Chapter XI

EXPLORATIONS ALONG THE NORTH-WEST COAST, AND THE WORK
OF THE HUDSON’S BAY AND NORTH-WEST COMPANIES.

TO bring our account of the course of discovery between the 30th and 60th parallels of north latitude down to the date of the return of Lewis and Clarke from their great expedition, we must join for a moment some explorers of yet another nationality, who, from the North, continued the work begun by the Spanish from the South, opening the way for the completion by Englishmen of the examination of the Pacific shore of America.

Early in the eighteenth century, the Russians, though they had failed to round the most northern promontories of Asia, had penetrated to its eastern shores, and were thus brought nearer to America than any other European power. After the establishment of stations in Kamtschatka, the efforts of the Russian Government were directed to ascertaining whether the two great continents were or were not connected; and when this question was partially set at rest in 1728 by Behring, who reached the Asiatic side of the straits bearing his name, an expedition was at once fitted out under his command for sailing direct to the northern shores of America, and discovering if possible, the long sought passage.

The story of the heroic struggle of Behring, and his melancholy death after his discovery of the Aleutian and other islands, with the adventures in the same latitudes of his comrade, Tchirikow, belongs to the history of Arctic exploration. We mention them here, however, as the openers of the north-western gate of the Pacific, their discoveries having greatly simplified the problems still to be solved between Cape Mendocino and the most southerly point reached by them.

The news of the existence of navigable straits between America and Asia resulted in the turning of the attention of scientific men of Europe to the North-west, and the relinquishment for a short time of the efforts of navigators to reach the extreme North by way of Davis Strait and Baffin’s Bay. The great navigator Cook was the first to avail himself of the new passage. Not content with the splendid results achieved in his first two voyages, he determined to make yet another, and in his famous old ship, the _Resolution_, accompanied by Captain Clarke in the _Discovery_, he sailed from Plymouth for the third and last time on the 12th July, 1776.

Illustration: CAPTAIN JAMES COOK.

As is known to every schoolboy, Cook reached the Sandwich Islands in safety, and, steering from them across the Pacific, he arrived on the western coast of America, in about N. lat. 50°. Steering into the inlet now known as Nootka Sound, between the island of the same name and that now called Vancouver’s, the great explorer sailed up the coast, passing between the modern Queen Charlotte’s Island and the mainland. Cook, however, made no minute examination of its many interesting phenomena, till he came to Cape Prince of Wales (N. lat. 65° 33′, W. long. 167° 59′), whence he made a flying visit to the opposite coast before entering on the passage through Behring Straits, which was the most noteworthy feature of this grand trip. Leaving him to pursue his work to the bitter end which closed his splendid career, we join, as the next hero to add any thing to our knowledge of that portion of the north-west coast now under notice, Captain John Meares, sent out in a vessel named the _Nootka_ by the merchants of India, with orders to supplement Cook’s discoveries by every means in his power.

The _Nootka_ reached the coast of America, in N. lat. 60° 20′, W. long. 146° 30′, after a protracted voyage across the ♦Pacific. The winter had already set in, and it appeared impossible to do any thing in the way of exploration until the spring. Captain Meares, was, however, unwilling to return without achieving any definite result, and he therefore, in spite of the mutinous spirit of his men, resolved to land on the shores of Prince William’s Sound, and at least gain information respecting the natives of these remote latitudes.

♦ ‘Atlantic’ replaced with ‘Pacific’

The people of Alaska, a strong, large-limbed, and tall race, with flat faces, high cheek-bones, and small, bead-like black eyes, who delighted in disfiguring their lips and noses with pendent ornaments, seem to have stood in considerable awe of their visitors, and supplied them with game and fish in abundance during the first few weeks of their stay. Early in November, however, all the terrors of the winter closed in upon the exiles; food became scarce, and, in January, scurvy in its most awful forms broke out among them. When the hoped-for spring of the ensuing year, which was to effect so much, at last set in, half the men of the expedition had found their last resting-places beneath the snow, and the survivors were reduced to the greatest extremities.

