Dragons in Canada
Dragons serving in the British Aerial Corps
The activities of the Aerial Corps in Canada appear to have been centred around the Halifax covert in the Colony of Nova Scotia. For example, Captain Prewitt, whom Laurence met in December 1807, and his Winchester were assigned to the Halifax covert, but from there had been stationed "on a lonely circuit out in Quebec to put [Prewitt] out of the way of anyone hearing his radical political views."
Note that at the time this conversation took place, the former Province of Quebec had not existed since it was partitioned by the Constitutional Act of 1791 into Upper Canada and Lower Canada. (The names refer to the direction of flow of the St. Lawrence River, with Lower Canada being further east.) It is not clear whether Prewitt was using the older name out of habit or referring specifically to the city of Quebec on the St. Lawrence. In any case, that this post was filled out of the Halifax covert suggests that the Aerial Corps' coverage of the eastern part of the country was fairly sparse. This is further underlined by the fact that Prewitt's Winchester had so little contact with other dragons that s/he escaped the Dragon Plague.
The Aerial Corps also maintained breeding grounds in the Colony of Newfoundland, started shortly before 1805. Since St. John's on the Avalon Peninsula in eastern Newfoundland was already a thriving city by this time, the breeding grounds were probably located in a more isolated area, possibly in the Long Range Mountains along the western coast of the island. Dragons known to have stayed at the Newfoundland breeding grounds include Praecursoris and the dragon known as Dakota.
Aboriginal dragons
Dragons also worked in partnership with humans among the First Nations peoples. The usual habit was for each dragon to carry not a crew, as in the Aerial Corps, but rather one human alone, no matter what the size of the dragon. The dragons were known for their ferocity in fighting.
The dragon seen by Laurence and Temeraire on the HMS William of Orange in late 1805 was referred to by Sutton as "Dakota". The name suggests that the dragon and his rider were members of the easternmost branch of the Sioux people. This identification further suggests that the "settlement on the frontier" that the pair were raiding when captured by the British was on the western frontier of Upper Canada rather than in Rupert's Land, the territory further west and to the north where the Hudson's Bay Company operated.
After Praecursoris was sent to the Newfoundland breeding grounds, the Dakota dragon was sent to the Pen Y Fan Breeding Grounds in exchange. It was believed that this was how the Dragon Plague was introduced among British dragons, much as smallpox was introduced among the First Nations peoples by European settlers.
That Captain Prewitt's Winchester was able to escape the plague in Quebec suggests either that the plague virus was not common among eastern aboriginal dragons or that the Winchester never came in any contact with aboriginal dragons, possibly because they had already been wiped out by European settlement.
