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Louis Joseph and Francoise La Verendrye saw the Canadian Rockies in 1742-43
For decades schoolchildren had to learn that Louis Joseph and Francoise La Verendrye came as far west as the Rocky Mountains in 1742-43. This accomplishment made them the first whitemen to see the Canadian Rockies.
Later, historians traced the explorers' journals and concluded that the La Verendryes could not have travelled this far west. The mountains they described in their journal were probably the Black Hills of South Dakota or the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. A lead plaque was unearthed at Pierre, South Dakota in 1913 and is today known as the La Verendrye Plaque.
How Southern Albera became part of the story is as follows:
A box of odds and ends bought at an auction near Pincher Creek, Alberta in 1935 yielded a similar plaque. Further investigation revealed that the plaque had possibly been excavated when a local family was building a new house on their ranch in 1915.
A local historian knew that a LaVerendrye plaque had been excavated in South Dakota a few years earlier and decided the brothers must have left another one near the Rocky Mountains? The story spread.
Finally, National Museum officials in Ottawa had the two plaques compared. The Alberta plaque turned out to be an accurate but smaller duplicate. Eventually it was discovered that in 1926 the Great Northern Railway had given away, as a promotion, a series of the smaller souvenir plaques. Each it would appear, was inscribed with the Railway's name except one. That plaque, changed the history books.
This information was provided by the late Dr James Cousins of the University of Lethbridge.
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