He was a legend in his lifetime. In the nineteenth century his name would have been known to almost every household in Canada. When he died, one obituary claimed without fear of exaggeration that Walter Moberly, as the doyen of them all...must occupy a place in history second only to that of Vancouver himself. His 1914 biographer, Noel Robinson, had no hesitation in ranking him along with Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser in the importance of his explorations and their impact on the future of the nation. Walter Moberly’s ambition from earliest youth was nothing less than to discover the fabled northwest passage, which had been the dream of explorers for so many years. But it was a northwest passage by land, not sea, that he had in mind. Discarding the impractical notion of a trade route through icebound seas, he desperately longed to be the discoverer of a route across the continent by land, following in the footsteps of his heroes from the past. With his discovery of Eagle Pass between Shuswap Lake and the Columbia River, he believed that he had succeeded in this ambition. Until that time the Monashees were thought to be impassable for railway purposes, so that no practical route existed to give access to the eastern half of British Columbia and the fur traders’ route over the Athabasca Pass. When Walter deduced the existence of Eagle Pass and went on to take an expedition through, he had indeed solved the problem of the northwest passage—this was the vital last link in a practical travel route that spanned the whole country. Moberly’s discovery of Eagle Pass was a remarkable achievement and of the utmost importance to the province and the nation in general.
Walter had several other “firsts” to his credit. He was the first European to find a route through the formidable Selkirk Range (via Goldstream River)—in the depths of winter no less. He was also was the first to attempt a second route through the Selkirks via the valley of the Illecillewaet River (the route eventually used by the Canadian Pacific Railway). He and Edgar Dewdney were the first to start building a trail across the southern part of the province (this was later called the Dewdney Trail). Walter himself built the part of the famous Cariboo Road between Lytton and Cache Creek. In addition—one “first” that has escaped the history books—Walter Moberly claimed to have been the original pre-emptor of the land that is now known as the West End in Vancouver.
It seems extraordinary that Moberly’s name is only vaguely recognized in the history of British Columbia. It is true that in nineteenth-century Canada there were many competent surveyors and pathfinders who displayed the same qualities of skill, resourcefulness, endurance and great bravery as Walter Moberly. They lived like this not just on occasion, but on an almost everyday basis as an accepted condition of the job. They operated their instruments with as much conscientiousness when they were alone in the wilderness as they would have if they had been a supervised team laying out a town site. They put up with their boring fare of beans and pemmican uncomplainingly, day after day, week after week. They faced the dangers of a harsh environment with coolness and courage. In the company of many such heroes, why was it that the name of Walter Moberly, civil engineer, commanded respect and attention beyond almost all others in his profession?
It was not only because of his undoubted achievements; it was because Walter was a visionary who had a bold, imaginative view of life and was gifted with the power of expression. Walter was a man of ideas. He was obsessional in the focus of these ideas, for they all involved the construction of roads and railways. Had Walter had his way, the whole country would have been crisscrossed with roads and railways in his own lifetime, money being of no object in the grandiose schemes that he promoted. (Economics never were his strong point, either on the job or in the conduct of his own life.) Constantly he bombarded the newspapers with letters setting forth the latest theories that were fermenting in his mind.
The ideas that poured with such facility from his pen must have flowed just as freely in his conversation, and just as convincingly. Someone whose thoughts could barely be contained in a three-column letter to the editor must surely have had some eloquence in the spoken word as well. That he was a fluent speaker is borne out too by the fact that he was urged to stand for the Legislative Council of British Columbia and did so as the member for Cariboo West. Along with the gift of persuasion went a strong and vivid personality that had a touch of star quality about it.
Not to be ignored among the assets he brought with him to his career was a self-confidence in his status in society. Walter was of what used to be described as “good family,” and he was accustomed to mingling with the elite of society whenever he emerged from his adventures in the bush. On his visits to Ottawa he was on dining terms with the prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. The social round in itself was of no interest to Walter, but he was attracted to the company of people of vision and influence—people who moved on his own level of thought. He was well aware of the advantage of good contacts, and he deliberately sought the society of those who exercised power and influence.
With all his qualities of initiative, energy and professionalism, why was it that Walter Moberly did not rise to the same elevated level which some of his contemporaries achieved—for instance, his friend Edgar Dewdney? Dewdney arrived in British Columbia at much the same time as Moberly. It was a time when professionals were scarce and opportunities almost limitless. He had similar professional skills as a qualified engineer, and he fulfilled similar engineering contracts in the early days of the province. Both men entered politics at an early date. Yet Dewdney ended up as a lieutenant governor in an aura of prosperity, while Walter Moberly eked out his last years in a Vancouver rooming house on a barely adequate pension.
In his final years Walter was by no means relegated to obscurity. His name was still well known to the public. He still had friends in high places; he was still in demand as a public speaker. When he died, representatives of government attended his funeral, and lengthy obituaries and appreciations appeared in the newspaper. He had a high enough profile for a short biography to have been published just a year before his death.
The story of Walter Moberly is the story of a man who did not quite live up to his talents. At critical moments in his life he made the wrong decisions, he diverted his energies into unrealistic projects and he never allowed considerations of financial prudence, or any other kind of prudence, to deter him from his chosen path.
He died penniless, without family and with few friends. All that was left, and that made it worthwhile, was his claim to a place in Canada’s history. For a short time that was his, but now that more than eighty-five years have passed since his death, even this has been denied to him except as a minor figure in the writings of a few historians. It is time for him to take his place once more at the forefront of the heroic explorers and visionaries of the nineteenth century. |
