Author gives an account of her husband's life and of his expedition of 1903 to central Labrador, and of her own expedition from Lake Melville to Ungava Bay in 1905. Diary of Leonidas Hubbard, July-October 1903, and of his companion George Elson, October 1903-May 1904.

In 1903 Hubbard's husband, Leonidas, starved to death on his cartographic and ethnographic expedition to Labrador. Hubbard decided to complete her husband's work, becoming a skilled explorer and cartographer in her own right. She set out in July 1905 and with the help of George Elson, a Métis guide who had been employed by her husband on the original trip, and three other guides completed her expedition in record time with significant results, including completing the first accurate map of the Labrador river system, thus correcting the earlier map that had led to her husband's death. Her original photographs and the map are reproduced in this volume.

The definitive Hubbard, combining her previously unpublished diary, a full biography, and new maps that break down her daring canoe trip day by day.

In July 1903 Leonidas Hubbard set out to explore the uncharted interior of Labrador by canoe, accompanied by Dillon Wallace, his best friend, and George Elson, a Métis guide. Bad luck and bad judgment led the expedition into disaster and the party was forced to turn back. Hubbard died of starvation just thirty miles from camp. Two years later Wallace decided to complete the overland expedition and clear himself of blame for Hubbard's death. He had, however, a rival - Mina Hubbard. She blamed Wallace for her husband's death and, with Elson as her guide, intended to complete the trek first. The result was an epic race between the avenging widow and her husband's best friend. Reconstructing the story from the long-lost journals and diaries of the 1903 and 1905 expeditions, James Davidson and John Rugge trace the explorers' routes and re-create the saga. Great Heart is a gripping drama of individuals pushed to the limits of human endurance.

Roy considers the connections Jameson makes between feminism and anti-racism in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838), Hubbard's insights in A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador (1908) into her relationship with First Nations men who had both more and less power than she, and Laurence's awareness of colonial and patriarchical oppression in her African memoir The Prophet's Camel Bell (1963). Roy also examines archival and First Nations accounts of these women's travels, and the sketches, photos, and maps that accompany their writing, to examine contradictions in and question the implied objectivity of travel narratives. She concludes by looking at the myth of getting there first and the ways in which new technologies of representation, including cameras, allow travellers and writers to claim new travel firsts.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.