passage were so plentiful, flying from south to north, and halting to rest at the lake, that Hearne felt the time had come to resume his journey, provisions being now very plentiful and the worst of the thaw over. The weather was remarkably fine and pleasant as the party travelled northwards.
There must have been good patent medicines even in those days. Of these Hearne possessed “Turlington’s Drops” and “Yellow Basilicon”, and with these he not only healed the terrible wounds of a valuable Indian who had cut his leg most severely (when making birch-bark dishes, spoons, &c), but also the hand of another Indian, which was shattered with the bursting of a gun. These medicines soon restored the use of his hand, so that in a short time he was out of danger, while the carver of birch-bark spoons was able to walk. Nevertheless, although they were to the south of the 60th degree of latitude, the snow was not completely melted until the end of June.
All at once the weather became exceedingly hot, the sledges had to be thrown away, and each man had to carry on his back a heavy load. For instance, Hearne was obliged to carry his quadrant for taking astronomical observations, and its stand; a trunk containing books and papers, &c.; a large compass; and a bag containing all his wearing apparel; also a hatchet, a number of knives, files, &c., and several small articles intended for presents to the natives–in short, a weight of _sixty pounds_. Moreover, the barren ground was quite unsuited to the pitching of the southern type of tent, the poles of which obviously could not be driven into the bare rock, so that Hearne was obliged to sleep in the open air in all weathers. Very often he was unable to make a fire, and was constantly reduced to eating his meat quite raw. “Notwithstanding these accumulated and complicated hardships, we continued in perfect health and good spirits.” The average day’s walk was twenty miles, sometimes without any other subsistence than a pipe of tobacco and a drink of water.
At last they saw three musk oxen grazing by the side of a small lake. This seemed a splendid piece of fortune, but, to their mortification, before they could get one of them skinned, a tremendous downpour of rain ensued, so as to make it out of their power to have a fire, for their only form of fuel was moss. And the flesh of the musk ox eaten raw was disgusting; it was coarse and tough, and tasted so strongly of musk that Hearne could hardly swallow it. “None of our natural wants,” he writes, “except thirst, are so distressing or hard to endure as hunger…. For want of action, the stomach so far loses its digestive powers that, after long fasting, it resumes its office with pain and reluctance.” After these prolonged fasts, his stomach was scarcely able to contain two or three ounces of food without producing the most agonizing pain. “We fasted many times two whole days and nights, and twice for three days; once for nearly seven days, during which we tasted not a mouthful of anything, except a few cranberries, water, scraps of old leather, and burnt bones.”
At a place 63 deg. north latitude he bought a canoe for a single knife “the full value of which did not exceed one penny”, having been told that they would soon reach rivers through which they could not wade. And, moreover, they found an Indian who was willing to carry it. In July his guide persuaded him to join an encampment of natives–about six hundred persons living in seventy tents–asserting that, as it was no use proceeding much farther north in their search for the Coppermine River that season, it would be well to winter to the west, and resume their northern journey in the spring. The country, though quite devoid of trees, and mostly barren rock, was covered with a herb or shrub called by the Indian name of Wishakapakka,[2] from which the European servants of the Hudson’s Bay Company had long been used to prepare a kind of tea by steeping it in boiling water. Here there were multitudes of reindeer feeding on the _Cladina_ lichen and the Indians with Hearne killed large numbers for the food of the party, and also for their skins and the marrow in their bones.
[Footnote 2: This word is said to be a corruption or altered form of _Wishakagami[-u]_, a liquid or broth (Kri language). The drink made from this shrub or herb (_Ledum palustre_) is now known as Labrador tea. It is a bitter aromatic infusion.]
The Indian who had volunteered to carry the canoe proved unequal to his task. But Hearne found another of his carriers who was willing to take the burden. In order, therefore, to be readier with his gun to shoot deer, he transferred a portion of his own load to the ex-canoe carrier. This portion consisted of the invaluable quadrant and its stand, and a bag of gunpowder. The gunpowder was of such importance to Hearne and his party that one wonders he made this exchange; for if he lost this powder he had no means of killing game, and was entirely dependent for food on the troop of Indians with whom he was travelling, and whom he knew to be most niggardly and inhospitable. Judge, therefore, of his horror when, at the end of a day’s march, this weakly Indian porter was missing with his load. All night Hearne was unable to sleep with anxiety, and the whole of the next day he spent searching the rocky ground for miles to discover some sign of the missing man. At that season of the year it was like looking for a needle in a pottle of hay, for there was no snow, and equally no herbage, on which a man’s foot could leave traces. However, at last, by some miracle, they discovered the load by the banks of a little river where a party of Indians had crossed.
Shortly afterwards, leaving his quadrant on its stand for a few minutes, whilst he went to eat his dinner, a violent wind arose and blew the whole thing on to the rocks, so that the quadrant was smashed and rendered useless. On this account he determined once more to return to Fort Prince of Wales. The Northern Indians[3] with whom Hearne travelled backwards towards the fort were most inhospitable, not to say dangerous. They robbed him of most of his goods, and refused to allow their women to assist his people to dress the reindeer skins out of which it would be necessary shortly to make coverings to protect them from the severe cold of the autumn. In fact Hearne was in rather a desperate condition by September, 1770, when he was joined by a party of Indians under a famous leader, whom he calls Matonabi.
[Footnote 3: The Indians of the Athapaskan or Dene group were usually called the _Northern Indians_ by the Hudson Bay people, in comparison to all the other tribes of the more temperate regions farther south, who were known as the _Southern Indians_ (Algonkins, &c.).]
Matonabi, though of Athapaskan stock, had, when a boy, resided several years at Prince of Wales’s Fort, and learnt a little English, and, above all, was a master of several Algonkin dialects or languages, so that he could discourse with the Southern Indians. As soon as he heard of Hearne’s distress he furnished him with a good, warm suit of skins, and had the reindeer skins dressed for the Indian carriers who accompanied Hearne. In journeying together, Matonabi invited him to return once more, with himself as guide, to discover the copper mines.
“He attributed all our misfortunes to the misconduct of my guides, and the very plan we pursued, by the desire of the Governor, in not taking any women with us on this journey, was, he said, the principal thing that occasioned all our wants. ‘For,’ said he, ‘when all the men are heavy laden, they can neither hunt nor travel to any considerable distance; and in case they meet with success in hunting, who is to carry the produce of their labour?’ ‘Women,’ added he, ‘were made for labour; one of them can carry, or haul, as much as two men can do. They also pitch our tents, make and mend our clothing, keep us warm at night; and, in fact, there is no such thing as travelling any considerable distance, or for any length of time, in this country, without their assistance.’ ‘Women,’ said he again, ‘though they do everything, are maintained at a trifling expense; for as they always stand cook, the very licking of their fingers in scarce times is sufficient for their subsistence.’
“This,” added Hearne, “however odd it may appear, is but too true a description of the situation of women in this country: it is at least so in appearance; for the women always carry the provisions, though it is more than probable they help themselves when the men are not present.”
On the 7th of December, 1770, Samuel Hearne started again from Prince of Wales’s Fort, Hudsons Bay, but under very much happier circumstances, Matonabi being practically in charge of the expedition.
Unfortunately, on reaching the Egg River, where Matonabi’s people had made a _cache_ or hiding place in which they had stored a quantity of provisions and implements, they found that other Indians had discovered this hiding place and robbed it of nearly every article. This was a great disappointment to Matonabi’s people; but Hearne remarks the fortitude with which they bore this, nor did one of them ever speak of revenge. But the expedition’s scarcity of food obliged them to push on from morning till night, day after day; yet the road being very bad, and their sledges heavy, they were seldom able to do more than eighteen miles a day. Hearne himself writes that he never spent so dull a Christmas. For the last three days he had not tasted a morsel of anything, except a pipe of tobacco and a drink of snow water, yet he had to walk daily from morning till night heavily laden. However, at the end of December they reached Island Lake, where they entered a camp of Matonabi’s people, and here they found a little food in the way of fish and dried venison. From Island Lake they made their way in a zigzag fashion, stopping often to drive reindeer into pounds to secure large supplies of venison and of skins, till, in the month of April, 1771, they reached a small lake with an almost unpronounceable name, which meant “Little Fish Hill”, from a high hill which stood at the west end of this sheet of water.
On an island in this lake they pitched their tents, as deer were very numerous. During this time also they were busily employed in preparing staves of birch wood, about seven or eight feet long, to serve as tent poles in the summer, and in the winter to be converted into snowshoe frames. Here also Chief Matonabi purchased another wife. He had now with him no less than seven, most of whom would for size have made good grenadiers. He prided himself much on the height and strength of his wives, and would frequently say few women could carry off heavier loads. In fact in this country wives were very seldom selected for their beauty, but rather for their strength.
“Ask a Northern Indian,” wrote Hearne, “‘What is beauty?’ He will answer: ‘A broad, flat face, small eyes, high cheekbones, three or four broad black lines across each cheek, a low forehead, a broad chin, a clumsy hook nose, and a tawny hide.'”
But the model woman amongst these Indians was one who was capable of dressing all kinds of skins and making them into clothing, and who was strong enough to carry a load of about a hundred pounds in weight in summer, and to haul perhaps double that weight on a sledge in winter. “As to their temper, it is of little consequence; for the men have a wonderful facility in making the most stubborn comply with as much alacrity as could possibly be expected.” When the men kill any large beast the women are always sent to bring it to the tent. When it is brought there, every operation it undergoes, such as splitting, drying, pounding, is performed by the women. When anything is prepared for eating it is the women who cook it; and when it is done, not even the wives and daughters of the greatest chiefs in the country are served until all the males–even the male slaves–have eaten what they think proper. In times of scarcity it was frequently the lot of the women to be left without a single mouthful; though, no doubt, they took good care to help themselves in secret.
[Illustration: SAMUEL HEARNE; ALEXANDER MACKENZIE]
Hearne mentions that in this country among the Northern Indians the names of the boys were various and generally derived from some place, or season of the year, or animal; whilst the names of the girls were chiefly taken from some part or property of a marten,[4] such as the white marten, the black marten, the summer marten, the marten’s head, foot, heart, or tail.
[Footnote 4: A fur-bearing animal (_Mustela americana_), very like the British pine marten.]
From the Lake of Little Fish Hill the party moved on to Lake Clowey, and here the Northern Indians set to work to build their canoes in the warm and dry weather, which was about to come in at the end of May. These canoes were very slight and simple in construction and wonderfully light, which was necessary, for some of the northern portages might be a hundred to one hundred and fifty miles in length, over which the canoes would have to be carried by the Indians. All the tools employed in those days, in building such canoes and making snowshoes and all the other furniture and utensils of Indian life, consisted of a _hatchet_, a _knife_, a _file_, and an _awl_ obtained from the stores of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In the use of these tools they were so dexterous that everything they manufactured was done with a neatness which could not be excelled by the most expert mechanic. These northern canoes were flat-bottomed, with straight, upright sides, and sharp prow and peak. The stern part of the canoe was wider than the rest in order to receive the baggage. The average length of the canoe would be from twelve to thirteen feet, and the breadth in the widest part about two feet. Generally but a single paddle was used, and that rather attenuated. When transporting the canoes from one river to another, a strong band of bark or fibre would be fastened round the thwarts of the canoe, and then slung over the breast and shoulders of the Indian that was carrying it.
From Lake Clowey the northern progress was made on foot, steady and fatiguing walking over the barren grounds. The wooded region had been left behind to the south; but for a distance of about twenty miles outside the living woods there was a belt of dry stumps more or less ancient. According to Hearne, these vestiges of trees to the north of the present forest limit were an indication that the climate had grown colder during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, because, according to the traditions of the Indians and the remembrances of their old people, the forest had formerly extended much farther to the north.
