Ah, the first English explorer in this series since August. Henry Kelsey, also known as the boy Kelsey, was born about 1667 in England. He isn't often included in the list of great explorers, but Kelsey reached pretty far west, in the heart of the prairies, discovering the Saskatchewan. It was to be his only voyage.
There doesn't seem to be any reference to how he got to North America but it is known he left from York Factory, a settlement on the Hudson Bay, in 1690, going southwest. His aim was to recruit Indians to trade with the Hudson's Bay Company, for whom he had worked since 1684. He had done few expeditions before, with the Cree, whose language he spoke, around the coast of the bay traveling north to Churchill.
The idea to go southwest arose when the natives, the Assiniboin Nation, came to York Factory telling of lands far away where there were no forests. Henry Kelsey was sent off to investigate these people and try to convince them to bring their furs to the settlement. If the Indians traded with the English rather than the French the Hudson's Bay Company would become more important and could rival the French companies which had posts in the south.
After a long journey south, after two months and near starvation, and long portages through the woods, the expedition finally left the forests and entered the prairies. Kelsey was the first European to see the prairies. He had become an explorer, a finder of new lands--lands full of riches and new furs: those of the buffalo.
Kelsey travelled deep in the heart of the prairies, reaching the north shore of Lake Winnipeg then travelling farther west to reach the Saskatchewan River where he spent two years. He did manage to convince both the Assiboine and Gros Ventres nations to trade even with opposition from the Cree, who had a monopoly on western trade. He managed to create peace between the nations. After the two years, he returned to York Factory.
After a brief time in London, where his work, though not very detailed and unscientific, was praised, he returned to North America with an executive job in the Hudson's Bay Company. His journal has only been recently found, in 1926, and his work prior to that had mostly been forgotten, giving LaVerandrye full credit for the discovery of the west.
He worked for HBC for another forty years and died in 1724.
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