At this critical juncture two English trading vessels hove in sight, and from their captains, Portlock and Dixon, relief was obtained, though it seems to have been very grudgingly given, Meares being looked upon as an intruder likely to interfere with the profits of the fisheries. Before food was given to his starving men, a promise was exacted from him that he would not trade on the coast, and he was therefore compelled to return to the Sandwich Islands just as he might have begun his work of exploration.

Nothing daunted by this first failure, we find Meares starting again for the North in January, 1788, this time in command of two vessels, the _Felice_ and _Iphigenia_, and with a crew devoted to his service. After an interesting voyage across the Pacific, and a short halt in King George’s Sound, our hero reached the Straits of Juan de Fuca, discovered, as we have seen, two centuries before by a Greek pilot of that name. Here the vessels were overtaken by a terrible storm, and, the rugged buttresses of Vancouver’s Island offering no shelter, their captains were compelled to steer for the south. The rocky shores of the modern Territory of Washington, then dotted with Indian villages, the mouth of the Columbia River, the pine-clad heights of Oregon, were passed in rapid succession――the names of Shoalwater Bay, Deception Bay, Destruction Island, and Cape Disappointment, given by Meares to the most noteworthy features of the scenery, still bearing witness to his despondency when thus driven in the opposite direction to that in which he judged his work to be awaiting him.

The early summer found the explorers off the coast of Northern California, then still known as New Albion, and after an unsuccessful, because probably a not very hearty effort to examine its fertile bays, the vessels were once more turned northward, with Nootka Sound as their goal. The weather being now more propitious, Meares sent a number of his men in one of the long-boats up the Straits of Juan de Fuca, with orders to examine them thoroughly. The sailors, weary of their long detention on shipboard, started on this trip with eager delight; but when day after day passed by, and there were no signs of their return, their master became uneasy in their behalf. At last, after a long period of suspense, the boat was seen issuing from the narrow inlet, and an eager shout of joy from the large vessels hailed the fact that the numbers of the men were undiminished. But why did they row so slowly, and what was the meaning of their air of exhaustion and dejection? As they came nearer, their comrades saw that each one of them was bleeding from terrible wounds, and when they had been helped up the ship-ladders, they told how they had been attacked as they rowed up the straits by two canoes full of armed warriors, and only escaped after a terrible struggle, which would probably have ended in the massacre of them all, had not the death of the native chief struck terror into his subjects’ hearts. As the dusky leader fell with a ball lodged in his brain, his warriors took to flight, and the English, bleeding from their wounds, made the best of their way back to their vessels.

Back again at last at Nootka Sound, fresh difficulties arose. The men, so loyal at first, showed signs of mutiny, and the chief offenders were sent on shore, where, falling into the hands of native chiefs, they endured much hardship, from which they were finally rescued by Meares, who received them back into his service, after repeated professions of contrition.

As will be understood, so much time had been lost in the détour to the south, that little was effected in the way of actual discovery on this second trip. Forts were, however, erected at several points on the shores of Nootka Sound, and a cargo of great value was taken back by Meares to his employers――two facts which paved the way for the fitting out of an important expedition, consisting of several vessels, under the great Vancouver, who added more than any of his predecessors to our scientific knowledge of the north-western shores of America.

De Fuca, Meares, and others of lesser note, had, throughout their examination of the new districts discovered by them, divided their attention between trade and geographical exploration. Vancouver appears to us to have been a man of a different and more intellectual stamp; and though he can scarcely be said to have been the first to _see_ the important island named after him, as it can not have escaped the observation of any mariners anchoring in Nootka Sound, he undoubtedly revealed the fact of its complete separation from the mainland, and won recognition for its great natural resources and its commanding geographical position.

Between the return home of Meares and the starting of Vancouver, disputes had arisen between the English and Spanish, as to which were the true owners of the lands from whence came the treasures brought home by the now numerous traders and whalers who frequented the Northern Pacific waters. These disputes were finally adjusted by the acceptance by the Spanish Government of Cape Mendocino (N. lat. 40° 20′) as the most northerly limit of its jurisdiction in the New World. As a result, Vancouver’s work was limited to the examination of the coast above that boundary; and with the understanding that he should not encroach below it, he started from England on his grand voyage on the 15th December, 1790, arriving off the coast of America, in N. lat. 37° 55′, about the 15th April of the ensuing year.