Whilst they were staying for the canoe building at Lake Clowey, Hearne was a great deal bothered by the domestic troubles of his Indian friend Matonabi. This man had been constantly trying to add to his stock of wives as he passed up country, and at Clowey he had met the former husband of one of these women whom he had carried off by force. The man ventured to reproach him, whereupon Matonabi went into his tent, opened one of his wives’ bundles, and with the greatest composure took out a new, long, box-handled knife; then proceeded to the tent of the man who had complained, and without any parley whatever took him by the collar and attempted to stab him to death. The man had already received three bad knife wounds in the back before other people, rushing in to his assistance, prevented Matonabi from finishing him. After this, Matonabi returned to his tent as though nothing had happened, called for water, washed the blood off his hands and knife, and smoked his pipe as usual, asking Hearne if he did not think he had done quite right!
“It has ever been the custom among those people for the men to wrestle for any woman to whom they are attached; and of course the strongest party always carries off the prize. A weak man, unless he be a good hunter and well beloved, is seldom permitted to keep a wife that a stronger man thinks worth his notice; for at any time when the wives of those strong wrestlers are heavy laden either with furs or provisions, they make no scruple of tearing any other man’s wife from his bosom and making her bear a part of his luggage. This custom prevails throughout all their tribes, and causes a great spirit of emulation among their youth, who are upon all occasions, from their childhood, trying their strength and skill in wrestling. This enables them to protect their property, and particularly their wives, from the hands of those powerful ravishers, some of whom make almost a livelihood by taking what they please from the weaker parties without making them any return. Indeed it is represented as an act of great generosity if they condescend to make an unequal exchange, as, in general, abuse and insult are the only return for the loss which is sustained.
“The way in which they tear the women and other property from one another, though it has the appearance of the greatest brutality, can scarcely be called fighting. I never knew any of them receive the least hurt in these _rencontres_; the whole business consists in hauling each other about by the hair of the head; they are seldom known either to strike or kick one another. It is not uncommon for one of them to cut off his hair and to grease his ears immediately before the contest begins. This, however, is done privately; and it is sometimes truly laughable to see one of the parties strutting about with an air of great importance, and calling out: ‘Where is he? Why does he not come out?’ when the other will bolt out with a clean-shorn head and greased ears, rush on his antagonist, seize him by the hair, and, though perhaps a much weaker man, soon drag him to the ground, while the stronger is not able to lay hold of him. It is very frequent on those occasions for each party to have spies, to watch the other’s motions, which puts them more on a footing of equality. For want of hair to pull, they seize each other about the waist, with legs wide extended, and try their strength by endeavouring to vie who can first throw the other down.”
“Early in the morning of the twenty-ninth ‘Captain’ Keelshies (an Indian) joined us. He delivered to me a packet of letters and a two-quart keg of French brandy, but assured me that the powder, shot, tobacco, knives, &c, which he received at the fort for me, were all expended. He endeavoured to make some apology for this by saying that some of his relations died in the winter, and that he had, according to native custom, thrown all his own things away; after which he was obliged to have recourse to my ammunition and other goods to support himself and a numerous family. The very affecting manner in which he related this story, often crying like a child, was a great proof of his extreme sorrow, which he wished to persuade me arose from the recollection of his having embezzled so much of my property; but I was of a different opinion, and attributed his grief to arise from the remembrance of his deceased relations. However, as a small recompense for my loss, he presented me with four ready-dressed moose skins, which was, he said, the only retribution he could then make. The moose skins, though not the twentieth part of the value of the goods which he had embezzled, were in reality more acceptable to me than the ammunition and the other articles would have been, on account of their great use as shoe leather, which at that time was a very scarce article with us, whereas we had plenty of powder and shot.”
During Hearne’s stay at Lake Clowey a great number of Indians entered into a combination with those of his party to travel together to the Coppermine River, with no other intent than to murder the Eskimo who frequented that river in considerable numbers. Before leaving Lake Clowey all the Northern Indians who had assembled there prepared their arms for the encounter, and did not forget to make shields before they left the woods of Clowey. These shields were composed of thin boards about three-quarters of an inch thick, two feet broad, and three feet long, and were intended to ward off the arrows of the Eskimo.
When the now large expedition reached a river with the fearful name of Congecathawhachaga, they found a portion of the tribe known as Copper Indians,[5] and these had never before seen a white man. They gave a very friendly reception to Hearne on account of Matonabi.
[Footnote 5: Or “Tantsawh[-u]ts”. Like the “Dog-rib” Indians, mentioned farther on, they belonged to the “Northern”, Tinne, Athabaskan type.]
“They expressed as much desire to examine me from top to toe as a European naturalist would a nondescript animal. They, however, found and pronounced me to be a perfect human being, except in the colour of my hair and eyes; the former, they said, was like the stained hair of a buffalo’s tail, and the latter, being light, were like those of a gull. The whiteness of my skin also was, in their opinion, no ornament, as they said it resembled meat which had been sodden in water till all the blood was extracted. On the whole I was viewed as so great a curiosity in this part of the world that during my stay there, whenever I combed my head, some or other of them never failed to ask for the hairs that came off, which they carefully wrapped up, saying: ‘When I see you again, you shall again see your hair’.”
The Copper Indians sent a detachment of their men in the double capacity of guides and warriors, and the whole party now turned towards the north-west, and after some days’ walking reached the Stony Mountains. “Surely no part of the world better deserves that name”, wrote, Hearne. They appeared to be a confused heap of stones quite inaccessible to the foot of man. Nevertheless, with the Copper Indians as guides, they got over this range, though not without being obliged frequently to crawl on hands and knees. This range, however, had been so often crossed by Indians coming to and fro that there was a very visible path the whole way, the rocks, even in the most difficult places, being worn quite smooth. By the side of the path there were several large, flat stones covered with thousands of small pebbles. These marks had been gradually built up by passengers going to and fro from the copper mines in the far north. The weather all this time, although the month was July, was very bad–constant snow, sleet, and rain. Hearne seldom had a dry garment of any kind, and in the caves where they lodged at night the water was constantly dropping from the roof. Their food all this time was raw venison. One snowstorm which fell on them was heavier than was customary even in the winter, but at last the weather cleared up and sunshine made the journey far more tolerable.
As they descended the northern side of the Stony Mountains they crossed a large lake, passing over its unmelted ice, and called it Musk-ox Lake, from the number of these creatures which they found grazing on the margin of it.
This was not the first time that Hearne had seen the musk ox. These animals were wont to come down as far south as the shores of Hudson Bay.
On the northern side of the Stony Mountains Hearne was taken by the Indians to see a place which he called Grizzly-bear Hill, which took its name from the numbers of those animals (presumably what we call grizzly bears) which resorted here for the purpose of bringing forth their young in a cave in this hill. On the east side of the adjoining marsh Hearne was amazed at the sight of the many hills and dry ridges, which were turned over like ploughed land by the long claws of these bears in searching for the ground squirrels and mice which constitute a favourite part of their food. It was surprising to see the enormous stones rolled out of their beds by the bears on these occasions.
As they neared the Coppermine River the weather became very warm, and the country had a good supply of firewood. Reindeer were abundant, and, the Indians having killed some of these, Hearne sat down to the most comfortable meal he had had for some months.
It was a kind of haggis, called by the Amerindians “biati”, made with the blood of the reindeer, a good quantity of fat shredded small, some of the tenderest of the flesh, together with the heart and lungs, cut, or more commonly torn, into small slivers–all which would be put into the stomach, and roasted by being suspended before the fire by a string. Care had to be taken that it did not get too much heat at first, as the bag would thereby be liable to be burnt and the contents be let out. When it was sufficiently done it emitted steam, “which”, writes Hearne, “is as much as to say: ‘Come, eat me now’; and if it be taken in time, before the blood and other contents are too much done, it is certainly a most delicious morsel, even without pepper, salt, or any other seasoning.”
It was now almost impossible to sleep at night for the mosquitoes, which swarmed in myriads as soon as the warmth of the sun melted the ice and snow. When Hearne actually reached the banks of the Coppermine River he was a little disappointed at its appearance, as it seemed to be only one hundred and eighty yards wide, shallow, and full of shoals. The Chipewayan Amerindians with him now sent out their spies to try and locate the Eskimo. Presently they found that there were five tents of them on the west side of the river.
“When the Indians received this intelligence no further attendance or attention was paid to my survey, but their whole thoughts were immediately engaged in planning the best method of attack, and how they might steal on the poor Eskimo the ensuing night and kill them all when asleep. To accomplish this bloody design more effectually the Indians thought it necessary to cross the river as soon as possible; and, by the account of the spies, it appeared that no part was more convenient for the purpose than that where we had met them, it being there very smooth, and at a considerable distance from any fall. Accordingly, after the Indians had put all their guns, spears, shields, &c, in good order, we crossed the river….
“When we arrived on the west side of the river, each painted the front of his shield; some with the figure of the sun, others with that of the moon, several with different kinds of birds and beasts of prey, and many with the images of imaginary beings, which, according to their silly notions, are the inhabitants of the different elements, Earth, Sea, Air, &c. On enquiring the reason of their doing so, I learned that each man painted his shield with the image of that being on which he relied most for success in the intended engagement. Some were content with a single representation; while others, doubtful, as I suppose, of the quality and power of any single being, had their shields covered to the very margin with a group of hieroglyphics quite unintelligible to everyone except the painter. Indeed, from the hurry in which this business was necessarily done, the want of every colour but red and black, and the deficiency of skill in the artist, most of those paintings had more the appearance of a number of accidental blotches, than ‘of anything that is on the earth, or in the water under the earth’….
“After this piece of superstition was completed, we began to advance towards the Eskimo tents; but were very careful to avoid crossing any hills, or talking loud, for fear of being seen or overheard by the inhabitants.”
When the attacking party was within two hundred yards of the Eskimo tents, they lay in ambush for some time, watching the motions of their intended victims; and here the Indians wanted Hearne (for whom they had a sincere affection) to stay till the fight was over; but to this he would not consent, lest, when the Eskimo came to be surprised, they should try every way to escape, and, finding him alone, kill him in their desperation.
While they lay in ambush the Northern Indians performed the last ceremonies which were thought necessary before the engagement. These chiefly consisted in painting their faces: some all black, some all red, and others with a mixture of the two; and to prevent their hair from blowing into their eyes, it was either tied before or behind, and on both sides, or else cut short all round. The next thing they considered was to make themselves as light as possible for running, which they did by pulling off their stockings, and either cutting off the sleeves of their jackets, or rolling them up close to their armpits; and though the mosquitoes at that time “were so numerous as to surpass all credibility”, yet some of the Indians actually pulled off their jackets and entered the lists nearly or quite naked. Hearne, fearing he might have occasion to run with the rest, thought it also advisable to pull off his stockings and cap, and to tie his hair as close up as possible.
By the time the Indians had made themselves thus “completely frightful”, it was nearly one in the morning. Then, finding all the Eskimo quiet in their tents, they rushed forth from their ambuscade, and fell on the poor, unsuspecting creatures, unperceived till they were close to the very eaves of the tents. A horrible massacre forthwith took place, while Hearne stood neutral in the rear.
“The scene was shocking beyond description. The poor unhappy victims were surprised in the midst of their sleep, and had neither time nor power to make any resistance; men, women, and children, in all upward of twenty, ran out of their tents stark naked, and endeavoured to make their escape; but the Indians having possession of all the landside, to no place could they fly for shelter. One alternative only remained, that of jumping into the river; but, as none of them attempted it, they all fell a sacrifice to Indian barbarity!
