118 THE lîoVAl. SOCIETY OF CANADA 



of his life during the years, 1796, 1797, 1800, 1803 to 1805, 1806, 1807, 

 and 1821. There was also a meteorological Register kept by Peter 

 Fidler himself from 1793 to 1807, giving the places at which he lived 

 during those fourteen j^ears, the readings of the thermometer twice a 

 day, the direction and force of the wind, and general remarks on the 

 climate, as well as occasional notes on remarkable occurrences in the 

 country at that time. In addition to these books written by himself 

 some other papers and journals were seen which gave some information 

 about him and the life which he led. 



From these data I am able to offer a brief sketch of Peter Fidler's 

 life in Western Canada, and a very few items of interest out of his 

 extended and detailed journals. 



Peter Fidler was born at Bolsover, Derbyshire, on the sixteenth 

 of August 1769, and entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company 

 when he was nineteen years old, which would be in 1788. During 

 the following winter he probably remained at York Factory, but in 

 1789 he went to Cumberland House on the Saskatchewan River, where 

 he remained in company with David Thompson and Phillip Turner, the 

 former of whom was one year his junior, while the latter was an enthu- 

 siastic surveyor and astronomer who had been in the service of the 

 Company for a number of years, and who doubtless had much to do 

 with the training of the two young men who were thus thrown in 

 contact with him. 



Where he spent the following year is not known, but it is reported, 

 perhaps truly, that in the summer of 1791 he accompanied Phillip 

 Turner on his expedition to survey Lake Athabasca, in which case he 

 doubtless spent the winter of 1791-1792 with his chief at old Fort 

 Chipewyan on the south side of the lake. Here he would have been 

 the guest of Roderick Mackenzie of the North- West Company, though, 

 being a young man and merely acting as assistant to Mr. Turner, he 

 is not mentioned in any of the correspondence of Roderick Mackenzie 

 which I have seen. 



In 1792 he was back again on the Saskatchewan River at Bucking- 

 ham House, the most western trading post of the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany at that time. From that post he travelled southwestward across 

 the plains to the foot of Chief Mountain in the main range of the Rocky 

 Mountains, and not far north of the present boundary line between the 

 United States and Canada. Here he spent the winter, doubtless in a 

 camp of Blackfeet or Piegan Indians, and in the following summer 

 returned to Buckingham House, after which he ascended the Sas- 

 katchewan River for about one hundred miles, his courses and positions 

 for these two years being laid down on Arrowsmith's map of North- 

 western America, made in 179."), with corrections to 1796. 



