In 1835 the map of the arctic coast of North America was still far from complete, with unmapped gaps of 280km from Return Reef to Point Barrow in Alaska and 550km from Point Turnagain to Boothia Peninsula in the Central Canadian Arctic. The Hudson’s Bay Company developed a plan to fill the gaps and two of the Company’s officers were chosen to carry it out: the veteran Chief Factor Peter Dease - efficient, competent, steady, and with an excellent rapport with Indians and the servants, mostly Mtis - and Thomas Simpson, young, energetic, ambitious, arrogant, and cousin and secretary to George Simpson, the Company’s governor in North America.