“The shrieks and groans of the poor expiring wretches were truly dreadful; and my horror was much increased at seeing a young girl, seemingly about eighteen years of age, killed so near me, that when the first spear was stuck into her side she fell down at my feet, and twisted round my legs, so that it was with difficulty that I could disengage myself from her dying grasp. As two Indian men pursued this unfortunate victim, I solicited very hard for her life; but the murderers made no reply till they had stuck both their spears through her body, and transfixed her to the ground. They then looked me sternly in the face, and began to ridicule me by asking if I wanted an Eskimo wife; and paid not the smallest regard to the shrieks and agony of the poor wretch, who was twining round their spears like an eel!”
On his requesting that they would at least put the woman out of her misery, one of the Indians hastily drew his spear from the place where it was first lodged, and pierced it through her breast near the heart. The love of life, however, even in this most miserable state, was so predominant, that “though this might justly be called the most merciful act that could be done for the poor creature, it seemed to be unwelcome, for, though much exhausted by pain and loss of blood, she made several efforts to ward off the friendly blow.”… “My own situation and the terror of my mind at beholding this butchery, cannot easily be conceived, much less described; though I summed up all the fortitude I was master of on the occasion, it was with difficulty that I could refrain from tears; and I am confident that my features must have feelingly expressed how sincerely I was affected at the barbarous scene I then witnessed; even at this hour I cannot reflect on the transactions of that horrid day without shedding tears.”
There were other Eskimo on the opposite shore of the river. Though they took up their arms to defend themselves, they did not attempt to abandon their tents, for they were utterly unacquainted with the nature of firearms; so much so that when the bullets struck the ground, they ran in crowds to see what was sent them, and seemed anxious to examine all the pieces of lead which they found flattened against the rocks. At length one of the Eskimo men was shot in the calf of his leg, which put them in great confusion. They all immediately embarked in their little canoes, and paddled to a shoal in the middle of the river, which being somewhat more than a gunshot from any part of the shore, put them out of the reach of our barbarians.
“When the savages discovered that the surviving Eskimo had gained the shore above-mentioned, the Northern Indians began to plunder the tents of the deceased of all the copper utensils they could find; such as hatchets, bayonets, knives, &c, after which they assembled on the top of an adjacent hill, and, standing all in a cluster, so as to form a solid circle, with their spears erect in the air, gave many shouts of victory, constantly clashing their spears against each other, and frequently calling out _tima! tima!_[6] by way of derision to the poor surviving Eskimo, who were standing on the shoal almost knee deep in water.”
[Footnote 6: “_Tima_ in the Eskimo language is a friendly word similar to _what cheer_?”–Hearne.]
“It ought to have been mentioned in its proper place,” writes Hearne, after describing further atrocities, “that in making our retreat up the river, after killing the Eskimo on the west side, we saw an old woman sitting by the side of the water killing salmon, which lay at the foot of the fall as thick as a shoal of herrings. Whether from the noise of the fall, or a natural defect in the old woman’s hearing, it is hard to determine, but certain it is, she had no knowledge of the tragical scene which had been so lately transacted at the tents, though she was not more than two hundred yards from the place. When we first perceived her she seemed perfectly at ease, and was entirely surrounded with the produce of her labour. From her manner of behaviour, and the appearance of her eyes, which were as red as blood, it is more than probable that her sight was not very good; for she scarcely discerned that the Indians were enemies, till they were within twice the length of their spears of her. It was in vain that she attempted to fly, for the wretches of my crew transfixed her to the ground in a few seconds, and butchered her in the most savage manner. There was scarcely a man among them who had not a thrust at her with his spear; and many in doing this aimed at torture rather than immediate death, as they not only poked out her eyes, but stabbed her in many parts very remote from those which are vital.
“It may appear strange that a person supposed to be almost blind should be employed in the business of fishing, and particularly with any degree of success; but when the multitude of the fish is taken into the account, the wonder will cease. Indeed they were so numerous at the foot of the fall, that when a light pole, armed with a few spikes, which was the instrument the old woman used, was put under water, and hauled up with a jerk, it was scarcely possible to miss them. Some of my Indians tried the method, for curiosity, with the old woman’s staff, and seldom got less than two at a jerk, sometimes three or four. Those fish, though very fine, and beautifully red, are but small, seldom weighing more (as near as I could judge) than six or seven pounds, and in general much less. Their numbers at this place were almost incredible, perhaps equal to anything that is related of the salmon in Kamschatka, or any other part of the world.”
Hearne seems to have been so intent on geographical discovery that he did not allow his feelings to influence him very long against the society of his Amerindian companions, who apparently sat down and ate a dish of salmon with him an hour or so after they had killed this last old woman! The Indians now told him that they were ready again to assist him in making an end of his survey, and apparently on foot, for the Coppermine River was not navigable here, even for a boat.
Thus, first of all white men coming overland, he reached the sea coast of the Arctic Ocean. The tide was then out, and a good deal of the sea surface was covered with ice, on which he observed many seals lying about. Along the sea coast and river banks were many birds; gulls, divers or loons, golden plovers, green plovers, curlews, geese, and swans. The country a little way inland was obviously inhabited by numbers of musk oxen, reindeer, bears, wolves, gluttons, foxes, polar hares, snowy owls, ravens, ptarmigans, gopher ground-squirrels, stoats (ermines), and mice. In this region also he saw a bird which the Copper Indians called the Alarm Bird. He tells us that in size and colour it resembles a “Cobadekoock”; but as none of us know what that is, we can only go on to imagine that the Alarm Bird was a kind of owl, as Hearne says it was “of the owl genus”. When it perceived people or beasts it directed its way towards them immediately, and, after hovering over them for some time, flew over them in circles or went away with them in the same direction as they walked. All this time the bird made a loud screaming noise like the cry of a child. These owls were sometimes accustomed to follow the Indians for a whole day, and the Copper Indians believed that they would in some way conduct them to herds of deer and musk oxen, which without the birds’ assistance might never be found. They also warned Indians of the arrival of strangers. The Eskimo, according to Hearne, paid no heed to these birds, and it was thus that they allowed themselves to be surprised and massacred, for if they had looked out from the direction in which the Chipewayans were lying in ambush, they would have seen a large flock of these owls continually flying about and making sufficient noise to awaken any man out of the soundest sleep.
The country on either side of the estuary of the Coppermine River was not without vegetation. There were stunted pines and tufts of dwarf willows, and the ground was covered with a lichen or herb, which the English of the Hudson’s Bay Company knew by the name of Wishakapaka,[7] and which they dried and used instead of tea. There were also cranberry and heathberry bushes, but without fruit. The scrub grew gradually thinner and smaller as one approached the sea, and at the mouth of the river there was nothing but barren hills and marsh.
[Footnote 7: _Ledum palustre_.]
The unfortunate Eskimo of this region, judging by the examples seen by Hearne, were of low stature, with broad thickset bodies. Their complexion was a dirty copper colour, but some of the women were almost fair and ruddy. Their dress, their arms and fishing tackle were precisely similar to those of the Greenland Eskimo. Their tents were made of deerskins, and were pitched in a circular form. But these were only their summer habitations, those for the winter being partly underground, with a roof framework of poles, over which skins were stretched; and of course Nature did the rest, covering the roof with several feet of snow. Owing to being almost entirely surrounded by snow, these winter houses were very warm. Their household furniture consisted of stone kettles and wooden troughs of various sizes, also dishes, scoops, and spoons made of musk-ox horns. The stone kettles (which some people think they borrowed from the Norse discoverers of America in the eleventh century) were as large as to be capable of containing five or six gallons. They were, of course, carved out of solid blocks of stone, every one of them being ornamented with neat moulding round the rims, and some of the large ones with fluted work at each corner. In shape they were oblong, wider at the top than the bottom, and strong handles of solid stone were left at each end to lift them up.
The Eskimo hatchets were made of a thick lump of copper about five or six inches long, and one and a half to two inches broad. They were bevelled away at one end like a chisel. This piece of copper was lashed into the end of a piece of wood about twelve or fourteen inches long. The men’s daggers and the women’s knives were also made of copper. The former were in shape like the ace of spades, and the handle was made of reindeer antler.
With the Eskimo was a fine breed of dogs, with erect ears, sharp noses, bushy tails. They were all tethered to stones to prevent them from eating the flesh that was spread all over the rocks to dry. Apparently, these beautiful dogs were left behind still tethered by the wicked Amerindians, after the massacre of their owners. Hearne, however, noticed with these Coppermine River Eskimo that the men were entirely bald, having all their head hair pulled out by the roots. The women wore their hair at the usual length.
Before leaving this region to return southwards, Hearne was led by the Indians to one of the copper mines about thirty miles south-east of the river mouth. It was no more than a jumble of rocks and gravel, which had been rent in many ways, apparently by an earthquake shock. This mine was at the time of Hearne’s visit very poor in copper, much of the metal having already been removed.
The Copper Indians set a great value on this native metal even at the present day, and prefer it to iron for almost every use except that of a hatchet, a knife, and an awl. “For these three necessary implements”, writes Hearne, “copper makes but a very poor substitute.”
On the return journey, in the course of which the Great Slave Lake–which Hearne calls “Lake Athapuscow”–was discovered and crossed on the ice, the party travelled so hard and stayed so seldom to rest that Hearne suffered terribly with his legs and feet. “I had so little power to direct my feet when walking, that I frequently knocked them against the stones with such force, as not only to jar and disorder them, but my legs also; and the nails of my toes were bruised to such a degree, that several of them festered and dropped off. To add to this mishap, the skin was entirely chafed off from the tops of both my feet, and between every toe; so that the sand and gravel, which I could by no means exclude, irritated the raw parts so much, that for a whole day before we arrived at the women’s tents, I left the print of my feet in blood almost at every step I took. Several of the Indians began to complain that their feet also were sore; but, on examination, not one of them was the twentieth part in so bad a state as mine. This being the first time I had been in such a situation, or seen anybody foot-foundered, I was much alarmed, and under great apprehensions for the consequences. Though I was but little fatigued in body, yet the excruciating pain I suffered when walking had such an effect on my spirits, that if the Indians had continued to travel two or three days longer at that unmerciful rate, I must unavoidably have been left behind; for my feet were in many places quite honeycombed by the dirt and gravel eating into the raw flesh.”
“Among the various superstitious customs of those people, it is worth remarking, and ought to have been mentioned in its proper place, that immediately after my companions had killed the Eskimo at the Copper River, they considered themselves in a state of uncleanness, which induced them to practise some very curious unusual ceremonies. In the first place, all who were absolutely concerned in the murder were prohibited from cooking any kind of victuals, either for themselves or others. As luckily there were two in company who had not shed blood, they were employed always as cooks till we joined the women. This circumstance was exceedingly favourable on my side; for had there been no persons of the above description in company, that task, I was told, would have fallen on me; which would have been no less fatiguing and troublesome, than humiliating and vexatious.
“When the victuals were cooked, all the murderers took a kind of red earth, or ochre, and painted all the space between the nose and chin, as well as the greater part of their cheeks, almost to the ears, before they would taste a bit, and would not drink out of any other dish, or smoke out of any other pipe, but their own; and none of the others seemed willing to drink or smoke out of theirs.”
He goes on to relate that they practised the custom of painting the mouth and part of the cheeks before each meal, and drinking and smoking out of their own utensils, till the winter began to set in, and during the whole of that time they would never kiss any of their wives or children. They refrained also from eating many parts of the deer and other animals, particularly the head, entrails, and blood; and during their “uncleanness” their food was never cooked in water, but dried in the sun, eaten quite raw, or broiled. When the time arrived that was to put an end to these ceremonies, the men, without a female being present, made a fire at some distance from the tents, into which they threw all their ornaments, pipe stems, and dishes, which were soon consumed to ashes; after which a feast was prepared, consisting of such articles as they had long been prohibited from eating, and when all was over each man was at liberty to eat, drink, and smoke as he pleased, “and also to kiss his wives and children at discretion, which they seemed to do with more raptures than I had ever known them to do it either before or since”.
