In July 1862, 23-year-old William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, also known by the courtesy title Viscount Milton, set off with his companion Dr. Walter Butler Cheadle, 27, on a remarkable vacation that took them across the Canadian Prairies on a trip that lasted nearly as long as their respective names. They were the first tourists to travel through the Yellowhead Pass.
Milton and Cheadle were not fur traders, miners or missionaries and had no interest in homesteading or settling in Canada. Yet in the course of their travels they would trap and eat animals as they spent the winter in northern Saskatchewan; they would nearly be killed by marauding Sioux; they would take part in a buffalo hunt; they would dine with Father Albert Lacombe in his newly-built little white house; they would nearly starve to death as they crossed the Rockies and they would visit the Caribou gold fields.
When the men returned to England they co-wrote The North-West Passage By Land. They also commissioned Minton's China Company to make 32 dessert plates – 16 for each of them – so they could remember their journey. All of the plates depict scenes that were sketched by the two men.
Two of those plates were unveiled last month at the Royal Alberta Museum and together they are valued at more than $60,000. The value isn't in the weight of the gold that coats the filigreed edges of these plates. They are valuable because of the stories they represent and their historical significance to Western Canada.
"We know the men made sketches. Young men of those days were trained to sketch. They also had a camera," said Cathy Roy, Curator of Western Canadian History at the Royal Alberta Museum.
The plates themselves have an interesting history, Roy explained, and they were truly used as dessert plates – there are tiny scratches in the china to prove it. Milton and Cheadle likely ate their strawberries and clotted cream off the plates as they regaled their guests with stories of Canada.
These two plates are from the set owned by Milton. His descendants eventually sold them to the Royal Doulton Museum. In 2004 the 16 plates were sold again at auction and purchased by Johnny's Antiques in Ontario.
"We don't know what happened to the other plates," Roy said, as she explained that when the opportunity came up to acquire the two plates, they asked the Friends of the Museum to purchase one.
The Friends of the Royal Alberta Museum purchased one of the plates to give as a gift to the museum. That plate, titled Over The Mountain, Near Jasper House, is valued at $16,000 and depicts the day the men called "the worst day of their journey."
The museum itself purchased the second plate, valued at $45,000. It's deemed more valuable because it features a drawing of all the participants on that leg of Milton and Cheadle's journey.
The plates are now in a display case for all visitors to the museum to view and while they are interesting and beautiful, it's Milton and Cheadle's own story, The North-West Passage by Land, that is truly fascinating.
The entire yellowed pages of their journal are available for reading at www.archive.org/details/northwestpassage00milt.
Quite a holiday
It's unclear whose voice is the strongest in the tale, but together the authors manage to describe a holiday that has likely never been repeated in quite the same way. They describe Western Canada as it was in 1862, when St. Albert was just one year old and the Caribou gold rush was at its peak.
It's thought that Milton decided to go on the vacation because he had recently been spurned in a love affair and so to ease his broken heart he went abroad. Milton had epilepsy so he invited Cheadle, a physician, to come along too.
Their journey was extreme. There are instances when Cheadle did the bulk of the work and went ahead looking for safer routes or for food. There are no references in their writing that describe Milton's weakness in any way. In fact, there were many times when Milton climbed mountains, forded streams and pulled others from raging rivers.
At Fort Carlton, in Saskatchewan, the men were invited to a Métis ball held in their honour. Milton and Cheadle watched the jigging with fascination and admired the finery worn by the dancers. The Métis men wore beaded bags, garters and moccasins along with gay sashes and blue or red leggings. The women wore short bright skirts that showed off their richly embroidered leggings.
"Their white moccasins were made of caribou skin, beautifully worked with flowery patterns in beads, silk and moose hair," the authors said.
They witnessed the decline of the buffalo, which was becoming more evident that terrible winter that they spent in Saskatchewan. One Indian chief called them out about it, when they asked him to take them on a buffalo hunt. The chief asked why they came to his country with all their wealth to take his only valuable thing –the buffalo. Nonetheless he took them hunting with him.
A starving family came to them with dignity but also great need. Milton and Cheadle shared what they had.
"They were a spectral cavalcade of men gaunt and wan, marching with skeleton dogs," the authors wrote.
The next spring Milton and Cheadle stopped off at Fort Edmonton and St. Albert for a visit.
Father Lacombe invited them for supper and fed them soup, fish and delicious vegetables. The authors reported that a "grisly" bear had recently stalked Lacombe and his horse and the priest invited them to go on a bear hunt with four Métis hunters.
"St Albans (sic) is the most flourishing community we had seen since leaving Red River," Milton and Cheadle said.
They connected with fellow travellers along the way, including a slightly deranged man named Mr. O'B, who went with them through the Rockies. Mr. O'B soon became a hindrance and even a danger when he did foolhardy things, but his antics provided the men with comic relief. This part of their journey was perilous and they were forced to kill two of their beloved horses for food. Mr. O'B travelled along with them preaching and praying and crying but doing nothing useful as he fell from cliffs and was swept away in rivers.
In a curious way, the plates at the Royal Alberta Museum are like postcards from the 19th century showing a picture of Western Canada that has seldom been seen before. The plates are pretty and rare and covered with gold but the true gilt edge is in the tales of Milton and Cheadle's adventures found in The North-West Passage by Land, which 150 years after its publishing, ranks right up there with any modern-day extreme-adventure story.