True to his instructions, Vancouver attempted no exploration of New Albion until he had passed Cape Mendocino, beyond which, however, he kept as close as possible inshore, noting the position of every prominent feature of the coast, and seeking in vain for any harbor in which to anchor his vessels. Past Cape Blanco (N. lat. 42° 51′), to which the leader gave the name of Orford, in honor of the English nobleman bearing that title, Cape Disappointment (N. lat. 46° 19′), and many another now well-known promontory, the little fleet slowly sailed, until, on the last day of April, the Straits of De Fuca were entered, and those discoveries began which opened a new era in our geographical knowledge of North-west America.

Entering the straits once supposed to lead direct into the Arctic Ocean, and carefully observing every peculiarity, alike of the shores of the long narrow island on the left and of the mainland on the right, our hero successfully navigated the Gulf of Georgia, crossed the 50th parallel of north latitude, and early in the summer of 1792, discovered the open sea-way leading back into the Pacific, to which he gave the name of Queen Charlotte’s Sound.

The erroneous opinion still held by many, that the Straits of De Fuca were identical with the long-sought Gulf of Anian, and led direct to the Arctic Ocean, was now finally dispelled; and, resuming his survey of the Pacific seaboard beyond the most northerly limit of Vancouver’s Island, the explorer next turned his attention to the labyrinth of sounds, inlets, and islands known as Prince of Wales, Duke of York, Admiralty, etc., the intricate windings of which had so long baffled the captains of trading and fishing vessels.

Before the close of the summer, the mouth of the supposed river, known as Cook’s, flowing from Alaska into the Pacific a little above the 60th parallel of north latitude, was reached, and, sailing up, Vancouver ascertained it to be a close sound, thus solving a second of the problems of this hyperborean region, and finally proving the non-existence of any passage but Behring Straits from the Pacific to the Arctic Oceans. Cook’s River, henceforth known to be an inlet only, though it retains its first misleading title in many modern atlases, was the most northerly limit of this great voyage of discovery; and the autumn of 1792 found Vancouver’s battered little fleet entering the mouth of the Columbia River, which had been so named a few months before, after his own vessel, by a certain Captain Gray of Boston, who has been erroneously supposed to have been the first to discover it.

A thorough examination of this fine harbor, the only one of real importance between that of San Francisco on the south and Port Discovery on the north, completed Vancouver’s explorations on this last trip to the West. He returned to England before the winter set in; and though his account of his work was received with much hostile criticism, every point laid down by him has been verified by later travelers.

The important work done by Behring, Cook, Meares, and Vancouver was greatly supplemented by minor heroes of various nationalities, including Robert Gray of Boston; the Spaniards, Etevan Martinez and Gonzalo Haro, sent from Mexico to look after the interests of their Government in the North-west, who explored Prince William Sound; Joseph Billings, from England, who touched at the Aleutian Islands; and numerous French, English, and Russian captains. Their accounts of their explorations were not, however, in any sense original revelations, and we pass from them to the men who took up the work of the early French _coureurs de bois_ and missionaries, pushing their surveys westward from Hudson’s Bay, until they spanned the hitherto unknown gulf between the last inland outposts of their predecessors and the Pacific seaboard.

It was the failure of Baffin, Davis, and other early heroes of Arctic discovery to find the clew to the long-coveted secret of the vast labyrinth of straits, inlets, etc., between Greenland and the north-eastern shores of America, which first directed the attention of the thinkers of Europe to Hudson’s Bay as a possible passage to the Pacific. As in Canada and elsewhere in America, however, scientific exploration, for its own sake, soon retired before the pioneers of commerce and settlement, making it next to impossible for the geographical student to trace the thin line of discovery with any certainty.

