Hind's activities changed perceptions of the North West and helped open up the Canadian Prairies for agriculture settlement.
[9] In 1850 he published Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry and the following year A Comparative View of the Climate of Western Canada.
[14] In the North-West of the continent, the fur trade networks were becoming unstable with the future of the west remaining in the control of the Hudson's Bay Company unlikely.
Out of this need for land a movement of expansionism was created in Upper Canada, north of the Great Lakes and the 49th parallel of latitude.
In Toronto and the Ottawa Valley prominent members of society including George Brown (1818-1880), and Alexander Mcdonnell sought to annex the North-West.
[16] To prove that the land in the North-West as suitable for agriculture and settlement, the British Royal ministry in London and Canadian provincial governments funded expeditions exploring west in 1857.
Hind was recommended by the head of the Canadian Geological Survey, William Logan (1798-1875), to lead the scientific portion of the expedition.
[19] The group included George Gladman, his son Henry, Simon Dawson, W. H. E. Napier, S. L. Russell, G. F. Gaudet, A. M. Wells, J.
[21] The Palliser and Hind expeditions sought to prove that the previously uninhabitable fur trade lands of the North-West would be useful for agricultural development and immigrants from Upper and Lower Canada.
Ultimately the work of Palliser and Hind redefined public opinion and the perceived geography of the North-West.
Hind was aware of this and noted it in his work on the expedition, Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857 and of the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition of 1858 stating that "it is a physical reality of the highest importance to the interests of British North America that this continuous belt can be settled and cultivated from a few miles west of the Lake of Woods to the Passes of the Rocky Mountains, and any line of communication, whether by waggon road or railroad, passing through it, will eventually enjoy the great advantage of being fed by an agricultural population from one extremity to another.
They met six men and two canoes to cross the southern portion of the Lake of the Woods to portage the western shore of the Roseau River.
[27] On the Island Hind collected samples of corn which caused the group to be questioned by an Ojibwa raiding party.
An unnamed Ojibwa man was quoted in Hind's Narrative as saying "to deny your request; but we see how the Indians are treated far away.
The white man comes, looks at their flowers, their trees, and their rivers; others soon follow; the lands of the Indians pass from their hands, and they have nowhere a home.
Hind printed a report on the expedition in 1858 that ran over four hundred pages in total length.
The reception of the Canadian expedition ensured another for the following year although this time it would be led by Hind and Simon Dawson.
In 1857 the Plains Cree in council had decided that no white man should be allowed to hunt in or travel through their country due to multiple broken promises and the destruction of the buffalo.
An economic depression in 1857 left the Canadian government wary of further expenditures on scientific expeditions so Hind's proposal was declined.
[37] In 1859 he published Of Some of the Superstitions and Customs Common Among the Indians in the Valley of the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan in the Canadian Journal.
In 1864 Hind left his job at Trinity College after being invited to speak at the Royal Geographical Society.
While the government was deciding which report would be used, an anonymous editorial was published in The Headquarters, a local daily in Fredericton which scrutinized the work of Bailey and Matthew.
In the fall of 1866 the Hind family moved to Windsor, Nova Scotia where the boys attended King's College and the girls Edgehill.
[44] Two of Hind's other sons died; James Archibald of unknown causes after the move to Windsor and John Youle of typhoid in 1880.