Eric Morse

Morse, Eric

Eric Morse, promoter of wilderness travel by canoe in Canada (b at Naini Tal, India 27 Dec 1904; d at Ottawa 18 Apr 1986). Oriented from youth toward CANOEING, he undertook long river journeys with influential persons from 1951. In Ottawa from 1942, with the RCAF, as national secretary UN Association in Canada, then as national director, Association of Canadian Clubs he introduced his friends to canoeing on nearby waterways. Blair FRASER and Omond SOLANDT went on his first long journey; Pierre Elliott TRUDEAU went with him in 1966. Morse retraced FUR TRADE ROUTES - the subject of his classic book Fur Trade Routes of Canada- then explorers' routes. He traversed the Barren Lands from Hudson Bay to Alaska until 1977. For this pioneer work his name was given in 1985 to a river running into the Back River at Garry Lake. His canoeing memoirs, Whitewater Saga (1987), were published posthumously by his wife.