Strictly speaking, the work of the travelers who paved the way for the foundation of the great Hudson’s Bay Company, destined to be so formidable a rival to the French _coureurs de bois_, belongs to Arctic history; but, in the early days of which we are now writing, those whose main object was the discovery of the North-west Passage, often turned aside from it either from necessity or curiosity, and in the parentheses, so to speak, of their voyages, penetrated below the 60th parallel, which we have taken as our most northerly limit. Notably was this the case with the bold mariner, Luke Fox, of London, who, in 1630, obtained from Charles I. the command of a pinnace of eighty tons, manned by twenty men, with permission to cruise about Hudson’s Bay until he found a northern passage out of it.

Fox’s pinnace entered Hudson’s Straits early in June, 1631, and, eagerly steering his way among the numerous obstacles with which they are always encumbered, he entered the bay itself in safety, sailed across it in a north-westerly direction, and reached the narrow passage known as the Welcome between its eastern shores and Southampton Island. Here, for some unknown reason, he turned southward, and, after an exciting cruise along the coasts of the great bay, he came to the mouth of its greatest feeder, the Nelson, in N. lat. 56° 35′. Convinced that no passage to the northern ocean was to be found so far south, and ignorant how near he had been to it when he changed his course at the outlet of the Welcome, he now struck across the bay in a north-westerly direction, till he came to the most southerly point of Southampton Island, called Carey’s Swan’s Nest.

So much time had been wasted in the détour southward, which has won for Fox a mention in our present volume, that he could now only advance a short distance along the channel bearing his name, between the east of Southampton Island and the western boundaries of the bay. Compelled to return to England without having accomplished much, he learned a little later, somewhat to his disgust, that his discoveries in the south of the bay had been continued by his rival, Captain James. James had met him at the mouth of the Welcome, in a little vessel fitted out by the merchants of Bristol, with the same end in view as Fox had――the finding of a passage to the East by way of Hudson’s Bay.

James, told by Fox that he was quite sure not to succeed in his quest, had been driven, after this far from cheering meeting, to steer for the south in consequence of his inability to cope with the huge masses of ice which were now beginning to fill the northern half of the bay, and arriving at what is now known as Charlton’s Island, in N. lat. 52° 5′, W. long. 80° 15′, he determined to winter there.

Terrible sufferings were now endured, but through them all James and his men kept up their courage, preparing, in face of every difficulty, for starting on the return voyage early in the following year. The battered vessel was refitted; the southern shores alike of the island and of the bay, were carefully examined; and when home was at last reached by the survivors of the party, the reports given by them, though not exactly encouraging to the general public, were such as to embolden a few enterprising spirits to see what could be done in the same direction.

A few years after the return of James to England, a Frenchman named Grosseliez made a journey of discovery from Canada, and, after a successful cruise up the western shores of Hudson’s Bay, landed in Nelson’s River. Here, to his intense astonishment, he found a little settlement of white men, who had made their way thither from Boston, and were struggling, in spite of the rigorous climate, scarcity of food, etc., to gain a permanent footing in the country. Leaving these unexpected rivals to fight out their battles as best they could, Grosseliez completed his own survey of the surrounding districts, and hastened with it to France, hoping to gain the patronage of the French monarch for an emigration scheme of his own. He entirely failed in this purpose, but his pertinacity won for him the notice of Mr. Montague, at that time English ambassador at Paris, who gave him a letter of recommendation to Prince Rupert, then, after many vicissitudes, in the very zenith of his prosperity.

Though at this time engaged in the eager prosecution of the newly-discovered art of mezzotint engraving, which owed so much of its perfection to him, Prince Rupert at once turned his attention to the geographical problem laid before him by Grosseliez. The desirability of securing to England the monopoly of the fur-trade of the North, with the possibility of winning a new water highway to the North through the as yet unexplored ice-blocked channels of the Great Bay, or to the Pacific through some inland passage still to be discovered, was recognized at once. Prince Rupert obtained the consent of his cousin, Charles II., to the sending out of a pioneering expedition under Captains Zachariah Gillam and Grosseliez; and in the summer of 1668, their little vessel entered Hudson’s Straits.

This time the eastern shores of the bay were explored, and a little river flowing into the south-eastern extremity from Lake Mistassinie was discovered, to which the name of Rupert was at once given. A fort was erected at its mouth, and the adventurers returned home with a report that lands rich in furs stretched away as far as the eye could reach, on the east as well as on the west of Hudson’s Bay.

