The year 1857 was an eventful one in the annals of "The North-West,"
the name by which the Territories were generally known in Canada.
[An important event in Red River was begot of the stirring
incidents of this year, namely, the starting at Fort Garry, in
December, 1859, by two gentlemen from Canada, Messrs. Buckingham
and Caldwell, of the first newspaper printed in British territory
east of British Columbia and west of Lake Superior. It was called
the _Nor'-Wester_, but, having few advertisements, and only a limited
circulation, the originators sold out to Dr. (afterwards Sir John)
Schultz, who, at his own expense, published the paper, almost down
to the Transfer, as an advocate of Canadian annexation, immigration
and development.] In that year two expeditions were set afoot to
explore the country; one in charge of Captain Palliser, [Strange
to say, Captain Palliser reported that he considered a line of
communication entirely through British territory, connecting the
Eastern Provinces and British Columbia, out of the question, as
the Astronomical Boundary adopted isolated the prairie country
from Canada. Professor Hind, on the other hand, in the same year,
standing on an eminence on the Qu'Appelle, beheld in imagination
the smoke of the locomotive ascending from the train speeding
over the prairies on its way through Canada from the Atlantic to
the Pacific.] equipped by the Imperial Government, and the other,
under Professor Hind, at the expense of the Government of Canada.
An influential body of Red River settlers, too, at this time
petitioned the Canadian Parliament to extend to the North-West
its government and protection; and in the same year the late Chief
Justice Draper was sent to England to challenge the validity of the
Hudson's Bay Company's charter; and to urge the opening up of the
country for settlement. But, above all, a committee of the British