Canadian Almanac. These included The Future of Western Canada, Our Railway Policy, and The Great North-West. 1857 Red River Expedition By the 1850s British North America had reached a critical stage in its development. Since the 1837 Rebellions in Upper Canada and Lower Canada there had been an increase in immigration and construction of canals and rail lines. In the Canadas agricultural land was becoming scarcer and higher in price. In the North-West, fur trade networks were becoming unstable with the future of the west remaining in the control of the Hudson's Bay Company unlikely. New agricultural land was needed by people in Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Out of this need for land a movement of expansionism was created in Upper Canada. In Toronto and the Ottawa Valley prominent members of society including George Brown and Alexander Mcdonnell sought to annex the North-West. To prove that the land in the North-West as suitable, the British and Canadian governments funded expeditions west in 1857. The British expedition was formed by the Royal Geographical Society and was led by John Palliser. The Canadian expedition was led officially by George Gladman. Hind was recommended by the head of the Canadian Geological Survey, William Logan, to lead the scientific portion of the expedition. Throughout the expedition Hind was to collect information on topography, vegetation, soil and meteorological observations. The Canadian expedition departed on 23 July 1857 from Toronto on the Northern Railway. The group included George Gladman, his son Henry, Simon Dawson, W. H. E. Napier, S. L. Russell, G. F. Gaudet, A. M. Wells, J. A. Dickenson and Robert Wynne. The expedition included a dozen Iroquois, representatives of the fur trade, a dozen Ojibwa, several French Canadians, a Scottish man and a Métis man. The group arrived at Fort William by the end of the month. 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. These scientific expeditions were the most immediate consequences of the expansionist campaign. Ultimately the work of Palliser and Hind redefined public opinion and the perceived geography of the North-West. They created the idea of two vast sub-districts. Palliser's Triangle consisted of poor soil and was arid and uninhabitable. Hind's discovery, called the Fertile Belt, stretched from the Red River Settlement to the Saskatchewan River Valley