Encouraged by the result of this preliminary experiment, Prince Rupert now obtained from Charles a charter, conferring on himself and nine associates absolute proprietorship, subordinate sovereignty, and exclusive traffic in a territory of undefined extent, embracing, however, all the regions discovered or to be discovered within Hudson’s Straits, and all lands from which rivers flowed into Hudson’s Bay, saving only such as were already in the possession of any Christian State or prince.

Now, as we know, the French, who claimed all lands from Canada to the Pacific seaboard on the west, and to the Arctic circle on the north, had already penetrated to the shores of Hudson’s Bay, and up the Saskatchewan to the Rocky Mountains. From the first, therefore, the new corporation, known as the Hudson’s Bay Company, found itself face to face with a formidable rival, and, to the great disappointment of its founders, the men who were sent out to develop the resources of the newly-obtained territories showed themselves altogether unworthy of the trust reposed in them. A brisk trade was carried on with the Canadians in the ordinary necessaries of life, but there was a total absence alike of mercantile enterprise and geographical zeal.

Not until 1721, some years after the claims of France to Canada had been finally abandoned, in fulfillment of the conditions of the Treaty of Utrecht, was any real effort at exploration made. At that date, however, a certain John Knight, governor of one of the forts of the Company, heard from some natives of a rich copper-mine in the north, and begged his superiors to fit out an expedition, with him as its leader, for the discovery alike of the mine and the Straits of Anian. It was now the turn of the Company itself to show lukewarmness in the good cause. Prince Rupert, who had been the very mainspring of the corporation, had long been dead; his successors did not care to risk their capital in any scheme of which the success was not fully secured.

“But,” urged Knight, “the charter by virtue of which you exist made the search for a north-west passage, and one to the Pacific from the East, absolutely compulsory; if you decline to allow me to make such search, I will appeal to the King, who will doubtless withdraw his letters patent if you neglect their conditions.”

Unable to shake the position taken up by their importunate servant, the Hudson’s Bay Company at last roused itself from its lethargy, and fitted out two vessels, which they placed under the naval direction of Captains Barlow and Vaughan, who were, however, to consult Knight as to their route.

Full of eager delight at this, as he thought, complete realization of his hopes, poor Knight started on his voyage; but of that voyage no record has ever been obtained. A year passed by, and there came no message to his employers; two years, and still not a word from him. Search expeditions were now sent out, but they were either unskillfully or negligently conducted, and not until forty long years had gone by was the sad truth revealed.

In 1767, two whaling vessels, cruising about the now well-known passage of the Welcome, came to the entrance of a harbor never before noticed, and, entering it, their captains and crews were astonished to find its shores strewn with guns, anchors, and other European relics. When they landed to examine this phenomenon, further evidence of the place having been the scene of a great catastrophe was found in the ruins of a house, and a little later in the discovery of the remains of ships under water. There could be little doubt now that Knight and all the members of his expedition had met their death at the very commencement of their journey; and, two years later, the explorer Hearne met some natives near the Welcome, who told him how, long years before, some white men like himself had come in two ships, and, landing, put together a wonderful house, the pieces of which they had brought with them. These white men, added the Esquimaux, soon became sick, and though they went on working all the same, most of them died. In the winter, the survivors were glad to buy train-oil, blubber, and seal-flesh, as all their own provisions failed them; and some of them, who had been a long time without food, died of eating too greedily of the strange diet supplied to them. In the following spring, but five remained alive, and these died one by one, the last survivor falling over the last but one in a vain attempt to dig his grave.

As may be supposed, the news of this awful catastrophe, of which the worst horrors were probably even then unknown, did not encourage further efforts on the desolate northern shores of Hudson’s Bay. Before the sad fate of Knight and his comrades was discovered, however, several attempts were made at the navigation of the various rivers flowing from the west into the vast inland sea, with a view to ascertaining if any of them led to the Pacific Ocean. In 1737, a Captain Middleton entered the mouth of Churchill River (N. lat. 56°, W. long. 30°), spent the winter on its shores, and in the ensuing spring sailed through the Welcome, up the Wager Sound, opening on to it on the west, and thence by way of the northern inlet of the Welcome, into Fox’s Channel, thus completing the circuit of the bay all but accomplished by his predecessors, Fox and James.

