William Wentworth Fitzwilliam Milton [1839–1877] was a British nobleman, explorer, and Liberal Party politician. Walter Butler Cheadle [1835–1910] was an English paediatrician. They travelled across Canada in 1862-1863. Departing from Quebec City in July, they wintered near Fort Carlton in present-day Saskatchewan. In 1863 they became the first “tourists” to travel through the Yellowhead Pass. After a challenging and at times humorous summer, they reached Victoria, British Columbia.

They chronicled their trip in The North-West Passage by Land. Being the narrative of an expedition from the Atlantic to the Pacific, undertaken with the view of exploring a route across the continent to British Columbia through British territory, by one of the northern passes in the Rocky Mountains (1865).