On the 11th of January, as some of Hearne’s companions were hunting, they saw the track of a strange snowshoe, which they followed, and at a considerable distance came to a little hut, where they discovered a young woman sitting alone. As they found that she understood their language, they brought her with them to the tents. On examination she proved to be one of the Western Dog-rib Indians, who had been taken prisoner by the Athapaska Indians in the summer of 1770. From these, in the following summer, she had escaped, with the intention of returning to her own country, but the distance being so great, and the way being unknown to her, she forgot the track, so she built the hut in which they found her, to protect her from the weather during the winter, and here she had resided from the first setting in of the cold weather. For seven months she had seen no human face. During all this time she had supported herself in comparative comfort by snaring grouse, rabbits, and squirrels; she had also killed two or three beaver, and some porcupines. That she did not seem to have been in want was evident, as she had a small stock of provisions by her when she was discovered, and was in good health and condition; and Hearne thought her “one of the finest women”, of the real Indian type, that he had seen in any part of North America.
“The methods practised by this poor creature to procure a livelihood were truly admirable, and are great proofs that necessity is the real mother of invention. When the few deer sinews that she had an opportunity of taking with her were all expended in making snares and sewing her clothing, she had nothing to supply their place but the sinews of the rabbits’ [he means hares’] legs and feet; these she twisted together for that purpose with great dexterity and success. The rabbits, &c, which she caught in those snares, not only furnished her with a comfortable subsistence, but of the skins she made a suit of neat and warm clothing for the winter. It is scarcely possible to conceive that a person in her forlorn situation could be so composed as to be capable of contriving or executing anything that was not absolutely necessary to her existence; but there were sufficient proofs that she had extended her care much farther, as all her clothing, beside being calculated for real service, showed great taste and exhibited no little variety of ornament. The materials, though rude, were very curiously wrought and so judiciously placed as to make the whole of her garb have a very pleasing, though rather romantic, appearance.
“Her leisure hours from hunting had been employed in twisting the inner rind or bark of willows into small lines, like net twine, of which she had some hundred fathoms by her; with this she intended to make a fishing net as soon as the spring advanced. It is of the inner bark of willows, twisted in this manner, that the Dog-rib Indians make their fishing nets, and they are much preferable to those made by the Northern Indians.
“Five or six inches of an iron hoop, made into a knife, and the shank of an arrowhead of iron, which served her as an awl, were all the metals this poor woman had with her when she eloped, and with these implements she had made herself complete snowshoes, and several other useful articles.
“Her method of making a fire was equally singular and curious, having no other materials for that purpose than two hard sulphurous stones. These, by long friction and hard knocking, produced a few sparks, which at length communicated to some touchwood (a species of fungus which grew on decayed poplars); but as this method was attended with great trouble, and not always with success, she did not suffer her fire to go out all the winter….”
Hearne regained Prince of Wales’s Fort on Hudson Bay in June, 1772. Subsequently he was dispatched, in the year 1774, to found the first great inland trading station and fort of the Hudson’s Bay Company which was established at any considerable distance westward of Hudson Bay–the first step, in fact, which led to this chartered company becoming in time the ruler and colonizing agent of Alberta and British Columbia. Hearne chose for his station of “Cumberland House” a site at the entrance to Pine Island Lake on the lower Saskatchewan River.
In 1775 he became Governor of his old starting-point on Hudson Bay–Fort Prince of Wales. During the American war with France, the French admiral, La Perouse, made a daring excursion into Hudson Bay (1782), and summoned Hearne to surrender his fort. This he felt obliged to do, not deeming his small garrison strong enough to resist the French force.
Samuel Hearne returned to England in 1787, and died (probably in London) in 1792.
CHAPTER XI
Alexander Mackenzie’s Journeys
It has been already mentioned that the conquest of Canada by the British led to a great increase in travel for the development of the fur trade. Previously, under the French, permission was only granted to a few persons to penetrate into the interior to trade with the natives, commerce being regarded as a special privilege or monopoly to be sold or granted by the Crown. But after the British had completely assumed control, nothing was done to bar access to the interior. So long as the Catholic missionaries had been practically placed in charge of the Amerindians, and had served as buffers between them and unscrupulous traders, they–the Amerindians–had been saved from two scourges, smallpox and strong drink.[1] But now, unhappily, all restrictions about trade in alcohol were removed. In their eagerness to obtain ardent spirits and “high” wine, the Indians eagerly welcomed British traders and French Canadians in their midst. The fur trade developed fast. The Hudson’s Bay Company had established its trading stations only in the vicinity or on the coasts of that inland sea, far away from the two Canadas, from the Middle West and the vast North West. After a little reluctance and suspicion, most of the northern Amerindian tribes were persuaded to deflect their caravans from the routes leading to Hudson Bay, and to meet the British, the New Englander (“Bostonian”), and the French Canadian traders at various rendezvous on Lake Winnipeg and its tributary lakes and rivers. The principal depot and starting-point for the north-west traders was _Grand Portage_, on the north-west coast of Lake Superior, whence canoes and goods were transferred by a nine-mile portage to the waters flowing to Rainy Lake, and so onwards to the Winnipeg River and the vast system of the Saskatchewan, the Red River, and the Assiniboine.
[Footnote 1: See Sir Alexander Mackenzie’s _Travels_, p. 5.]
Amongst the pioneers in this new development of the fur trade, who became also the great explorers of northernmost America, was Alexander Henry (already described), THOMAS CURRIE, JAMES FINLAY, PETER POND,[2] JOSEPH and BENJAMIN FROBISHER, and SIMON M’TAVISH. These and some of their supporting merchants in Montreal resolved to form a great fur-trading association, the celebrated North-west Trading Company, and did so in 1784.
[Footnote 2: Peter Pond was a native of Connecticut, and in the opinion of his trading associates rather a ruffian. He was strongly suspected of having murdered an amiable Swiss fur trader named Wadin, and at a later date he actually did kill his trading partner, Ross.]
Two of the Montreal merchant firms participating in this confederation (Gregory and M’Leod) were inclined to play a somewhat independent part, and called themselves the New North-west Trading Company. They had the foresight to engage as their principal agents in the north-west (Sir) ALEXANDER MACKENZIE and his cousin RODERICK MACKENZIE. Both these young men were Highlanders, probably of Norse origin. Alexander Mackenzie was born at Stornoway, in the Island of Lewis (Hebrides), in 1763. He was only sixteen when he started for Canada to take up a position as clerk in the partnership concern of Gregory & M’Leod at Montreal.
It may be said here briefly that this “New North-west Company” went at first by the nickname of “The Little Company” or “The Potties”, this last being an Amerindian corruption of the French _Les Petits_. Later it developed into the “X.Y. Company”, or “Sir Alexander Mackenzie & Co.”. Although much in rivalry with the original “Nor’-westers”, the rivalry never degenerated into the actual warfare, the indefensible deeds of violence and treachery, which later on were perpetrated by the Hudson’s Bay Company on the agents of the North-west, and returned with interest by the latter. Often the New North-west agents and the original Nor’-westers would camp or build side by side, and share equably in the fur trade with the natives; their canoemen and French-Canadian _voyageurs_ would sing their boating songs in chorus as they paddled side by side across the lakes and down the rivers, or marched with their heavy loads over the portages and along the trails. Eventually, in 1804, the X.Y. Company and the North-west fused into the North-west Trading Company, which until 1821 fought a hard fight against the encroachments and jealousy of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
During the period, however, from 1785 to 1812 the men of the north-west, of Montreal, and Grand Portage (as contrasted with those of Hudson Bay) effected a revolution in Canadian geography. They played the role of imperial pioneers with a stubborn heroism, with little thought of personal gain, and in most cases with full foreknowledge and appreciation of what would accrue to the British Empire through their success. It is impossible to relate the adventures of all of them within the space of any one book, or even of several volumes. Moreover, this has been done already, not only in their own published journals and books, but in the admirable works of Elliot Coues, Dr. George Bryce, Dr. S.J. Dawson, Alexander Ross, and others. I must confine myself here to a description of the adventures of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, with a glance at incidents recorded by Simon Fraser and by Alexander Henry the Younger.
Mackenzie, having been appointed at the age of twenty-two a partner in the New North-west Company, proceeded to Grand Portage in 1785, and by the year 1788 (after founding Fort Chipewayan on Lake Athabaska) conceived the idea of following the mysterious Slave River to its ultimate outlet into the Arctic or the Pacific Ocean. He left Fort Chipewayan on June 3, 1789, accompanied by four French-Canadian _voyageurs_, two French-Canadian women (wives of two _voyageurs_), a young German named John Steinbruck, and an Amerindian guide known as “English Chief”. This last was a follower and pupil of the Matonabi who had guided Hearne to the Coppermine River and the eastern end of the Great Slave Lake. The party of eight whites packed themselves and their goods into one birch-bark canoe. English Chief and his two wives, together with an additional Amerindian guide and a hunter, travelled in a second and smaller canoe. The expedition, moreover, was accompanied as far as Slave River by LE ROUX, a celebrated French-Canadian exploring trader who worked for the X.Y. Company. The journey down the Slave River was rendered difficult and dangerous by the rapids. Several times the canoes and their loads had to be lugged past these falls by an overland portage. Mosquitoes tortured the whole party almost past bearance. The leaders of the expedition and their Indian hunter had to be busily engaged (the Indian women also) in hunting and fishing in order to get food for the support of the party, who seemed to have had little reserve provisions with them. Pemmican was made of fish dried in the sun and rubbed to powder. Swans, geese, cranes, and ducks fell to the guns; an occasional beaver was also added to the pot. When they reached the Great Slave Lake they found its islands–notwithstanding their barren appearance–covered with bushes producing a great variety of palatable fruits–cranberries, juniper berries, raspberries, partridge berries, gooseberries, and the “pathogomenan”, a fruit like a raspberry.
Slave Lake, however, was still, in mid-June, under the spell of winter, its surface obstructed with drifting ice. In attempting to cross the lake the frail birch-bark canoes ran a great risk of being crushed between the ice floes. However, at length, after halting at several islands and leaving Le Roux to go to the trading station he had founded on the shores of Slave Lake, Mackenzie and his two canoes found their way to the river outlet of Slave Lake, that river which was henceforth to be called by his name. Great mountains approached near to the west of their course. They appeared to be sprinkled with white stones, called by the natives “spirit stones”–indeed over a great part of North America the Rocky Mountains were called “the Mountains of Bright Stones”–yet these brilliant patches were nothing more wonderful than unmelted snow.
A few days later the party encountered Amerindians of the Slave and Dog-rib tribes, who were so aloof from even “Indian” civilization that they did not know the use of tobacco, and were still in the Stone Age as regards their weapons and implements. These people, though they furnished a guide, foretold disaster and famine to the expedition, and greatly exaggerated the obstacles which would be met with–rapids near the entrance of the tributary from Great Bear Lake–before the salt water was reached.
The canoes of these Slave and Dog-rib tribes of the Athapaskan (Tinne) group were covered, not with birch bark, but with the bark of the spruce fir.
The lodges of the Slave Indians were of very simple structure: a few poles supported by a fork and forming a semicircle at the bottom, with some branches or a piece of bark as a covering. They built two of these huts facing each other, and made a fire between them. The furniture consisted of a few dishes of wood, bark, or horn. The vessels in which they cooked their victuals were in the shape of a gourd, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, and made of _watape_.