Convinced that no passage from Hudson’s Bay existed on the west, Middleton returned to England to announce that conviction, but all his assertions were met with scorn; and, a few years later, yet another fleet, this time under the command of Captains Moore and Smith, started in the vain quest. Hudson’s Straits were entered in July, 1746, and the northern half of the bay being found impassable from ice, it was resolved to winter at the mouth of Nelson’s River (N. lat. 56° 35′, W. long. 95°), and start on the exploring expedition early in the ensuing year.

Illustration: SLEDGE-DRIVING.

This programme was carried out, and in spite of the intense cold, the party escaped many of the horrors usually attendant upon it to Europeans, by following the advice of some friendly Esquimaux, who gave them many hints as to the best way to avoid them. The summer of the following year found the expedition moving up the bay, and a thorough examination of the Wager Sound, proving it to be a close one, was made; but, alas! this was the only result of what had appeared likely to be one of the most successful expeditions yet fitted out. Having discovered that no passage to the Pacific was to be found by way of the Nelson or the Wager, Moore and Smith came to the conclusion that no passage existed at all, and returned to England to announce that their work was done. That they were received with what we may really call a yell of execration is a matter of little surprise, but that expression of public scorn was followed by no renewed attempt in the same direction.

Knight, as we know, had disappeared, and the secret of his fate, anticipated by us, was still unknown. Middleton, Moore, and Smith had accomplished nothing. Surely it was time to make a change of tactics, and with some such feeling the heads of the Company resolved to give up the question of a water passage to the West for a time, and see what could be accomplished by land. Not until 1769, however, two years after the discovery of the relics of Knight’s expedition, was any thing definite attempted, and by that date the Hudson’s Bay Company had been to some degree supplanted by that known as the North-west, which consisted of a number of British merchants who, without charter, privileges, or public support, had been quietly, though energetically, making good their footing in the great North-west.

Our readers will remember all that we have told them of the French _coureurs des bois_, and of their rapid advance westward, accompanied by the Jesuit missionaries, who did so much to check their abuses. This advance at one time seemed likely to prevent that of any other Europeans; but the cession of Canada to England in 1763, a cession fraught with political consequences of such vital importance to the whole civilized world, shook the power of the French to its foundation.

A royal proclamation was issued, organizing Canada under English laws; and no longer could the lawless proceedings of the _coureurs des bois_ be tolerated. Henceforth the lakes and rivers would miss the skin-laden canoes of the half-savage traders; no more should the remote forests echo with their shouts of joy as they brought down their prey, or the solemn wastes of snow-clad plains be desecrated by their wild revels.

The change――as all great changes generally are――was gradual. The pioneers of the new order of things often surprised some little group of dusky half-caste children, with eager eyes and vivacious ways of their French fathers contrasting strangely with the shrinking timidity inherited from their savage mothers. Now and then, too, bloody struggles took place between the hunters of the rival nations; and the natives, delighted to see the white men devouring each other, began those treacherous assaults, in which they have ever proved themselves adepts, which culminated in the massacres of Detroit and Michilimackinac.

This terrible transition stage, where such numerous rivals were contending for the monopoly of the fur-trade of the great North-west, produced, as transition stages so often do, many a bold spirit eager to win honor by facing the exceptional difficulties of the time. First one and then another hero came forward to offer his services to the Hudson’s Bay Company for new expeditions; first one and then another member of its infant rival accomplished some traveling-feat hitherto looked upon as impossible. Some few among these, such as Hearne of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and Mackenzie of the North-west Company, worked below as well as above the 60th parallel of north latitude, and must therefore be noticed here.

Illustration: AN ESQUIMAUX DWELLING.

