Scots played a prominent role in the development of Canada, and in its botanical exploration in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1786 Archibald Menzies, followed in 1824 by David Douglas and John Scouler who travelled in the same ship, along with William Tolmie who arrived in 1833. He spent most of his life in the employment of the Hudson Bay Company.
Early Life and training
William was born at Invemess on 3 February 1812 but, following the death of his mother was brought up by an aunt. He went to school in Edinburgh, and then to Glasgow University to study medicine. The Professor of Botany there at that time was William (later Sir William) Hooker. Also in Glasgow then was John Scouler, Professor of Natural History at the Andersonian Museum, now Strathclyde University.
Tolmie was a very methodical man, and during his student days kept a diary and continued it with few breaks until 1843. This interest in botany took him on long walks in the environs of Glasgow as far afield as Aberfoyle about 25 miles each way. He graduated MD in 1832 joining the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. He was recommended by Hooker to the Hudson Bay Company who were looking for a physician and surgeon to go to what was then called the Oregon Territory. Whereas Menzies and Scouler were ship surgeons and naturalists, Tolmie was a passenger on the ship and was eventually to make his home in this new country.
During his student days he enjoyed whist, dancing and skating but after taking up this appointment he came to be described as dour. But it was this dogged streak that was to keep him going in the difficult years ahead.
Travel and life in NW America
The 7 month voyage via Cape Horn started from London on 13 September 1832 on the barque ‘Ganymede’. During the voyage he had studied medicine, botany, navigation, geometry, geography, German, French, Theology. He caught birds and fish for dissection or preservation.
They reached the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) on 21 March 1833 where he explored and botanised. The mouth of the Columbia River was reached on 30 April 1833 and four days later he arrived at Fort Vancouver, in Washington state USA. This was the Hudson Bay Company’s main depot in the region, 9 months and 17 days after leaving Gravesend. For the next 6 years, he was employed in medicine and the fur trade on the coast from Fort Vancouver to the Yukon providing medical care for the company’s employees. As medical matters would not take up all his time he was expected to engage in the barter of furs for goods brought from England, the greatest demand being for blankets and ammunition.
He compiled a vocabulary of the different languages of the numerous tribes he dealt with which was of great value later. He collected plants and bird skins to send home. Hooker had supplied him with a descriptive list of plants of America but he found few which matched his own collection. From time to time he recorded bundles of specimens being sent home mostly to Hooker but at least two to Scouler and another to the museum of Invemess mostly ethnological.
From May 1833 he went from Fort Vancouver 100 miles north to Nusqually at the south end of the Puget Sound (near present day Tacoma) to set up a new fur trading post. He climbed Mount Rainier 14,410 feet, and to collect plants. Back at Nusqually he sent off to Scouler now at the Andersonian Museum, Glasgow, a collection of plants and skins from Douglas at Fort Vancouver.
He departed on 22 March 1841 to begin an overland trip to York Factory on Hudson’s Bay and arrived on 4 July five months and 12 days from Fort Vancouver.
He was in Edinburgh by 1 December 1841 and back in London in January 1842 where, apparently, he remained till 6 May when he went to Paris. On arrival at Boulogne he delivered seeds of Pinus lambertiana to the Governor then proceeded by overnight coach to Paris. There he met a Dr McLoughlin, a relation of his senior at Fort Vancouver, who arranged for him to go to the hospital La Charité where he attended lectures and did some dissection. At the Jardin des Plantes the seeds of Pinus lambertiana had preceded him and he was given a warm welcome. Previously considered dour, the atmosphere of Paris must have stimulated him for he talked to all kinds of people, students, soldiers, professors and peasants. He had a good knowledge of French and at least a working knowledge of Spanish and conversed in these languages as well as English. On 15 June 1843 he departed for Calais and London.
On 10 October 1842 he was aboard the Company’s barque ‘Columbia’ bound for the Pacific North West via the Cape Verde Islands. Dr Tolmie remained at Fort Nusqually till 1856 and when war with the Indians broke out his knowledge of the Indian languages was of great assistance in bringing peace. In 1846 the Oregon territory boundary had been settled at the 49th parallel and the Company moved its headquarters from Fort Vancouver to Victoria on Vancouver Island. Having acquired 1,100 acres of land there Tolmie had erected for himself the first stone-built residence in the West, calling it Cloverdale and settled there till his death on 6 December 1886.
Personal life and political career
In 1850 he had married Jane a daughter of John Wark a Company Factor and a part-Indian mother. They had a large family but no male grandchildren.
In 1846 he was elected to the US. House of Representatives and in 1860 a member of the Legislative Assembly of Vancouver Island till 1866 and when British Columbia joined the Dominion of Canada he sat as a member of the House of Commons till he retired in 1878. The youngest son Simon Fraser Tolmie was Premier of British Columbia from 1926 to 1933. He died on 8 December 1886, and is buried in Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria, BC Canada.
Plants named after Tolmie
Tolmiea menziesii
The following genera (all including species or subspecies tolmiei) Allium, Calochortus, Carex, Nemophila, Penstemon procerus and Saxifraga.
Other dedications include Tolmie’s Peak (Mount Rainier Group), and several walks and trails in the Park. Tolmie’s Channel, the sea passage south of Prince Rupert and a bird Oporomis tolmiei.
References
Tolmie, William. The Journals of William Fraser Tolmie, Physician and Fur Trader. R. G. Large, ed. Mitchell Press, Vancouver BC: 1963. (Mainly his own journal).
The Beaver The Hudson Bay Company’s quarterly magazine.
Johnson’s Gardener’s Dictionary 1898.
The Worldwide Atlas W. A. K. Johnstone, 1894.