This was the name given to the divided roots of the spruce fir, which the natives wove into a degree of compactness that rendered it capable of containing a fluid. Watape fibre was also used to sew together different parts of the bark canoes. They also made fibre or thread from willow bark. Their cooking vessels made of this watape not only contained water, but water which was made to boil by putting a succession of hot stones into it. It would, of course, be impossible to place these vessels of fibre on a fire, and apparently none of the Amerindians of temperate North America knew anything about pottery. Those that were in some degree in touch with the Eskimo used kettles or cauldrons of stone. Elsewhere the vessels for boiling water and cooking were made of bark or fibre, and the water therein was made to boil by the dropping in of red-hot stones. The arrows of these Slave Indians were two and a half feet long, and the barb was made of bone, horn, flint, or copper. Iron had been quite lately introduced, indirectly obtained from the Russians in Alaska. Their spears were pointed with barbed bone, and their daggers were made of horn or bone. Their great club, the _pogamagan_, was made of a reindeer’s antler. Axes were manufactured out of a piece of brown or grey stone, six to eight inches long and two inches thick. They kindled fire by striking together a piece of iron pyrites and touchwood, and never travelled without a small bag containing such materials.
The Amerindians along the lower Mackenzie had heard vague and terrible legends about the Russians, far, far away on the coast of Alaska; they were represented as beings of gigantic stature, and adorned with wings; which, however, they never employed in flying (possibly the sails of their ships). They fed on large birds, and killed them with the greatest ease. They also possessed the extraordinary power of killing with their eyes (no doubt putting up a gun to aim), and they travelled in canoes of very large dimensions.
[Illustration: BIG-HORNED SHEEP OF ROCKY MOUNTAINS]
“I engaged one of these Indians,” writes Mackenzie, “by a bribe of some beads, to describe the surrounding country upon the sand. This singular map he immediately undertook to delineate, and accordingly traced out a very long point of land between the rivers … which he represented as running into the great lake, at the extremity of which he had been told by Indians of other nations there was a white man’s fort.” The same people described plainly the Yukon River westward of the mountains, and told Mackenzie it was a far greater stream than the one he was exploring. This was the first “hint” of the existence of the great Alaskan river which was ever recorded. They also spoke to Mackenzie of “small white buffaloes” (?the mountain goat), which they found in the mountains west of the Mackenzie.
Whenever and wherever Mackenzie’s party met these northernmost tribes of Athapascan Indians they were always ready to dance in between short spells of talking. This dancing and jumping was their only amusement, and in it old and young, male and female, went to such exertions that their strength was exhausted. As they jumped up and down they imitated the various noises produced by the reindeer, the bear, and the wolf.
In descending the Mackenzie River, and again on the return journey upstream, Mackenzie notices the abundance of berries on the banks of the river, especially the kind which was called “pears” by the French Canadians. These were of a purple hue, rather bigger than a pea, and of a luscious taste. There were also gooseberries and a few strawberries. Quantities of berries were collected and dried, but while on the lower Mackenzie the expedition fed mainly on fat geese. On the beach of the great river they found an abundance of a sweet fragrant root which Mackenzie calls “liquorice”.
Mackenzie seemed to think that along the lower Mackenzie River, near the sea, there were not only reindeer, bears, wolverines, martens, foxes, and hares, but a species of white buffalo or white musk ox, which may have been the mountain goat above referred to. He noted, in the cliffs or banks of the lower Mackenzie, pieces of “petroleum” which bore a resemblance to yellow wax but was more friable. His Indian guide informed him that rocks of a similar kind were scattered about the country at the back of the Slave Lake, near where the Chipewayans collected copper. If so, there may be a great oilfield yet to be discovered in Arctic Canada.
On the river coming out of the Bear Lake Mackenzie discovered coal; the whole beach was strewn with it. He was attracted towards it by seeing smoke and noticing a strong sulphurous smell. The whole bank of the river was on fire for a considerable distance, and he thought this was due to the natives having camped there and set fire to the coal in the bank from their hearths. But subsequent travellers have also found this lignite coal burning to waste, and imagine that, being full of gas, it catches fire spontaneously if any landslip or other accident exposes it to moist air. In 1906 it was still burning!
According to Mackenzie, the ground in the regions about the lower reaches of the Mackenzie River is always frozen at least five inches down from the surface, yet he found small spruce trees growing in patches near the delta of this river, besides pale-yellow raspberries of an agreeable flavour, and a great variety of other plants and herbs.
As the expedition drew near to the estuary of the great Mackenzie River a range of lofty snowy mountains rose into sight on the west. These mountains were said by the natives to swarm with large bears–probably of the huge chocolate-coloured Alaska type; and again a mention was made of “small white buffaloes”, which were in all probability the large white mountain goat (_Oreamnus_). The Amerindians along the river greatly magnified the dangers, predicting impassable rapids between the confluence of the Great Bear River and the sea. But these stories were greatly exaggerated. Every now and then the river would narrow and flow between white precipitous limestone walls of rock, but there was no obstacle to navigation, though it was very deep and the current fast.
The travellers now began to get within touch of the Eskimo and to hear of their occasional raids up the river from the sea. They were said to use slings, from which they flung stones with such dexterity as to prove formidable in their fights with the Amerindians, who regarded them with great respect, the more so because of their intercourse with the mysterious white people (Russians) from whom they obtained iron.
Mackenzie just managed to reach within sight of the sea, beyond the delta of the river, his most northern point being about 69 deg. 14″ north latitude. Hence he gazed out northwards over a vast expanse of piled-up ice in which several small islands were embedded. In the spaces of open water whales were visible (the small white whale, _Beluga_). The water in between the islands was affected by the tide. The travellers had, in fact, reached the Arctic ocean. But, owing to the fickleness of their guides, and the danger of being detained by some obstacle in these northern latitudes without proper supplies for the winter, Mackenzie was afraid to stay for further investigations, and on July 16, 1789, turned his back on the sea and commenced his return journey up the stream of the great river which was henceforth to bear his name.
The strength of the current made the homeward travel much more lengthy and tedious. The Indians of the party were troublesome, and the principal guide, English Chief, was sulky and disobedient. This man had insisted on being accompanied by two of his wives, of whom he was so morbidly jealous that he could scarcely bring himself to leave them for an hour in order to go hunting or to prospect the country; consequently he did little or nothing in the killing of game, and this kept the expedition on very small rations. Mackenzie got wroth with him, and so gave him a sound rating. This irritated English Chief to a high degree, and after a long and vehement harangue he burst into tears and loud and bitter lamentations. Thereat his friends and wives commenced crying and wailing vociferously, though they declared that their tears were shed, not for any trouble between the white man and English Chief, but because they suddenly recollected all the friends and relations they had lost within the last few years! “I did not interrupt their grief for two hours, but as I could not well do without them, I was at length obliged to sooth it and induce the chief to change his resolution (to leave me), which he did with great apparent reluctance.”
Later on English Chief told Mackenzie that he feared he might have to go to war, because it was a custom amongst the Athapaskan chiefs to make war after they had given way to the disgrace attached to such a feminine weakness as shedding tears. Therefore he would undertake a warlike expedition in the following spring, but in the meantime he would continue with Mackenzie as long as he wanted him.
Mackenzie, rejoining Le Roux at the Slave Lake, safely reached his station at Fort Chipewayan on September 12, 1789, just as the approach of winter was making travel in these northern regions dangerous to those who relied on unfrozen water as a means of transit.
Mackenzie seems to have been a little disappointed with the results of his northward journey; perhaps he had thought that the outlet of Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River would be into the Pacific, the _Mer de l’Ouest_ of his Canadian _voyageurs_. Yet he must have realized that he had discovered something very wonderful after all: the beginning of Alaska, the approach to a region which, though lying within the Arctic circle, has climatic conditions permitting the existence of trees, abundant vegetation, and large, strange beasts, and which, moreover, is highly mineralized. His work in this direction, however (and that of Hearne), was to be completed in the next century by SIR JOHN FRANKLIN, SIR GEORGE BACK, SIR JOHN RICHARDSON, and SIR JOHN ROSS–all knighthoods earned by magnificent services in geographical exploration–and by THOMAS SIMPSON, Dr. John Rae,[3] WARREN DEASE, JOHN M’LEOD, ROBERT CAMPBELL, and other servants of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
[Footnote 3: See p. 125.]
In October, 1792, Mackenzie had determined to make a great attempt to reach the Pacific Ocean. By this time he and his colleagues had explored the Peace River (the main tributary of Slave Lake), and had realized that they could travel up it into the heart of the Rocky Mountains. He wintered and traded at a place which he called “New Establishment”, on the banks of the Peace River, near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. He left this station on May 9, 1793, accompanied by ALEXANDER MACKAY,[4] six French Canadians, and two Indian guides. They travelled up the Peace River in a twenty-five-foot canoe, and at first passed through scenery the most beautiful Mackenzie had ever beheld. He describes it as follows:–
“The ground rises at intervals to a considerable height, and stretching inwards to a considerable distance: at every interval or pause in the rise, there is a very gently ascending space or lawn, which is alternate with abrupt precipices to the summit of the whole, or at least as far as the eye could distinguish. This magnificent theatre of nature has all the decorations which the trees and animals of the country can afford it: groves of poplars in every shape vary the scene; and their intervals are enlivened with vast herds of elks and buffaloes: the former choosing the steeps and uplands and the latter preferring the plains. At this time the buffaloes were attended with their young ones, who were striking about them; and it appeared that the elks would soon exhibit the same enlivening circumstance. The whole country displayed an exuberant verdure; the trees that bear a blossom were advancing fast to that delightful appearance, and the velvet rind of their branches reflecting the oblique rays of a rising or setting sun, added a splendid gaiety to the scene which no expressions of mine are qualified to describe.”
[Footnote 4: Alexander Mackay long afterwards left the service of the North-west Company, and was killed by savages on the Alaska coast, near Nutka Sound.]
Of course, as they neared the Rocky Mountains the navigation of the Peace River became more and more difficult. At last they left the river to find their way across the mountains till they should reach the headwaters of a stream flowing towards the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes they only accomplished three miles a day, having to carry all their goods and their canoe. The mountainous country was covered with splendid forests of spruce, pine, cypress, poplar, birch, willow, and many other kinds of trees, with an undergrowth of gooseberries, currants, and briar roses. The travellers generally followed paths made by the elk,[5] just as in the dense forests of Africa the way sometimes is cleared for human travellers by the elephant. Every now and again they resumed their journey on the river between the falls and cascades. The mountains seemed to be a solid mass of limestone, in some places without any covering of foliage.
[Footnote 5: For the word “elk” Mackenzie uses “moose deer”. “Elk” in the Canadian Dominion is misapplied to the great Wapiti red deer.]
“In no part of the north-west”, writes Mackenzie, “did I see so much beaver work” (along the eastern branch of the Peace River). In some places the beavers had cut down acres of large poplars, and were busily at work on their labours of dam-making during the night, between the setting and the rising sun.
Gnats and mosquitoes came with the intense heat of June to make life almost unbearable. As they got close to the Rocky Mountains they encountered Amerindians who had never seen a white man before, and who at first received them with demonstrations of great hostility and fright. But owing to the diplomatic skill of Mackenzie they gradually yielded to a more friendly attitude, and here he decided to camp until the natives had become familiarized with him and his party, and could give them information as to his route. But they could only tell that, away to the west beyond the mountains, a month’s travel, there was a vast “lake of stinking water”, to which came, for purposes of trade, other white men with vessels as big as islands.
