Talk:North-Western Territory
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[edit] British claims from western side
I'll dig them up in terms of dates and treaty names, but there's two that created the meridian boundary northwards from Mount St Elias which is the basis of the British claim to the Yukon and Stikine/Stickeen; the first was the Spanish-Russian treaty demarcating Mount St. Elias as the boundary of their respective exclusivities in the region, the other was the subsequent Russian-British deal on the same lines, with the exception that the demarcation applied only to inland reaches, not coastal areas; in which lay the seeds of the Alaska Boundary Dispute when that boundary east of Mount St. Elias had to be worked out. There might be a map of Stickeen Territory around; another part of this - now that I now it had a formal designation, which I didn't know before (other than as the NWC/HBC Athabasca and MacKenzie fur districts) - it's worth noting that another chunk of it wound up being added to BC when that province's boundary was placed at the 60th Parallel: the Peace River Block. The original boundaries of the Colony of British Columbia I guess I'll have to dig up and map, i.e. what the colony was pre-Stickeen, pre-Peace, and in terms of then-contemporary perceptions that Forts Stikine and Taku and the locations of Haines and Skagway were part of the province (oh, and those silly islans east of Victoria that were so much fuss, too, but that's another topic-area).Skookum1 02:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Partial/draft rewrite of 1862-70
- In 1862 during the Cariboo Gold Rush, part of the North-Western Territory became the Stickeen Territory to enable easier governance from the west coast.
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- Actually, the declaration of the Stickeen Territory by Governor Douglas, who was joint Governor of the Mainland and Island Colonies at the time, was because of the discovery of gold in the Stikine and an onset of a rush to there; one of several spin-offs of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, and one of several lesser rushes contemporary with the Cariboo Gold Rush, which was also a spin-off of the Fraser rush. "To enable easier governance from the west coast" is a decidedly eastern perspective by the way; the area was only accessible, virtually, from the coast, so it's a bit of a non sequitur to even say that; what else could be the case; governance from the east coast? East coast, west coast, are post-Confederation perspectives; the Stickeen Territory was declared to secure British legal rights/tenure, which until that time was unincorporated, in the same way what became the Mainland Colony had been 1846-1858, aka New Caledonia. I'll try and find a one/two phrase summation of that to replace the last phrase above.
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- The following year, part of the area returned to the North-Western Territory when boundaries were adjusted and British Columbia was extended to the north.
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- Try this: "The Stickeen Territory took in most of the Yukon as well as northern BC west of the Rockies. In 1868, although effectively in terms of what little governance it had, this was confined to the lower Stikine River and its immediate tributaries. The following year, part of the area returned to the North-Western Territory when boundaries were adjusted and British Columbia was extended to the 60th Parallel, north of which was the remaining sector of the North-West Territory.
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- shortly after Canadian Confederation, the Hudson's Bay Company agreed to surrender its vast territories to the new dominion. However, it was not until July 15, 1870, that the transfer to Canada was made. On that date the North-Western Territory became part of the newly created Northwest Territories.
Hmm. Well, as far as I know the HBC did not have title to the North-West Territory, which was the whole point of it not being in Rupert's Land to start with; and also I'm unsure how more than marginal HBC activites were in the Yukon basin at that time; as in the notes above, the British claims to the area related to coastal-empire-related treaties and ensuant claims; but which left blank slates in the form of what became BC and also what became designated as t he North-West Territory. I'll have to read the text overleaf again to see if I've missed something, but was the North-West Territory placed in charge of the HBC, i.e. was this an HBC designation, or British imperial one; and I think care should be taken to distinguish the meaning of "Territory" in this title vs its meaning in Northwest Territories/Yukon Territory, or Saskatchewan Territory etc., in which Territory is a constutional organism; in this case it's just a name, with no administration or formal constitution (again, as also was New Caledonia 1846-1858, and again there the HBC had no "territories" other than its fort's premises; so the need to adjust "surrender its vast territories to the dominion" so as to apply to the outside-of-Rupert's Land situation seems necessary....Skookum1 00:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
