James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk

Plains grizzly bear and plains bison

James, Earl of Southesk

In 1859, after the death of his first wife, the Earl was advised that to improve his health he should travel to a place where he could live an open-air life and hunt. In 1859, at the age of 32, he embarked on a trip to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) trading area, which later became western Canada.[3] He travelled through the prairies to present-day Edmonton, then to the east slopes of the Rockies, seeing much of the western part of present-day north-central Alberta before returning to New York by way of Winnipeg.

Carnegie wrote that the reason for the expedition was to, "travel in some part of the world where good sport could be met with among the larger animals, and where, at the same time, I might recruit my health by an active open-air life in a healthy climate."

— James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk

Southesk left Liverpool on 15 April 1859 on a Cunard paddle-wheeler called the Africa for North America. Eventually, he ended up in St. Paul, Minnesota, the jumping-off point for his expedition, and then continued on north to Fort Garry, the HBC's western headquarters in the Red River Colony, today's Winnipeg. He travelled with Sir George Simpson, governor of the HBC. The Earl received considerable support from Simpson who helped the Earl arrange for guides, supplies and horses. He gave the Earl a map and instructed HBC employees to show him "every attention".[3]

In June, Southesk headed out west from Winnipeg. Over the next seven months, the expedition travelled more than 4,000 kilometres, across the northern prairies, through parts of the Rocky Mountains, then across the prairies once again back to Winnipeg. The plan was to head west out of Fort Garry west into Rupert's Land, to hunt bears and bison.

He arrived at Fort Edmonton on 1 August.[4] At the fort he bought horses, hired a Métis, Antoine Blandoine, to be his guide, and built enough pack saddles to haul his outfit.

The party went into the mountains west of the future site of Cadomin to pursue bighorn sheep. The expedition went up the Athabasca River to the McLeod River and the Medicine Tent River (in present-day Jasper National Park). In September he noted that he was now in country that, "no European had ever seen, where bears and wild sheep were certain to be abundant."

On September 6, he wrote in his journal, "I am the first European who has visited this valley [at the head of the Medicine Tent and North Saskatchewan rivers], and if I might have the geographic honour of giving my name to some spot of earth, I should choose the mountain near which the two rivers rise."[5] [6]

Worried that that mountain (Mount Southesk) had already been named and therefore could not carry his name, he climbed a mountain located 6 km north of Mount Southesk and erected a cairn on top that can still be seen today. This mountain is named Southesk Cairn in his honour.[7] As well, Southesk Pass, Southesk River and Southesk Lake, all nearby, bear his name.[8][9]

The expedition then crossed over Southesk Pass, also known as Cairn Pass, and pressed on to the Kootenay Plains of the North Saskatchewan River valley. The expedition followed the Siffleur River, crossed over the Pipestone Pass, and followed the Pipestone River to the Bow River. The Earl nearly crossed paths with another explorer, James Hector, at a time when there were very few Europeans in the Canadian Rockies. The two passed through the same route going in opposite directions about a month apart in time.[10][11]

The Southesk party then travelled back across north-central Alberta to Fort Edmonton, arriving October 12.[12] Southesk made his way east, arriving at Fort Garry (Winnipeg) on January 8, 1860. He travelled on to New York and made the voyage home to England on the Cunard liner Etna, arriving in February 1860.[13]

For the expedition he employed several Métis guides and helpers: James McKay, John McKay, George Klyne, John "Piscan" Munroe, Baptiste La Grace, James "Little Dog" Short, Antoine Blandion, Pierre Desnomme, Thomas Arinwakena, and Duncan Robertson.[14] These men were experienced buffalo hunters. During this trip which took him west to Fort Edmonton and into the Rocky Mountains he commissioned and collected several Métis and aboriginal artifacts.[3]

He wrote an account of his trip, Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains (published in 1874). [15] His research on the Cree language was published that same year, under the title The Cree syllabic characters, terminations, &c.[16]

An exhibit dedicated to the Earl's prairie and mountain trip, including a life-sized statue of a large plains grizzly bear he killed while on a bison hunt on the nearby prairie,[17] is at Ancient Echoes Interpretive Centre in Herschel, Saskatchewan.[18]

Bust of the Earl, by William Grant Stevenson

Throughout the 1859 Canadian expedition, Southesk collected objects made by First Nations and Métis people whom he met in the course of his travels. The artifacts returned home with Southesk to Kinnaird Castle, the family estate in Scotland where they remained for the next 146 years, until 2006, when the earl's descendants put them up for auction at Sotheby's in New York.

The Royal Alberta Museum purchased many of the items put up for sale. for $1.1 million.[4] Although relatively small, the Southesk collection is historically significant given that objects from the northern Plains dating to the 1850s are rare and that many of the artifacts are of exceptional quality. Although modest in size, the collection includes work from at least five distinct cultures: Plains Cree, Blackfoot, Métis, Nakoda and Anishnaabe. The current Earl of Southesk subsequently donated five additional items linked with the collection.[19]

• Herminius: a romance. (1862)
• Suomiria: a fantasy (1899)[20]

• Some Sort of Madness [excerpt] (1982) [only as by Earl of Southesk][21]

His seal

• Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains: a diary and narrative of travel, sport, and adventure, during a journey through the Hudson's Bay Company's territories, in 1859 and 1860. (1875)[22]
• Origins of Pictish symbolism; with notes on the sun boar and a new reading of the Newton inscriptions. (1893)[23]
• The Ogham Inscriptions of Scotland. (1885)
• Britain's art paradise; or, Notes on some pictures in the Royal Academy, (1871)

(His poetry is said to tend to the occult.)[24]

• Lurida lumina. (1876)[25]
• The Burial of Isis, and other poems. (1884)[26]
• Jonas Fisher, a poem in brown and white. (1875)[27]
• Greenwood's farewell and other poems. (1876)[28]
• The Meda Maiden, and other poems. (1877)

• Catalogue of the collection of antique gems formed by James, ninth earl of Southesk, K.T.; edited by his daughter Lady Helena Carnegie. (1908)[29]
• The letter archive of James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk, and the Pictish symbol stones of Aberdeenshire; Lynda McGuigan. (2020)