By Kristy McCaffrey
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| Mina Benson Hubbard, A winter picnic ca. 1901 (courtesy of Betty Cawkill Ellis) |
In 1903, Mina Hubbard’s husband, Leonidas, died from
starvation while trying to be the first non-native to trek across the interior
of Labrador, at the time one of the last unmapped areas of North America. The
other members of his expedition—Dillon Wallace, a portly middle-aged lawyer,
and George Elson, a half-Scot, half-Cree guide—had left him alone while going
for help.
Mina was devastated. When she encouraged Wallace to pen a
book to memorialize her husband, her grief soon turned to outrage. Wallace
portrayed her husband as an ill-prepared amateur, and he planned to finish the
unsuccessful mission. Mina decided to reclaim her husband’s honor by completing
the trip herself. When the press caught wind of the competition, the idea that
a woman would attempt such a thing was truly scandalous.
While her husband’s expedition had been poorly planned, Mina
prepared herself by learning mapping skills, investigating supplies and equipment,
and consulting with men who had already traveled into parts of Labrador. She
also persuaded George Elson to accompany her, as well as hiring three additional
part-native guides.
Both Mina and Wallace launched their trips in June 1905. Not
only was it outrageous for a woman to lead an expedition at the turn of the 20th
century, she would also spend months alone in the wilderness with four men.
Mina chafed over their protectiveness and would occasionally journey on her
own, worrying them to no end. “They said to me they never were on a trip before
where the women didn’t do what they were told,” wrote Hubbard.
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| Mina Hubbard and three men around campfire, 1905. (Coll-241, Archives & Special Collections, Memorial University, Canada) |
Despite the racial and gender differences, Mina and her team
became close over the next two months. They navigated raging rivers, scaled
boulders, and suffered intense clouds of mosquitos and black flies. Mina
surveyed the land, took latitude readings and snapped photographs, as well as
naming rivers and rapids. She also made contact with the Naskapi Indians.
Wallace’s team had taken a different route and were plagued
with poor navigation and disasters. They completed their trek six weeks after
Mina Hubbard. The ensuing headlines made Mina famous.
In the end, however, questions remained over how a humble
and farm-raised girl from Ohio could travel more than 550 miles in the rugged
wilderness, and she was dogged with rumors that she had had an illicit affair
with George Elson.
Several years after the journey, Mina married the scion of a
coal-mining fortune and settled in an English mansion. She never undertook
another expedition. She died at the age of 86 by walking in front of an
oncoming train, and some speculate that it had been on purpose.
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