Greenstocking
A legacy from the Canadian North

It is the year of 1820. Sir John Franklin, an English naval officer in the commission of her majesty the Queen of England and his man arrived at the Tetsotíine territory what is today known as the area around the great Slave Lake in the Canadian North West Territories. His commission was to find the North West passage beyond the uncharted Northern Tundra. Accompanied by part of the Tetsotíine Dene tribe, they ventured North from the village that was located approximately where today's city of Yellowknife sits.

Greenstockings was the Chief's daughter who with her family and others saw the English through the next two epic years by providing food and adequate clothing. However famine halted the expedition in the late fall of 1821 and some of the expedition members would never return from the barren lands.

During the course of the expedition Greenstockings became romantically involved with Robert Hood who was a officer with the expedition.

In the early summer of 1821 Robert Hood and his fellow officers led by John Franklin, set of from Fort Enterprise pushing further in to the unknown parts of the territories. They left the women and children behind in the safety of the fort. It is this moment the sculpture depicts, the moment of saying goodbye, not knowing whether Hood will ever see his unborn child and Greenstockings again.

Late in the fall of 1821 the expedition was starting to fall apart. Starvation started to take its toll. Only the strongest made it back to the safety of Fort Enterprise to reunite with the Yellow Knifes. Hood didn't make it back. Famine took the best of him and he died alone in the barren lands some time late in October of 1821.

1822, Sir John Franklin returned with the survivors to England to come back two more times to the Arctic before vanishing himself with the entire crew in 1845.

The story of Franklin and his first 1819 - 1822 overland expedition is a compelling story of tragedy, perseverance and survival best told by the 1994 novel 'Discovery of Strangers' by Canadian author Rudy Wiebe.

The moment of saying goodbye in Fort Enterprise.