Samuel Hearne

Samuel Hearne joined the Royal Navy as a boy during the Seven Years' War before entering the service of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Prince of Wales (Churchill, Manitoba) in 1766. Between 1769 and 1772, guided by the brilliant Chipewyan leader Matonabbee, he embarked on foot into the uncharted northern barrens.

Hearne became the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean overland, charting the Coppermine River to Coronation Gulf in July 1771. In 1774, he founded Cumberland House in Saskatchewan, the HBC's first inland trading post. His published travel journal, A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort, is celebrated for its scientific accuracy and respectful ethnographic portrait of Indigenous life.