Walter B. Cheadle’s diary tells his incredible story of travelling with Lord Milton, as they journeyed along the uncharted Yellowhead route in 1862–63. A miraculously successful expedition, the men traversed the continent, making their way from Quebec, through Saskatchewan, Alberta, up the Athabasca River, risking their lives opening the trails through the Canadian Rockies, and eventually arriving in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1863. Cheadle’s candid and gritty but also humorous account tells, in intimate detail, what life and travel was like in the Northwest and BC during the latter days of the fur-trade era. He acknowledges the heavy debt owed by all the early explorers to the Plains Indians, who passed on to the first white men their sophistication in the ways of the wilderness. He also records the gradual demoralization of the Native people under the impact of European culture.

A welcome addition to the Classics West series, Cheadle’s Journal is a rare and important document of a remarkable life and time.

Walter Butler Cheadle was educated at Gaius College, Cambridge, and studied medicine at St. George’s Hospital, London. In 1861, he interrupted his studies to join Lord Milton on the expedition documented in Cheadle’s Journal. Mount Cheadle, located in the Monashee Range of British Columbia, was named in honour of his trip to this area. Intrumental in his field of medicine, Cheadle was an avid advocate of women’s rights in the study of medicine, and was the first man to lecture at the London School of Medicine for Woman. He is also credited as having distinguished scurvy from rickets in 1878. Walter Cheadle died in London, England, in 1910.

Walter Cheadle's profile page

Stephen R. Bown was born in Ottawa and studied history at the University of Alberta. He has long been interested in early travellers and explorers. In the summer of 2001 he hiked for seven days to retrace the famous Scottish botanist David Douglas' route over the feared Athabasca Pass. A former multimedia projects producer and freelance writer, Bown contributes to several magazines, including "Alaska, Mercator's World", "Beautiful British Columbia", and "The Beaver". He is also the author of "Sightseers and Scholars: Scientific Travellers in the Golden Age of Natural History". Bown lives outside Calgary, Alberta, with his wife and son.

Stephen R. Bown's profile page

Cheadle's Journal

by curlyjo2