Like other members of the Board of Public Works in Red River, the physician John BUNN, whose father was a clerk in the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and whose mother was part-Indigenous, worked to improve travel in the colony’s territory:
“In addition to his concern for the health of the Red River community, Bunn, as one of the most active councillors of Assiniboia, played a significant part in local government. His work on the council, which he approached with a pragmatic outlook and with an intimate knowledge of the affairs of Red River, was intended to encourage the development of an orderly society and the cultural and material growth of the settlement. Partly through his strong support of Eden Colvile*, governor of Rupert’s Land, who regarded him as ‘the most sensible man in the Settlement,’ the government of Assiniboia, which had collapsed under the administration of Major William Bletterman Caldwell* in the late 1840s, was again made effective. Besides steering the council into voting financial aid for the Red River Agricultural Association and for the expansion of educational facilities, Bunn during his tenure as chairman of the Board of Public Works from 1856 to 1861 induced the council to spend a good deal of money on the construction of roads and the bridging of streams tributary to the Red and Assiniboine rivers.”
The following biographies, grouped into categories, can be used to learn more about the modes of transportation and the transportation infrastructure projects within or leading to the colony between 1812 and 1870.
