Sir William Francis Butler

Sir William Francis Butler, military officer, author (b at Ballyslateen, Suirville, Ireland 31 Oct 1838; d at Bansha Castle, Ireland 7 June 1910). As intelligence officer to the 1870 Red River Expedition, Butler preceded the force to the settlement, then travelled by canoe and York boat to Fort Frances to meet Sir Garnet Wolseley. Commissioned to report on conditions in the Saskatchewan River country, he made a 6000 km trip to Fort Carlton and Rocky Mountain House which he recounted in The Great Lone Land (1872). Another trip from Fort Garry to Fort St John, through the Rockies, and down the Fraser River to the Pacific inspired The Wild North Land (1873).