These Rocky Mountain Indians made their canoes from spruce bark[6] in the following manner: The bark is taken off the spruce fir to the whole length of the intended canoe, only about eighteen feet, and is sewed with _watape_ at both ends. Two laths are then laid across the end of the gunwale. In these are fixed the bars, and against them the ribs or timbers, that are cut to the length to which the bark can be stretched; and to give additional strength, strips of wood are laid between them. To make the whole water-tight, gum is abundantly employed.
[Footnote 6: See p. 281.]
Obtaining a guide from these people, Mackenzie continued his journey along the Parsnip, or southern branch of the upper Peace River, partly by water, partly by land till he reached its source,[7] a lake, on the banks of which he saw innumerable swans, geese, and ducks. Wild parsnips grew here in abundance, and were a grateful addition to the diet of the travellers. As to birds, they not only saw blue jays and yellow birds, but the first humming bird which Mackenzie had ever beheld in the north-west.[8]
[Footnote 7: Mr. Burpee points out that this was really the southernmost source of the mighty congeries of streams which flowed northwards to form the Mackenzie River system. Having traced the Mackenzie to the sea, its discoverer now stood four years afterwards at its most remote source, 2420 miles from its mouth at which he had seen the ice floes and the whales.]
[Footnote 8: Humming birds arrive annually in British Columbia between April and May, and stay there till the autumn. They winter in the warmer parts of California.]
From this tiny lake he made his way over lofty mountains to another lake at no great distance, and from this a small stream called the Bad River flowed southwards to join a still bigger stream, which Mackenzie thought might prove to be one of the branches of the mighty Columbia River that flows out into the Pacific through the State of Oregon. It really was the Fraser River, and of the upper waters of the Fraser Mackenzie was the discoverer.[9]
[Footnote 9: The great surveyor and map maker, David Thompson, was the first white man to reach the upper waters of the _Columbia_ River. The Fraser River was afterwards followed to its outlet in the Straits of Georgia (opposite Vancouver Island) by Simon Fraser.]
[Illustration: THE UPPER WATERS OF THE FRASER RIVER]
Their experiences down the little mountain stream which was to take them into the Fraser nearly ended in complete disaster. “The violence of the current being so great as to drive the canoe sideways down the river, and break her by the first bar, I instantly jumped into the water and the men followed my example; but before we could set her straight, or stop her, we came to deeper water, so that we were obliged to re-embark with the utmost precipitation…. We had hardly regained our situations when we drove against a rock which shattered the stern of the canoe in such a manner, that it held only by the gunwales, so that the steersman could no longer keep his place. The violence of this stroke drove us to the opposite side of the river, which is but narrow, when the bow met with the same fate as the stern…. In a few moments, we came across a cascade which broke several large holes in the bottom of the canoe, and started all the bars…. The wreck becoming flat on the water, we all jumped out … and held fast to the wreck; to which fortunate resolution we owed our safety, as we should otherwise have been dashed against the rocks by the force of the water, or driven over the cascades…. At length we most fortunately arrived in shallow water, and at a small eddy, where we were enabled to make a stand, from the weight of the canoe resting on the stones, rather than from any exertions of our exhausted strength…. The Indians, when they saw our deplorable situation, instead of making the least effort to help us, sat down and gave vent to their tears.”
Nobody, however, had been killed, though much of the luggage was lost, and what remained had to be spread out to dry. Many of Mackenzie’s people, however, when they took stock of their misfortunes, were rather pleased than otherwise, as they thought the disaster would stop him from any further attempt to reach the Western Sea. He wisely listened to their observations without replying, till their panic was dispelled, and they had got themselves warm and comfortable with a hearty meal and a glass of rum; though a little later only by their indifferent carelessness they nearly exploded the whole of the expedition’s stock of gunpowder.
Fortunately the weather was fine. Mackenzie and his fellow countryman, Mackay, allowed nothing to dismay them or damp their spirits. Bark was obtained from the forest, the canoe was repaired, and they heard from their guide that this violent little stream would before long join a great and much smoother river. But they were tormented with sandflies and mosquitoes, and a day or two afterwards the guide bolted, while the expedition had to cross morasses in which they were nearly engulfed, and the water journey was constantly obstructed by driftwood. Nevertheless, at last they had “the inexpressible satisfaction of finding themselves on the bank of a navigable river on the western side of the first great range of mountains”. Here they re-embarked, and were cheerful in spite of heavy rain.
As they paddled down this great stream, more than two hundred yards wide, snow-capped mountains rose immediately above the river. The current was strong, but perfectly safe. Flocks of ducks, entirely white, except the bill and a part of the wing, rose before them. Smoke ascending in columns from many parts of the woods showed that the country was well inhabited, and the air was fragrant with the strong odour of the gum of cypress and spruce fir.
Then came a series of cascades and falls and a most arduous portage of the heavy canoe. These labours were somewhat lightened by the discovery of quantities of wild onions growing on the banks; but these, when mixed with the pemmican, on which the party was subsisting, stimulated their appetites to an inconvenient degree, seeing that they were on short commons. Meeting with strange Indians they found no one to interpret, and had to use signs. But on the banks of the Fraser they were lucky enough to find the “real red deer”, the great wapiti stag, which is absent from the far north-west, beyond the region of the Saskatchewan. The canoe was loaded with venison. The banks of the Fraser River sank to a moderate height and were covered with poplars and cypresses, birch trees, junipers, alders, and willows. The deserted house or lodge of some Amerindian tribe was visited on the banks. It was a finer structure than anything that Mackenzie had seen since he left Fort Michili-Makinak in upper Canada. It had been constructed for three families. There were three fireplaces and three beds and a kind of larder for the purpose of keeping fish. The whole “lodge” was twenty feet long by three wide, and had three doors. The walls were formed of straight spruce timbers with some skill of carpentry. The roof was covered with bark, and large rods were fixed across the upper part of the building, where fish might hang and dry.
As they continued to descend the Fraser River, with here and there a rapid which nearly swamped the canoe, and lofty cliffs of red and white clay like the ruins of ancient castles (stopping on their way to bury supplies of pemmican against their return, and to light a fire on the top of the burial place so as to mislead bears or other animals that might dig it up), they were more or less compelled to seek intercourse with the new tribes of Amerindians, whose presence on the river banks was obvious. As usual, Mackenzie had to exercise great bravery, tact, and guile to get into peaceful conversation with these half-frightened, half-angry people. The peacemaking generally concluded with the distribution of trinkets amongst the men and women, and presents of sugar to the children. Talking with these folk, however, through such interpreters as there were amongst the Indians of his crew, he learnt that lower down on the Fraser River there was a peculiarly fierce, malignant race, living in vast caves or subterranean dwellings, who would certainly massacre the Europeans if they attempted to pass through their country on their way to the sea. He therefore stopped and set some of his men to work to make a new canoe. He noticed, by the by, that these Amerindians of the Fraser had small pointed canoes, “made after the fashion of the Eskimo”.
Renewing their voyage, they reached a house the roof of which just appeared above the ground. It was deserted by its inhabitants, who had been alarmed at the approach of the white men, but in the neighbourhood appeared gesticulating warriors with bows and arrows. Yet these people of underground houses turned out to be friendly and very ready to give information, partly because they were in communication with the Amerindian tribes to the east of the Rocky Mountains. From the elderly men of this tribe Mackenzie ascertained that the Fraser River flowed south by east, was often obstructed by rapids, and, though it would finally bring them to a salt lake or inlet, and then to the sea, it would cause them to travel for a great distance to the south. He noticed the complete difference in the language of these Atna or Carrier Indians[10] and that of the Nagailer or Chin Indians of the Athapaskan group on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains.
[Footnote 10: Apparently these were of the Sikanni tribe, and only another branch of the great Tinne (Athapaskan) stock.]
He, however, learnt from these Atna Indians that although the Fraser was out of the question as a quick route to the sea, if he retraced his journey a little up this river he would find another stream entering it from the west, and along this they could travel upstream. And then the route to the water “which was unfit to drink”, and the region to which came people with large ships, would be of no great length. Accordingly, after having had a tree engraved with Mackenzie’s name and the date, by the bank of the Fraser River, the expedition returned to the subterranean house which they had seen the day before.
“We were in our canoe by four this morning, and passed by the Indian hut, which appeared in a state of perfect tranquillity. We soon came in sight of the point where we first saw the natives, and at eight were much surprised and disappointed at seeing Mr. Mackay and our two Indians coming alone from the ruins of a house that had been partly carried away by the ice and water, at a short distance below the place where we had appointed to meet. Nor was our surprise and apprehension diminished by the alarm which was painted in their countenances…. They informed me they had taken refuge in that place, with the determination to sell their lives … as dear as possible. In a very short time after we had separated, they met a party of the Indians, whom we had known at this place, and were probably those whom we had seen landing from their canoe. These Indians appeared to be in a state of extreme rage, and had their bows bent, with their arrows across them. The guide stopped to ask them some questions, which our people did not understand, and then set off with his utmost speed. Mr. Mackay, however, followed, and did not leave him till they were both exhausted with running…. The guide then said that some treacherous design was meditated against them, … and conducted them through very bad ways as fast as they could run. When he was desired to slacken his pace, he answered that they might follow him in any manner they pleased, but that he was impatient to get to his family, in order to prepare shoes and other necessaries for his journey. They did not, however, think it prudent to quit him, and he would not stop till ten at night. On passing a track that was but lately made, they began to be seriously alarmed, and on enquiring of the guide where they were, he pretended not to understand. Then they all laid down, exhausted with fatigue, and without any kind of covering; they were cold, wet, and hungry, but dared not light a fire, from the apprehension of an enemy. This comfortless spot they left at the dawn of day, and, on their arrival at the lodges, found them deserted; the property of the Indians being scattered about, as if abandoned for ever. The guide then made two or three trips into the woods, calling aloud, and bellowing like a madman. At length he set off in the same direction as they had come, and had not since appeared. To heighten their misery, as they did not find us at the place appointed, they concluded that we were all destroyed, and had already formed their plan to take to the woods, and cross in as direct a line as they could proceed, to the waters of the Peace River, a scheme which could only be suggested by despair. They intended to have waited for us till noon, and if we did not appear by that time, to have entered without further delay on their desperate expedition.”
Making preparations for warfare, if necessary, yet neglecting no chance of re-entering into friendly relations with the natives, Mackenzie set to work to repair the wretched canoe, which was constantly having holes knocked through her. He dealt tactfully with the almost open mutiny of his French Canadians and Indians. At last everyone settled down to the making of a new canoe, on an island in the river where there were plenty of spruce firs to provide the necessary bark. Even here they were plagued with thunderstorms. Nevertheless, the men set to work, and as they worked Mackenzie addressed them with simple fervour, saying he knew of their plans to desert him, but, come what might, _he_ was resolved to travel on to the westwards until he reached the waters of the Pacific.
This calmed down the mutineers, and, to the great relief of all concerned, that very afternoon the runaway guide of the Atna people returned and apologized for having deserted them. He then offered once again to conduct them to the seacoast. Nevertheless, again he fled, and Mackenzie was obliged to guide the expedition, according to the information he had gathered from the natives, up the small western affluent of the upper Fraser, which he called the West Road River (now known as the Blackwater).
