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ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY The Woman Who Mapped Labrador: The Life and Expedition Diary of Mina Hubbard. By Roberta Buchanan, Anne Hart, and Bryan Greene. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005. Pp. xxii, 506. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. $49.95 cloth.
The tale of the ill-fated Hubbard-Wallace Expedition to explore interior Labrador in 1903 and the subsequent competing expeditions "to finish the work" by Hubbard's grieving widow, Mina Benson Hubbard, and Hubbard's surviving companion, Dillon Wallace, in 1905, has earned a prominent place in the literature of northern adventure and exploration. While all three expeditions produced published accounts, this is the first time that the diaries of one of the principle protagonists have been made available. Shortly after she embarked on the trip, leaving all the material vestiges of civilization behind at the Hudson's Bay Company post at Northwest River, Mina Benson Hubbard settled into the life of an explorer and her diaries recount, very favorably, her days in Labrador.
The Hubbard diaries are vigilantly annotated to expand every reference to individuals, places, and even cross-referencing other exploration journals. Bryan Greene's maps are...