The Travels and Explorations of Alexander Henry 'The Younger' 1799-1814

Alexander Henry ‘The Younger’ was an early Canadian fur trader and explorer. From 1799 until his premature death in 1814 he kept an extensive diary and is regarded as one of the most complete record ever printed of the daily life of a fur trader in North America. His journals record his travels from Lake Superior to the Pacific Ocean and have yielded much material for historians and researchers of the fur trade era in North American history.

Henry, like David Thompson, encountered many different tribes of Indians, and in the north saw much of the Chippewas, the three tribes of the Blackfoot, the Cree, Assiniboine, Sioux, Sarcee, and others. In the south, he reached the Mandan, the Minitari, and even the Cheyenne, south of the Missouri River. Alexander Henry would eventually be sent to the newly purchased Fort Astoria and in 1814 would lose his life after the boat ferrying him to the to the warship HMS Isaac Todd capsized and all aboard drowned.

Datasets for Henry’s travels were created and were researched from Henry’s published journal and other records. They are comprised of both linear and a point data. The linear data contains the attributes that includes Year, Route, Leg, Departed, Arrived, Origin, and Destination. The point data contains the attributes that includes Point Type, Date, Notes, Year, and Route.