Comte de Sainville (b. 1853)
The Count de Sainville was born in France. He was in the siege of Paris in 1870/71, serving as a soldier and a sailor. His ancestors lived on the coast of Brittany on land confiscated in 1893. Part of the lands were reclaimed through the fidelity of a tenant. Sainville explained his departure from France as fortunes going against him.1) Sainville left France for Canada in 1888. In April 1889, he and E.W. Everest left Winnipeg for Edmonton. They had two years of supplies and hoped to follow the Arctic coast from the mouth of the Mackenzie to the Bering Strait. They, or probably Everest, hired Robert Young, an experience voyageur as support. In early summer, the party reached Fort Chipewyan where the party split. Everest and Young turned south while de Sainville continued on to Fort McPherson and arrived there in 1889.2)
The Fort McPherson community included the Anglican Archdeacon MacDonald, the Hudon’s Bay Company trader Hodgson and his wife, missionary Isaac Stringer, de Sainville, and the Catholic Oblate priests Alaire Giroux and Camille Lefebvre. The priests seldom left the mission and competition to win souls was intense between the Catholics and the Anglican missionary. De Sainville was on good terms with them both. The Count taught Stringer to speak French, gave him lectures on astronomy and geography, and they had other similar interests. In February 1890, de Sainville accompanied Reverend Stringer to Lapierre House. Between June and August, Sainville explored the Eskimo Lakes and the nearby region and then he and Stringer went hunting in the Black Mountains. Between 1 and 8 April 1891, Sainville and Father Giroux travelled to and from Lapierre House. In the summer of 1892, Sainville, Hodgson, Jenneth Stuart, and Ezin went down to the mouth of the Mackenzie River to sound the channel and see how far it could be navigated from the coast. It was thought that the Canadian government might send a vessel and Sainville hoped to find employment as the navigator.3)
In the summer of 1892, de Sainville spent some time at Fort Simpson. Elizabeth Taylor travelled with de Sainville on a journey from Fort Simpson to Fort McPherson in the summer of 1892. They were on the Hudson Bay Company’s boat SS Fort Wrigley. De Sainville told her he had been working for the Hudson Bay Company for two or three years, trading and exploring in the Barren Lands. He had quarrelled with his father and did not have enough money to leave the country. Taylor noted that he was cultured and had a very fine camera.4)
In September 1892, a boat with de Sainville as the steersman left for Red River to bring back some fish. He was by then an experienced Arctic explorer with an article published in the French Free Press. He was equipped with barometers, thermometers, compass, anemometer, and observatory books. In November, de Sainville took a month trip to Rampart House accompanied by about seven sleds bound for Lapierre House. In July 1893, he prospected for gold on the Peel River. He went up 150 miles but found no prospects.5) During that adventure he travelled up the Bonnet Plume River in the first recorded trip into the area. He was in a single canoe with two First Nation guides. They followed the Peel River to the mouth of the Bonnet Plume and left the canoe to walk up about twenty-five miles before cutting over to the Wind River which he followed to the Peel and back to his canoe.6) He reported seeing burning seams of lignite at the mouth of the Bonnet Plume River.7)
In November 1893, Stringer returned from Herschel Island and brought back a quadrant and Nautical Almanacs 194 and 195 from Captain Smith and the whaling ships. Sainville stayed with Hudson Bay Company clerk Joseph Hodgson and his wife at Fort McPherson until John Firth arrived to take over the post in the winter of 1893/94, and then Sainville got a house of his own. The Count had the domestic services of Mary Nité, and they were sexual partners.8)
By February 1994, de Sainville had completed a report and a map of 190 miles of the Peel River. He talked with Reverend Stringer about the canon and rapids that were about sixty miles up. In early April 1894, de Sainville again travelled to Herschel Island to see if he could get employment with the whalers.9) He told them of his explorations on the east side of the delta, perhaps hoping that they would employ him as a navigator. He told captains Leavitt and Bodfish that he was writing a book for his own interest and described the delta, the Eskimo Lakes, and the coast from the mouth of the Mackenzie to Warren Point and De Sainville Harbour.10) He stayed seven days in Herschel and arranged to go whaling with Captain Edwin W. Newth and then go to San Francisco in the fall, or winter with the ship in a harbour east of the Mackenzie. He returned to Fort McPherson in early May and reported twenty-six days of travel with bad weather. De Sainville and naturalist Frank Russell started for Herschel on 26 June 1894. De Sainville was able to work for his passage from Herschel while Russel was charged $200, the fare for passage from the Arctic.11) Captain Leavitt looked at the harbour that the Count had touted but it did not live up to his hype.12)
De Sainville’s departure from the north in the spring of 1894 may have had something to do with Mary Nité’s pregnancy. Stringer, who was close to Mary, was offended by the situation and did not give her medical help or comfort when the infant died. It was one of the few instances where Stringer’s personal feelings interfered with his calling. After de Sainville left it became obvious that he had fathered another child while he was in Fort McPherson. That child died in 1899, about the same time that de Sainville published an article saying that illness among the Loucheaux was seldom a serious issue.13)
De Sainville arrived in San Francisco on 31 September 1894. He was interviewed by reporters and told them he intended to return to France and write a book about his explorations. The book never materialized but five years later he did publish an article in a scientific journal.14)