Anthony Henday

Anthony Henday was born on the Isle of Wight and joined the Hudson's Bay Company in 1750 as a laborer and net-maker at York Factory. Volunteering to journey into the far interior to investigate French trading competition and recruit First Nations, he set out inland in June 1754 with a Cree guide named Attickasish.

Henday traveled thousands of kilometers up the Hayes and Saskatchewan Rivers into present-day Alberta, meeting the equestrian Blackfoot Confederacy near modern Red Deer and becoming the first European to gaze upon the snow-capped wall of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. His detailed journal provided the British Empire with its first glimpse of the western plains.