Prince of Wales Fort Manitoba Canada
Related Events
Showing 3 events out of 3 total
Samuel Hearne is successful in his third attempt (December 1770 to June 1772), not only discovering the Great Slave Lake and the copper of the Coppermine River basin, but tracing this river to the Arctic Ocean, thus becoming the first European to reach the Arctic through overland travel.
In so doing, he establishes there is no northwest passage through the continent at lower latitudes.
Hearne reappears on June 30, 1772, at Fort Prince of Wales.
Construction of this fort, a structure still standing today, had been started in 1731 near what was then called Eskimo Point.
In the form of a square, with sides one hundred meters long and walls six meters tall and ten meters thick at the base, it has forty-two cannons mounted on the walls.
There is also a battery across the river on Cape Merry meant to hold six more cannons.
Work on the fort had continued almost without break until 1771, but it will never be truly completed.
Three French warships of the Expedition, led by Jean-François de La Pérouse, capture the Prince of Wales Fort in 1782.
The fort is manned by only thirty-nine (non-military) men at the time, and the fort's Governor, Samuel Hearne, recognizing the numerical and military imbalance, surrenders without a single shot being fired.
The French partially destroy the fort (but its mostly-intact ruins survive to this day).
Hearne and his complement of thirty-eight civilians are confronted on August 8, 1782, by a French force under the comte de La Pérouse, composed of three ships, including one of seventy-four guns, and two hundred and ninety soldiers.
As a veteran, Hearne recognizes hopeless odds and surrenders without a shot.
Hearne and some of the other prisoners are allowed to sail back to England from Hudson Strait in a small sloop.