His perseverance was rewarded, for after proceeding up this river for some distance he saw two canoes coming towards them containing the runaway guide and six of his relations. The guide was dressed in a painted beaver robe, and looked so splendid that they scarcely knew him again. Once more he declared it really was his intention not to disappoint them. Soon afterwards they landed, buried their property and provisions, and placed their canoe on a stage, shaded by a covering of small trees and branches from the sun. Each man carried on his back four bags and a half of pemmican, of an average weight of eighty-five pounds, or other loads (instruments, goods for presents, ammunition, &c.) of ninety pounds in weight. Moreover, each of the Canadians carried a gun. The Amerindian servants of the expedition were only asked to carry loads of forty-five pounds in weight. Mackenzie’s pack, and that of his companion, Mackay, amounted to about seventy pounds. Loaded like this they had to scramble up the wooded mountains, first soaked in perspiration from the heat and then drenched with heavy rain. Nevertheless they walked for about thirteen miles the first day. Now they began to meet natives who were closely in touch with the seacoast, which lay to the west at a distance of about six days’ journey.
“We had no sooner laid ourselves down to rest last night than the natives began to sing, in a manner very different from what I had been accustomed to hear among savages. It was not accompanied either with dancing, drum, or rattle; but consisted of soft, plaintive tones, and a modulation that was rather agreeable: it had somewhat the air of church music.” The country through which they travelled abounded in beavers. It was the month of July, however, and they were harassed with thunderstorms, some of which were followed by hailstones as big as musket balls. After one such storm the ground was whitened for two miles with these balls of ice.
In order not to be deserted by all of their new guides, Mackenzie was obliged to insist on one of them sharing his hut. This young Amerindian was dressed in beaver garments which were a nest of vermin. His hair was greased with fish oil, and his body smeared with red earth, so that at first Mackenzie thought he would never be able to sleep; but such was his fatigue that he passed a night of profound repose, and found the guide still there in the morning. In this region he notes that the balsam fir of Canada was abundant, the tree which provided the gum that cured Cartier’s expedition of scurvy. Some of the natives with whom they now came into contact were remarkable for their grey eyes, a feature often observed amongst the Amerindians of the North Pacific coast.
“On observing some people before us, our guides hastened to meet them, and, on their approach, one of them stepped forward with an axe in his hand. This party consisted only of a man, two women, and the same number of children. The eldest of the women, who probably was the man’s mother, was engaged, when we joined them, in clearing a circular spot, of about five feet in diameter, of the weeds that infested it; nor did our arrival interrupt her employment, which was sacred to the memory of the dead. The spot to which her pious care was devoted contained the grave of a husband and a son, and whenever she passed this way she always stopped to pay this tribute of affection.”
By this time, exposure to wind and sun, the attacks of mosquitoes and flies, the difficulty of washing or of changing their clothes, had made all the Europeans of the party as dark in skin colour as the Amerindians, so that such natives as they met who had the courage to examine them, did so with the intention of discovering whether they had any white skin left. The natives whom they now encountered (belonging to the maritime tribes) were comely in appearance, and far more cleanly than the tribes of the north-west. As already mentioned, they had grey eyes, sometimes tinged with hazel. Their stature was noble, one man measuring at least six feet four inches. They were clothed in leather, and their hair was nicely combed and dressed with beads. One of a travelling band of these Indians, finding that Mackenzie’s party was on short rations and very hungry, offered to boil them a kettle of fish roes.
“He took the roes out of a bag, and having bruised them between two stones, put them in water to soak. His wife then took an handful of dry grass in her hand, with which she squeezed them through her fingers. In the meantime her husband was employed in gathering wood to make a fire, for the purpose of heating stones. When she had finished her operation, she filled a _watape_ kettle nearly full of water, and poured the roes into it. When the stones were sufficiently heated, some of them were put into the kettle, and others were thrown in from time to time, till the water was in a state of boiling. The woman also continued stirring the contents of the kettle, till they were brought to a thick consistency; the stones were then taken out, and the whole was seasoned with about a pint of strong rancid oil. The smell of this curious dish was sufficient to sicken me without tasting it, but the hunger of my people surmounted the nauseous meal. When unadulterated by the stinking oil these boiled roes are not unpalatable food.”
Farther on their journey their hunger was alleviated by wild parsnips, also roots which appeared, when pulled up, like a bunch of white peas, with the colour and taste of a potato. On their way they were obliged to cross snow mountains, where the snow was so compact that their feet hardly made any perceptible impression. “Before us appeared a stupendous mountain, whose snow-clad summit was lost in the clouds.” These mountains, according to the Indians, abounded in white goats.[11] Emerging from the mountains on to the lower ground, sloping towards the sea, at nightfall they came upon a native village in the thickness of the woods. Desperate with his fatigue, and risking any danger to obtain rest, Mackenzie walked straight into one of the houses, where people were busily employed in cooking fish, threw down his burden, shook hands with the people, and sat down.
[Footnote 1: _Oreamnus_.]
“They received me without the least appearance of surprise, but soon made signs for me to go up to the large house, which was erected, on upright posts, at some distance from the ground. A broad piece of timber with steps cut in it led to the scaffolding even with the floor, and by this curious kind of ladder I entered the house at one end; and having passed three fires, at equal distances in the middle of the building, I was received by several people, sitting upon a very wide board, at the upper end of it. I shook hands with them, and seated myself beside a man, the dignity of whose countenance induced me to give him that preference….”
Later on, this man, seeing Mackenzie’s people arriving tired and hungry, rose and fetched from behind a plank, four feet wide, a quantity of roasted salmon. A whole salmon was offered to Mackenzie, and another to Mackay; half a salmon was given to each of the French Canadian _voyageurs_. Their host further invited them to sleep in the house, but, Mackenzie thinking it preferable to camp outside, a fire was lit to warm the weary travellers, and each was lent a thick board on which to sleep, so that he might not lie on the bare ground.
“We had not long been seated round the fire when we received a dish of salmon roes, pounded fine and beat up with water so as to have the appearance of a cream. Nor was it without some kind of seasoning that gave it a bitter taste. Another dish soon followed, the principal article of which was also salmon roes, with a large proportion of gooseberries, and an herb that appeared to be sorrel. Its acidity rendered it more agreeable to my taste than the former preparation. Having been regaled with these delicacies, for such they were considered by that hospitable spirit which provided them, we laid ourselves down to rest with no other canopy than the sky. But I never enjoyed a more sound and refreshing rest, though I had a board for my bed and a billet for my pillow.”
The gooseberries, wortleberries, and raspberries which Mackenzie ate at this hospitable village were the finest he ever saw or tasted of their respective kinds. They were generally eaten together with the dry roes of salmon. Salmon was the staple food of the country, and very abundant in the river which Mackenzie was following down to the Pacific shore. The fish were usually caught in weirs, and also by dipping nets. The natives were so superstitious about the salmon, that they believed they would give offence to the spirits if they ate any other animal food, especially meat. They would scarcely allow Mackenzie to carry venison in his canoe, in case the salmon should smell it and abandon the river.
After this welcome rest they embarked in two canoes on the stream which Mackenzie calls the Salmon River. The stream was rapid, and they proceeded at a great rate, stopping every now and then to get out and walk round salmon weirs. Nevertheless, although other Indians ran before them announcing their approach towards a village, the noise of which was apparent in the distance, they were received at this place in a very hostile way, the men rapidly arming themselves with bows and arrows, spears, and axes. But Mackenzie walked on alone to greet them, and shook hands with the nearest man. Thereupon an elderly man broke from the crowd and took Mackenzie in his arms. Another then came and paid him the same compliment. One man to whom he presented his hand broke the string of a handsome robe of sea-otter skin and threw it over Mackenzie.
The chief made signs to the white men to follow him to his house, which Mackenzie found to be of larger dimensions and better materials than any he had yet seen. “Very clean mats” were spread in this house for the chief, his counsellors, and the two white men. A small roasted salmon was then placed before each person.
“When we had satisfied ourselves with the fish, one of the people who came with us from the last village approached, with a kind of ladle in one hand, containing oil, and in the other something that resembled the inner rind of the cocoanut, but of a lighter colour. This he dipped in the oil, and, having eaten it, indicated by his gestures how palatable he thought it. He then presented me with a small piece of it, which I chose to taste in its dry state, though the oil was free from any unpleasant smell. A square cake of this was next produced, when a man took it to the water near the house, and having thoroughly soaked it, he returned, and, after he had pulled it to pieces like oakum, put it into a well-made trough, about three feet long, nine inches wide, and five deep. He then plentifully sprinkled it with salmon oil, and manifested by his own example that we were to eat of it. I just tasted it, and found the oil perfectly sweet, without which the other ingredient would have been very insipid. The chief partook of it with great avidity after it had received an additional quantity of oil. This dish is considered by these people as a great delicacy; and on examination, I discovered it to consist of the inner rind of the hemlock pine tree, taken off early in summer, and put into a frame, which shapes it into cakes of fifteen inches long, ten broad, and half an inch thick; and in this form I should suppose it may be preserved for a great length of time. This discovery satisfied me respecting the many hemlock trees which I had observed stripped of their bark.”
Mackenzie found some of the older men here with long beards, and to one of them he presented a pair of scissors for clipping his beard.
After describing some remarkable oblong “tables” (as they might be called) of cedar wood–twenty feet long by eight feet broad–made of thick cedar boards joined together with the utmost neatness, and painted with hieroglyphics and the figures of animals; and his visit to a kind of temple in the village, into the architecture of which strangely carved and painted figures were interwoven; Mackenzie goes on to relate an episode giving one a very vivid idea of the helplessness of “native” medicine in many diseases.
He was taken to see a son of the chief, who was suffering from a terrible ulcer in the small of his back, round which the flesh was gangrened, one of his knees being afflicted in the same way. The poor fellow was reduced to a skeleton, and apparently drawing very near to death.
“I found the native physicians busy in practising their skill and art on the patient. They blew on him, and then whistled; at times they pressed their extended fingers with all their strength on his stomach; they also put their forefingers doubled into his mouth, and spouted water from their own with great violence into his face. To support these operations the wretched sufferer was held up in a sitting posture, and when they were concluded he was laid down and covered with a new robe made of the skin of a lynx. I had observed that his belly and breast were covered with scars, and I understood that they were caused by a custom prevalent among them of applying pieces of lighted touchwood to their flesh, in order to relieve pain or demonstrate their courage. He was now placed on a broad plank, and carried by six men into the woods, where I was invited to accompany them. I could not conjecture what would be the end of this ceremony, particularly as I saw one man carry fire, another an axe, and a third dry wood. I was, indeed, disposed to suspect that, as it was their custom to burn the dead, they intended to relieve the poor man from his pain, and perform the last sad duty of surviving affection. When they had advanced a short distance into the wood, they laid him upon a clear spot, and kindled a fire against his back, when the physician began to scarify the ulcer with a very blunt instrument, the cruel pain of which operation the patient bore with incredible resolution. The scene afflicted me, and I left it.”
The chief of this village had probably met Captain Cook about ten years before. He had been down in a large canoe[12] with forty of his people to the seacoast, where he saw two large vessels.
[Footnote 12: Mackenzie thus describes one of the large sea-going canoes of the coast natives: “This canoe was built of cedar, forty-five feet long, four feet broad, and three and a half in depth. It was painted black and decorated with white figures of different kinds. The gunwale fore and aft was inlaid with the teeth of the sea otter.” He adds that “these coast tribes (north of Vancouver Island and of Queen Charlotte Sound) had been in indirect contact with the Spaniards since the middle of the sixteenth century, and with the Russians from the middle of the eighteenth century. Therefore, from these two directions they had learnt the use of metal, and had obtained copper, brass, and iron. They may possibly have had copper earlier still from the Northern Indians on the other side of the Rocky Mountains; but brass and iron they could, of course, only have obtained from Europeans. They had already become very deft at dealing with these metals, and twisted the iron into collars which weighed upwards of twelve pounds, also beating it into plates for their daggers and knives.”]
