Enlightened Zeal: The Hudson’s Bay Company and Scientific Networks, 1670–1870, by Ted Binnema

Abstract

Enlightened Zeal: The Hudson's Bay Company and Scientific Networks, 1670-1870, by Ted Binnema. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2014. xvi, 488 pp. $37.95 Cdn (paper). Science is never just about science, never just about knowledge (p. 3) is enigmatic first sentence of Ted Binnema's ambitious, and broadly successful, Enlightened Zeal. As its opening sentence suggests, this is a book that goes beyond a simple chronicling of scientific activity in Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) during period 1670-1870. Binnema seeks to explain context within which scientific discovery took place. He examines trans-Atlantic and North American scientific networks, which evolved over time and were crucial to advancement of science. He highlights commercial benefits to HBC of promoting its support of science with British politicians who controlled company's licence. He also illustrates how shifts in focus of scientific research responded to both commercial priorities of company and political priorities of British government. With such a broad agenda, it is not surprising that certain periods in company's history are dealt with much more comprehensively than others. A quick glance at table of contents reveals that, although this survey covers a two hundred year period, by far greatest emphasis is given to last fifty years. The first ninety-eight years of HBC's existence is dealt with in a mere twenty-eight pages. As author states, the company contributed little to public before 1768 (p. 49). From a scientific viewpoint, story becomes more interesting in 1769, when HBC participated in an initiative with Royal Society to observe transit of Venus between earth and sun. Binnema describes HBC's involvement in this project as a dramatic turning point that also briefly stimulated company to send natural history specimens back to Britain. Between 1774 and 1821, Binnema notes that company's principal scientific interest switched to cartography. As others have done, Binnema credits Samuel Wegg as being individual with greatest personal influence on company's more positive attitude toward science in late eighteenth century (Wegg was a member of Royal Society and a director of HBC, becoming its governor in 1782). However, it was competition in fur trade and not just influence of Samuel Wegg that caused HBC to establish its first significant inland trading post at Cumberland House, in 1774. The move inland, in turn, made maps an essential tool in HBC's rivalry with Northwest Company. As Binnema describes, the HBC and its Canadian competitors explored and surveyed only insofar as those efforts supported their trade. By early nineteenth century, HBC was certainly more receptive to science than it had been a hundred years previously, but whether this new attitude could yet be described as enlightened zeal is debatable. The heart of book is a series of four chapters set in nineteenth century. The ultimately successful search by Dease and Simpson for a northwest passage is seen as a public relations coup that contributed to renewal of HBC's licence in 1838. Yet major scientific focus of fifty years or so before 1870 was natural history. In particular, extension of HBC's reach to Pacific in this period proved to be a bonanza for botanists. The importance of David Douglas's work in Columbia District (Oregon Country) is stressed, both for value of his own work and inspiration he provided for others. It is perhaps not surprising that HBC was linked to scientific networks in Britain, as this was a period in which there was a great proliferation of British scientific associations. …