the Imperial Parliament, in 1821, for twenty-one 
years. This license was again renewed in 1838. The country lying to the west of the 
Rocky Mountains, reached by the Peace River, was, at times, called New Caledonia. 
B. 
Configuration of Rupert's Land and Indian Territories Favorable for Voyaging. 
Two main arteries lead from Hudson Bay to the interior :— 
(1) The most northerly of these is by way of Churchill River, at the mouth of 
which stood, in early days, Prince of Wales Fort, with massive stone walls and fortifica- 
tions. Down this river, which was also called English River, the Hudson’s Bay Company, 
for many years, received the trade of the interior without even leaving the coast, the 
