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Explorers of Canada, Part XXII: Anthony Henday

© David Newman

Anthony Henday was one of the first Europeans to cross the Prairie provinces.

Anthony Henday was born some time in the past, most definitely before 1750 in the Isle of Wight, a British island off the coast of Great Britain. It is known that he trained as a sailor but also that he was a smuggler who had once been convicted. He went to Canada and worked at Fort York (York Factory, Manitoba) for the monopolizing Hudson's Bay Company, who had hired him in 1750.

As a way to compete against French trading companies who held most of the influence in the west due to earlier exploration, the Bay's Fort York governor, James Isham, looked for volunteers to go to the farther nations and ask them to trade to the post. Anthony Henday was one of the men who volunteered. He left the post in June of 1754, guided by a group of Cree. He travelled using the Saskatchewan until he reached what is now Alberta before continuing on foot.

On his journey he met French traders, proving the French were more advanced than the British in westward exploration, and many Assiniboine people. The French almost decided to capture the group and send Henday to France but his passage was allowed eventually. Arriving in the vincinity of present-day Red Deer, Henday and the Cree tried to convince the Archithinues nation (either Blackfoot or Gros Ventres) to trade east, at Fort York. However, the chief was unimpressed with the effort, as he didn't want his people to face the danger of travelling east as they were dependent on bison flesh.

He returned to Fort York. Although his mission was a failure it gave a clear message to the Hudson's Bay Company that the company needed restructuring, as its isolation was harmful to its monopoly, and that it was way behind the French traders who went to the native nations rather then the Bay's policy which was the other way around.

In 1759, he attempted his mission once more, moving along with Joseph Smith and natives who had made the trip to Fort York. Dissatisfied that his important, although unsuccessful, missions were not given their credit by the company, he quit Hudson's Bay Company in 1762, and it is most probable he returned to England, even though it isn't a certainty.

Henday was one of the first British western explorers and he must be given credit for change in the isolated Hudson's Bay Company and for making important steps to further western exploration by the British.