SECTION II., 1912. [3] Trans. R.S, C. 
Extracts from Lord Selkirk’s Diaries in Upper and Lower Canada in the 
years 1803 and 1804. 
By GEorGe Bryce, M.A., D.D., LL.D. 
While this is the Centennial year, marking the arrival of Lord 
Selkirk’s Colonists on the banks of Red River (1812), and while the 
people of Winnipeg and Manitoba are rightly commemorating this fact by 
having the foundation of a statue to the memory of Lord Selkirk, their 
great founder, laid by H. R. H. the Duke of Connaught, Governor 
General of Canada, yet it is of importance to remember that nearly a 
decade before this time, (1812) the Earl of Selkirk established a flourish- 
ing Highland settlement in Prince Edward Island in 1803, and after 
doing so, in that and the succeeding year passed through the State of 
New York, and in November of that year entered Canada by crossing 
the Niagara river and making his way through both Upper and Lower 
Canada. 
Lord Selkirk not only wrote his book on Emigration, published in 
1805, but has left behind him most interesting and well written accounts 
of his journeys in North America. These are found in Five Diaries, 
as follow:— 
I. Aug. 3rd to Oct. 5th, 1803. 
II. Oct. 7th to Nov. 14th, 1803. 
III. Nov. 15th to Feb. 18th, 1804. 
IV. Feb. 21st to June 4th, 1804. 
V. June, 1804 to 
The Diaries in Upper and Lower Canada are historically very valu- 
able. As all historians know, the history of Upper Canada, especially 
from 1800 to 1837, is most difficult to estimate properly on account of 
the political animosities between the Family Compact and Gourlay, 
Wilcox, William Lyon Mackenzie and others. Here we have the opinion 
of a British nobleman, of independent mind and great force of character. 
Lord Selkirk was a University of Edinburgh man (born 1771, one 
of a family of seven sons and four daughters, he being the youngest of 
the seven sons, and as the only survivor of the seven sons, succeeded 
his father as Earl of Selkirk in 1799). He was a young man of surpris- 
ing ability and great courage. His Diaries are wonders of accuracy, 
power of observation, and faculty to seize the main point of any subject 
which he was investigating. They are now in the possession of his grand- 
son, Captain John Hope, R.N., who lives at the Selkirk family residence, 
Sec. II., 1912. 1. 
