“Discovery” and ideology

In their introduction to Walter Cheadle's Journal of Trip across Canada, 1862-1863 (1931), editors A. G. Doughty and Gustave Lanctot boldly declare that “[t]his is the journal of the first transcanadian tourist.” The editors are equally categorical about The North-West Passage by Land. Being the Narrative of an Expedition from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Undertaken with the View of Exploring a Route across the Continent to British Columbia through British Territory, by One of the Northern Passes of the Rocky Mountains, an earlier publication based on the trip and co-authored by Cheadle and his fellow traveler Viscount Milton. Doughty and Lanctot write that “in the title of the book, the tourist trip of the authors is raised to the dignity of an exploration. To it is ascribed a purpose of greater importance, probably as bearing a larger public appeal” (pp. 9-10).