Table Of ContentThe Frontier World
of Edgar Dewdney
Brian Titley
The Frontier World
of Edgar Dewdney
© UBC Press
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Titley,E.Brian.
The frontier world of Edgar Dewdney
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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.Dewdney,E.(Edgar),-. .Northwest,Canadian – Biography.
.Politicians – Canada,Western – Biography..Northwest,Canadian – History.
.Indians of North America – Canada – Government relations – -.* I.Title.
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Contents
Introduction / vii
The Trailblazer /
The Politician /
Indian Commissioner /
Rebellion /
Lieutenant Governor /
Minister of the Interior /
Semi-Retirement /
A Frontier Capitalist /
Notes/
Bibliography/
Index/
Introduction
This story takes place in the latter half of the nineteenth century in what
are now the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskat-
chewan, and Manitoba. The West, as we shall call it, was experiencing
breathtaking change in this period,and the upheavals and convulsions that
transformed society are central to our narrative.
The frontier is an expression often used in association with this time and
place. The concept is useful, although lacking in precision. Sometimes
fi fl
de ned as the outer edge of a zone of in uence,jurisdiction,and civility,
the frontier might also be seen as an idea or attitude.Frontier conditions
imply wilderness – tracts of terra incognita awaiting occupancy, a social
and economic blank slate on which an invading culture could make its
mark. Frontiersmen and women in this context are intrepid adventurers
who brave physical hardships to tame the new land and whose labours pave
the way for a material nirvana to be enjoyed by themselves and their
descendants.
This rough-hewn image of pioneer folk persists,and with good reason,
but Western Canada as a destination was more complex than a mere haven
for land-hungry peasants.While the region drew its share of the ordinary
and unremarkable,it also attracted those who considered themselves a cut
above the rest. Unable, for whatever reason, to maintain social status at
home,well-bred Britons looked to the West,and to British Columbia in
particular,as a realm where they might either live to respectable standards
fi
or return home to do so after having pro ted from their adventures.It was
to this class of immigrant-adventurer that Edgar Dewdney belonged.
Whatever the personal motivations of Dewdney and his fellow
migrants, and those motivations varied greatly in individual cases, the
newcomers were part of a colonial project that envisaged the re-creation of
a British society far from home. The project also anticipated unrivalled
ffi
economic returns through the e cient harnessing of human and physical
viii The Frontier World ofEdgar Dewdney
fi
resources.In some ways,a rationally ordered society geared to pro tability
was easier to create in the colonies than in tradition-bound Europe.Hence,
the political and economic development of Western Canada was always a
mix of the rugged individualism so readily associated with the American
frontier, and the sentimental attachment to feudal symbolism and class
privilege so characteristic of British imperial outposts.
These tensions and contradictions were at the heart of the dialectic that
marked the political, social, and economic evolution of the West. And
Edgar Dewdney was never far from the centre of the most vital decisions
and actions. He experienced the gold rushes of the s, building key
pathways to the British Columbia interior and trying his hand at prospect-
fi
ing and mining.The entry of the Paci c colony to Canadian Confederation
was by no means a foregone conclusion,and Dewdney was a participant in
the vigorous debates that preceded the union in . In the decade that
fi
followed,the completion of the Paci c railway was the major preoccupa-
tion of British Columbia politicians, and Dewdney, as MP for Yale, was
at the forefront in reminding Ottawa of its obligations.More importantly,
perhaps, he championed the route with a western terminus at Burrard
Inlet that ultimately prevailed,in spite of keen opposition from Vancouver
Islanders.
As lieutenant governor of the North-West Territories in the s,
Dewdney wielded virtually autocratic power.There,he presided over the
gradual democratization of political institutions in the region, ensuring
that the will of the people was constrained by his wisdom and experience.
fi
There, too, he played his most signi cant role as Indian commissioner.
Colonialism is about land and race.What ought to be done with the dis-
placed or conquered peoples who had lived unchallenged in the newly
acquired territories? In the Prairie West,marginalization with a touch of
forced labour (that is, work for rations) dressed up in the language of a
mission civilisatricebecame the Dewdney solution.
fi
He continued to keep his nger on the pulse of the West after leaving his
fi
Regina posts, rst as minister of the interior and later as lieutenant gov-
ernor of British Columbia.And he was a player in the enduring tribute to
greed that engulfed the West as the century drew to a close,the Klondike
gold rush.He was not just an eyewitness to history;he helped to make it.
In many ways,his career is a metaphor for the maturing western frontier.
His exploits tell the story of a region experiencing staggering change.
Biography is akin to necromancy.We exhume the bodies of the dead –
skulldiggery,if you like – and breathe life into them.But we cannot ques-
tion them, and our reconstruction hinges largely on the fragments they
leave behind, whether deliberately or accidentally. In Dewdney’s case, a
Introduction ix
fi
formidable dossier of private papers and public documents testi es to his
deeds and motivations.The records,however,relate mainly to the various
ffi
o ces he held, and this focus inevitably becomes our concern, too.The
paper trail does not permit much insight into his youth or personal life.
The reader expecting a chronique scandaleuse – a tiresome idiom all too
familiar in popular writing today – will be disappointed.The man had his
shady side,to be sure,but because it was motivated by avarice rather than
fi ff
lust,Dewdney’s life hardly quali es as the stu of breathless revelations.
People are interested in others of their kind,especially in the fortunes of
individuals who have some claim to pre-eminence.This remains so in spite
of the puzzling attempts of some social historians to write of a past peopled
with nameless collectivities.There is,nonetheless,no impulse towards cre-
ating an idealized biography here.I do not consider Dewdney a great man
or a nation builder. Rather, I see him as a type – a representative of that
class of adventurer who saw in the western frontier an unprecedented
opportunity for self-aggrandizement.
