Morse, Eric W, 1904-1986 : Eric Wilton Morse was born 27 December 1904 in Naini Tal, India, the son of Wilton Henry and Florence (Griffin) Morse. His family moved to Canada in 1910 and eventually settled in Port Hope where his father was a school master at Trinity College School. Eric Morse was educated at Trinity College School and eventually followed his father's footsteps, becoming a school master there. In 1936, he enrolled at Queen's University and received a Master of Arts degree in History for his thesis on the "Immigration and Status of British East Indians in Canada". At this time, he also wrote "Canada and the Drug Traffic" (Toronto 1938) for the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. His teaching career ended after the outbreak of the Second World War when he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Morse decided to remain in Ottawa after the war, becoming the National Secretary of the United Nations Association in Canada in 1945. He became the National Director of the Association of Canadian Clubs in 1949 and held this position until his retirement in 1971.
Morse loved canoeing and the outdoors and in 1951 he began retracing the fur trade routes of Canada in a series of annual summer expeditions. With a group of like-minded men, many of them prominent in Ottawa, he began to explore the Voyageurs' Highway by canoe from the Ottawa River on to Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba and Lake Athabasca in northern Alberta. The composition of the group changed from year to year but Morse was a constant, handling most of the logistical arrangements. The social prominence of the group and the novelty of their voyages attracted the interest of the national media who dubbed them the "voyageurs" and covered their trips in the news. Pierre Trudeau joined the group in 1966 for its trip down the Coppermine River in the Northwest Territories. Morse's wife, Pamela, frequently joined the annual trips after their marriage in 1959. About this time, Morse had also become interested in canoeing the "Barrens" in the Northwest Territories and the "fresh water northwest passage" from Hudson Bay to the Bering Strait. In 1962, he led one of the first recreational canoe parties to cross the Barrens, following the Thelon River. His last major canoe trip was in 1980 when he and Pamela Morse returned to the French River and Lake Huron.
In preparation for his trips, Morse researched the historical fur trade routes and early exploration of Canada exhaustively, becoming an authority on the original routes used by explorers and voyageurs, and on the location of the earliest portages. He waged a campaign with all levels of government to have the Voyageurs' Highway and historic portages designated and marked as historic sites. He published widely on wilderness canoeing and the fur trade, writing a series of articles for the "Canadian Geographical Journal", "The Arctic Circular" and "The Beaver", among other periodicals. In addition to brochures and pamphlets on canoeing, his book the "Fur Trade Canoe Routes" of Canada: Then and Now", was published by Parks Canada in 1969 and reprinted in 1971, with a revised edition published in 1979 by the University of Toronto Press and reprinted in 1984. Eric Morse's memoirs, "Freshwater Saga: Memoirs of a Lifetime of Wilderness Canoeing in Canada" were published posthumously in 1987 by the University of Toronto Press in Canada and by NorthWord Publishing in the United States.
Morse received the Order of Canada in 1975 and an honorary doctorate in 1980 from Queen's University. The Morse River in the Northwest Territories was named after him in 1985 in recognition of his role as the "dean of Canadian canoeists". He married Mary Robinson in 1931 and they had two children, Peter Wilton Morse and Wendy Diana Morse. He married Pamela Mary Clarke in 1959. Eric W. Morse died in 1986.
