First Nations on the Trails

Coleman hired members of the Stony and Iroquois tribes to help with cooking, packing, guiding, and trail blazing in the Rockies.

Coleman undertook to learn Cree. He was open to Indian lore, transcribed stories that he heard on his travels, and looked for advice on routes and passes across the mountains. He named a number of passes and lakes after Stony and Iroquois guides.¹

But it was not always a successful combination, and Coleman often expresses frustration with the men he hired who did not share his commitment to exploration, did not appreciate his time lines, and were reluctant to travel beyond what was familiar.

The Stony Indians had come to the Rockies in the 1840s and while they hunted in the mountains, they tended to live on the plains, in places such as Morley (where Lucius Coleman ranched). Jimmy Jacob and Mark Two young men, both from Morley reserve, were hired by Coleman for his 1892 expedition to the Brazeau River. The 1892 notebooks and publications about the Brazeau expedition provide descriptions of the two cultures coming together. In 1893, when Coleman returned to search for Mount Brown, the team did not include any first nations people.

1. White, James, 1916, Place-Names in the Rocky Mountains between the 49th Parallel and the Athabaska River: Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Section II: 501-535.