Signing up enhances your TCE experience with the ability to save items to your personal reading list, and access the interactive map.
Create AccountThe significance of the Cretaceous fossil resources was realized during the "Great Canadian Dinosaur Rush" (1911-1925), when more than 300 skeletons found their way into the displays of museums around the World.
Born in London of Welsh parents, David Thompson was an outsider, struggling to find a foothold in the empire that had consumed his country. He described himself as a solitary traveler, unknown to the world.
Sir Alexander Mackenzie, propelled by the fur trade and his own wanderlust, was the first person to traverse the North American continent north of Mexico.
Sir David Kirke, trader and privateer, first governor of Newfoundland (born at Dieppe, France c1597; died near London, England 1654). Kirke, with Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, formed the Company of Adventurers, which was granted patents by King Charles I. It gave them the right to trade and settle in Canada. Kirke was the owner of the first recorded Black chattel-slave in New France, Olivier Le Jeune.
Joseph Whiteside Boyle (born 6 November 1867 in Toronto, ON; died 14 April 1923 in Hampton Hill, Middlesex, United Kingdom). Nicknamed Klondike Joe, Boyle founded a gold mining company and became a millionaire in the aftermath of the Klondike gold rush. During the First World War, he equipped a machine gun unit and was a spy with the British secret service in Russia and Romania. He also reorganized the Russian military supply network, rescued Romanian prisoners of war and became the confidant and possibly lover of Queen Marie of Romania.
"I sprang from the oars to my feet, and lifted the anchor above my head, threw it clear just as she was turning over. I grasped her gunwale and held on as she turned bottom up, for I suddenly remembered that I could not swim." - Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World, 1900.
Joshua Slocum, sea captain and author (b at Wilmot Township, NS 20 Feb 1844; d at sea sometime after 14 Nov 1909).
Eenoolooapik, also known as Bobbie, Inuk traveller, guide (born circa 1820 in Qimisuk [or Qimmiqsut], Cumberland Sound, NT; died in 1847 in Cumberland Sound, NU). Eenoolooapik provided British whaling captain William Penny with a map of Cumberland Sound that led to the rediscovery of that area 255 years after English explorer John Davis first saw it. The geographic information Eenoolooapik provided to whalers led to years of permanent whaling camps in Cumberland Sound.
Joseph-Elzéar Bernier, arctic mariner (born 1 January 1852 in L'Islet, QC; died on 26 December 1934 in Lévis, QC). Captain of the government steamship Arctic, Bernier led seagoing expeditions into the Arctic between 1904 and 1911, certifying Canada's claim to the northern archipelago (see Canadian Arctic Exploration; Arctic Archipelago).
Joseph Burr Tyrrell, geologist, explorer, historian (born 1 November 1858 in Weston, Canada West; died 26 August 1957 in Toronto, ON). Tyrrell explored the vast areas of western and northern Canada, consolidating information gathered by earlier explorers and filling in blank spots on the maps, especially in the Northwest Territories, while working for 17 years for the Geological Survey of Canada (1881–98).
David Thompson, explorer, cartographer (born 30 April 1770 in London, England; died 10 February 1857 in Longueuil, Canada East). David Thomson was called “the greatest land geographer who ever lived.” He walked or paddled 80,000 km or more in his life, mapping most of western Canada, parts of the east and the northwestern United States. And like so many geniuses, his achievements were only recognized after his death.