Farther down the river the natives, instead of regaling them with fish, placed before them a long, clean, and well-made trough full of berries, most of them resembling blackberries, though white in colour, and others similar to huckleberries. In this region the women were employed in beating and preparing the inner rind of the juniper bark, to which they gave the appearance of flax, and others were spinning with a distaff; again, others were weaving robes of this fibrous thread, intermixed with strips of sea-otter skin. The men were fishing on the river with drag nets between two canoes, thus intercepting the salmon coming up the river.
At last, on Saturday, the 20th of July, 1793, they emerged from the Salmon River into an arm of the sea (probably near King Island). The tide was out, and had left a large space covered with seaweed. The surrounding hills were involved in fog…. The bay appeared to be some three miles in breadth, and on the coast the travellers saw a great number of sea otters.[13] At two in the afternoon the swell was so high, and the wind, which was against them, so boisterous, that they could not proceed along the seacoast in their leaky canoe. A young chief who had come with them as one of their guides, and who had been allowed to leave when the seacoast was reached, returned bearing a large porcupine on his back. He first cut the animal open and threw its entrails into the sea, then singed the skin and boiled it in separate pieces; nor did he go to rest till, with the assistance of two others who happened to be awake, every morsel of it had been devoured. This was fortunate, because their stock of provisions was reduced to twenty pounds’ weight of pemmican, sixteen pounds of rice, and six pounds of flour amongst ten men, “in a leaky vessel, and on a barbarous coast”.
[Footnote 13: These _may_ have been small seals, but the sea otter (_Enhydris lutris_), now nearly extinct, was at one time found in numbers along the north-west American coast, from the Aleutian Islands and Alaska to Oregon. Owing to persecution it now leads an almost entirely aquatic life, resting at times on the masses of floating seaweed.]
The rise and fall of the tide here was noted at fifteen feet in height. Mr. Mackay collected a quantity of small mussels, which were boiled and eaten by the two Scotchmen, but not by the Canadians, who were quite unacquainted with sea shellfish.
Near Point Menzies, which had already been reached and named by Captain VANCOUVER in the spring of 1793 on his great voyage of discovery up the North American coast,[14] Alexander Mackenzie met a party of Amerindians, amongst whom was a man of insolent aspect, who, by means of signs and exclamations, made him understand that he and his friends had been fired at by a white man named Makuba (Vancouver), and that another white man, called “Bensins”, had struck him on the back with the flat of his sword. This man more or less compelled Mackenzie to accompany him in the direction of his village, and on the way explained that “Makuba” had come there with his “big boat”. Indeed, Mackenzie’s party perceived the remains of sheds or buildings on the shore where Europeans had probably made a camp, and here they established themselves, taking up a position of defence, because the attitude of the natives was rather threatening.
[Footnote 14: GEORGE VANCOUVER (born about 1758, and probably descended from Dutch or Flemish ancestors) was one of the great pioneers of the British Empire. His name is commemorated in Vancouver’s Island, an important portion of British Columbia. Vancouver entered the navy when only thirteen, sailed with Captain Cook, and eventually was appointed to command a naval expedition sent out in 1791 to survey and take over from the Spaniards the north-west American coast north of Oregon. It is remarkable that he should only have missed Mackenzie’s arrival at Point Menzies by about two months. With what amazed rejoicing would these two heroic explorers have greeted one another had they met on this remote point of the Pacific coast, the one coming overland (so to speak) from Quebec and the Atlantic, and the other all the way by sea from Falmouth via the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii.]
At this camp there was a rock, and on this Alexander Mackenzie, mixing up some vermilion or red clay in melted grease, inscribed in large characters the following words: “Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three”. He then shifted his camp to a place three miles to the north-east, below a precipice from which issued streams of fine water as cold as ice. And here he took careful observations with his astronomical and surveying instruments, in order to fix his position. Fortunately the day was one of bright sunshine. Otherwise, had there been a long persistence of cloud, he might have been obliged to leave the Pacific coast without being able to fix precisely the place where he had reached the sea.
Then he yielded to the passionate desire of his people to withdraw inland from the possibly dangerous inhabitants of the coast, and returned with them to the encampment where the porcupine had been eaten. Here the guide made off into the woods. Mackenzie followed him, and thus reached a village from which two men issued armed with daggers and intending to attack him. While stopping to defend himself, many other people assembled, and amongst them he recognized the irritating person who incessantly repeated the names “Makuba” and “Benzins”. However, this threatened danger was narrowly averted, and eventually they left the village with a supply of food; but also in a state of considerable irritation with–fleas! For some of the houses of these Pacific coast villages swarmed with fleas to such an extent that Mackenzie and his men were obliged to take to the water to rid themselves of these vermin, which swarmed also on the ground that was bare of grass.
The return journey up the Salmon River was a series of bewildering vicissitudes. Sometimes Mackenzie and his party were received in the most threatening way by persons who had been warm friends on their downward journey, then seemingly inevitable war was transformed into peace, but guides deserted, or the Amerindians from across the Rocky Mountains attempted to mutiny. However, they struggled through all their difficulties, till at last they reached the place known as the Friendly Village, and were here fortunately received with great kindness, being once more entertained “with the most respectful hospitality”. “In short, the chief behaved to us with so much attention and kindness that I did not withhold anything in my power to give which might afford him satisfaction…. I presented him with two yards of blue cloth, an axe, knives, and various other articles. He gave me in return a large shell which resembled the under shell of a Guernsey oyster, but was somewhat larger. Where they procure them I could not discover, but they cut and polish them for bracelets, ear-rings, and other personal ornaments….”
The women of this place were employed in boiling sorrel and different kinds of berries in large square kettles made of cedar wood. This pottage, when it had attained a certain consistency, they took out with ladles, and poured it into frames about twelve inches square. These were then exposed to the sun, until their contents became so many dried cakes. This was their principal article of food, and probably of traffic. These people had also made portable chests of cedar, in which they packed these cakes, as well as their salmon, both dried and roasted. The only flesh they ate in addition to the salmon was that of the sea otter and the seal; except that one instance already mentioned of the young Indian who feasted on the flesh of the porcupine.
“Their faces are round, with high cheekbones, and their complexion between olive and copper. They have small grey eyes with a tinge of red,… their hair is of a dark-brown colour.” The men wore their hair long, and either kept it well combed and hanging loose over the shoulders, or plaited it and bedaubed it with brown earth so as to make it quite impervious to the comb. Those who adopted this fashion had to carry a bone bodkin about with them to ease the frequent irritation which arose from the excessive abundance of vermin in their hair.
The women, on the other hand, usually wore their hair short. Mackenzie noticed that the infants had their heads enclosed with boards covered with leather, to press the skull into the shape of a wedge. The women wore a fringed apron, and over that a long robe made of skins or leather, either loose or tied round the middle with a girdle. Over these in wet weather was worn a cap in the shape of an inverted bowl or dish. The men also wore this cap, and in cold weather used the robe, but in warm weather went about in no clothing at all, except that their feet were protected with shoes made of dressed elks’ skins. In wet weather, over their robe they wore a circular mat with an opening in the middle sufficiently large to admit the head. This, spreading over the shoulders, threw off the wet. As compared with the Indians of the Rocky Mountains and the great plains, the men and boys were very cleanly, being constantly in the water. The women, however, were dirty.
At the end of July, 1793, Mackenzie left what he calls the Friendly Village, and prepared to return to the east across the Rocky Mountains, having distributed to each man about twenty pounds weight of smoked salmon, flour, and pemmican. The fatigue of ascending the precipices of the mountains was past description. When they arrived at a spot where water could be obtained, and a camp made, they were in such an extremity of weariness they could hardly crawl about to gather wood for the purpose of making a fire; but two hours afterwards the Amerindians of their party arrived and came to their assistance. Then when they were sitting round a blazing fire, and some of their fatigue had lessened, they could sit and talk of past dangers, and indulge in the delightful reflection that they were thus far advanced on their homeward journey. “Nor was it possible to be in this situation without contemplating the wonders of it. Such was the depth of the precipices below, and the height of the mountains above, with the rude and wild magnificence of the scenery around, that I shall not attempt to describe such an astonishing and awful combination of objects…. Even at this place, which is only, as it were, the first step towards gaining the summit of the mountains, the climate was very sensibly changed. The air that fanned the village which we left at noon, was mild and cheering; the grass was verdant, and the wild fruits ripe around it. But here the snow was not yet dissolved, the ground was still bound by the frost, the herbage had scarce begun to spring, and the crowberry bushes were just beginning to blossom.”
Eventually they found their canoe, and the property which they had left behind, in perfect safety. At this camp, where the canoe had been left behind, many natives arrived both from the upper and lower parts of the river, all of them dressed in beaver robes, which they were ready enough to sell for large knives. It struck Alexander Mackenzie as being very extraordinary that these people, who had left absolutely untouched the property stored at this place–when anyone passing by could have stolen it and never have been detected–should now be so ready to pilfer articles and utensils from the camp. So many small things had been picked up and taken away by them, when coming to sell their beaver robes, that he was obliged to take some action. So, before all these beaver-clad Amerindians had departed on their westward journey, he told the rearguard that he had noticed the thefts, and scarcely thought their relations who were guilty of stealing realized the awful mischief that would result from this dishonesty; that they were on their way now to the sea to procure large quantities of salmon from the rivers, but the salmon, which was absolutely necessary to their existence, came from the sea which belonged to the white men, and it only needed a message from the white men to the powers of nature to prevent the fish coming up from the sea into the rivers; and if this word were spoken they and their children might starve. He consequently advised them to hurry after their friends, and see that all the stolen articles were sent back. This plan succeeded. The stolen articles were restored, and then Mackenzie purchased from these people several large salmon, and his party enjoyed a delicious meal.
Mackenzie declared that there were no bison to be found on the west side of the Rocky Mountains[15] (British Columbia), and no wolves.
[Footnote 15: He was not quite accurate: there were a few “wood” bison in the north and east of British Columbia.]
Resuming their journey up the Fraser River, they passed through the narrow gut between mountainous rocks, which on the outward journey had been a passage of some risk. But now the state of the water was such that, they got up without difficulty, and had more time to examine these extraordinary rocks, which were as perpendicular as a wall, and gave the traveller the idea of a succession of enormous Gothic cathedrals. With little difficulty they transported their canoe across the water parting to the Peace River.
As they began to glide down this stream, homeward bound, they noticed at the entrance of a small tributary an object which proved to be four beaver skins hung up to attract their attention. These were the skins which had been given to Mackenzie as a present by a native as he travelled westwards. Not wishing to add to his loads, he had left the skins behind, saying he would call for them on his return. Mackenzie imagined, therefore, that, being under the necessity of leaving the river, this Indian had hung up the skins in the hope that they would attract the attention of the travellers on their return. “To reward his honesty, I left three times the value of the skins in trade goods in their place.” As the Peace River carried them away from the great mountains, and the plains extended before their sight, they stopped to repair the canoe and to get in supplies of food from the herds of game that were visible. They began with a hearty meal of bison beef. “Every fear of future want was removed.” Soon afterwards they killed an elk, the carcass of which weighed over two hundred and fifty pounds. “As we had taken a very hearty meal at one o’clock, it might naturally be supposed that we should not be very voracious at supper; nevertheless, a kettleful of elk flesh was boiled and eaten, and that vessel replenished with more meat and put on the fire. All that remained of the bones, &c, were placed after the Indian fashion round the fire to roast, and at ten the next morning the whole was consumed by ten persons and a large dog, who was allowed his share of the banquet. Nor did any inconvenience result from what may be considered as an inordinate indulgence.”
On the 24th of August, 1793, Mackenzie was back again at Fort Chipewayan, after an absence of eleven months, having been the first white man to cross the broad continent of North America from the