Hearne, the first of this brilliant pair of adventurers to start, left the western shores of Hudson’s Bay in November, 1769, and accompanied by two Europeans and a number of Indian guides, struck across country in a northerly direction, with the head-waters of the Coppermine River, so named after the mine supposed to exist in its vicinity, as his goal. Again and again compelled to retrace his steps to the advanced forts of his employers, on account of the scarcity of provisions and the extreme cold, our hero did not enter the great northern plain until December, 1770. Across it he was now, however, conducted in safety by an Indian guide, named Matonnabbe, who was accompanied by his eight squaws, on whom the chief burden of providing for the comfort of the party was thrown.

So well did these poor women fulfill their mission, turning to account every scrap of food which came in their way, that Hearne reached in safety the most southerly of the great hyperborean series of frozen lakes. Naming the smaller ones Cossed, Snow-bird, Pike, Peshew, and Cagead, he came in due course to the more important Athabasca, just below the boundary line of the 60th parallel of north latitude, and beyond that again to the Great Slave Lake, situated between N. lat. 60° and 63° and surrounded on every side by rugged wooded heights, presenting a pleasing contrast to the white stretches of snow and ice extending on every side beyond.

These heights, which at first appeared inaccessible, were yet traversed by a rough and winding path used by the Indians in their wild hunting expeditions, and, following his dusky guides, Hearne succeeded in scaling them and gaining the plain beyond. Another march of short duration brought him to the source of the Coppermine River, which rises near the Great Bear Lake, a tributary of the Mackenzie, the discovery of which was reserved to Hearne’s rival and successor, whose name it bears.

Instead of the wide river navigable for large vessels in the summer, and with mines hiding vast stores of mineral wealth within easy reach, Hearne found the Coppermine to be an unimportant stream flowing through a barren and desolate country. Disappointed and disgusted, he yet resolved to follow it to its mouth, and was proceeding on his journey with dogged resolution, when the monotony of the daily struggle with the difficulties presented by nature was broken by a struggle between his Indian guides and some Esquimaux, resulting in the massacre of the latter. In vain did our hero plead for mercy for the inoffensive dwellers on the coast. The inland races of North America entertain for their Arctic neighbors a hatred and contempt which must be witnessed to be realized; and face to face with Esquimaux, all private quarrels are merged in an eager desire for the blood of the common enemy.

Disgusted at having burdened himself with companions who of course rendered impossible any attempt at studying the ways of the new type of human nature with which he was now brought in contact, Hearne pursued his way northward, and before the close of the summer he was rewarded for his perseverance by reaching the mouth of the Coppermine River, and standing on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. For the first time the eyes of a European rested upon that portion of the universal sea surrounding the North Pole which washes the northern coast of America; for the first time the white man realized the existence of yet another ocean――an ocean which must henceforth replace the fabulous unbroken masses of land figuring on all maps between the most northerly limit reached by explorers and the North Pole.

Illustration: IN THE ARCTIC SEAS.

Before this great and unexpected revelation, throwing a flood of new light on the geography of North America, and with it of the whole world, all minor details sank into insignificance. Hearne had proved beyond a doubt that the Strait of Anian, if such a strait there were, had its eastern outlet, if any, in the Icy Sea; he had ascertained that the American continent stretched away hundreds of miles beyond what had hitherto been accepted as its western limits; he had seen that the extreme North was inhabited by a race differing essentially from all their southern neighbors; he had noticed the trace of the existence of thousands of whales, seals, and other valuable denizens of the deep; but what was all this, in Hearne’s estimation, compared to the unvarnished fact of the existence of a new ocean!

Hastening back to Hudson’s Bay with the great news, Hearne saw the copper-mine of which Indian tradition had told so much. It was a poor, exhausted mine, not likely to yield the smallest profit to the Company; but what of that? The Arctic Ocean lay beyond it! Following a somewhat more westerly course than on his northern journey, Hearne entered level districts abounding in game; but what of that? The Arctic Ocean washed the desolate shores above the fur-yielding plains! A fair young Indian woman, who had escaped from some Athapescow warriors after the murder of her whole family, was found dwelling alone in a little hut, supporting herself by hunting deer and snaring rabbits. Hearne’s followers wrestled for the possession of the young exile as a wife, and she was carried off by the victor; but this strange and significant scene could scarcely interest our hero now. The Arctic Ocean was awaiting its explorers――alas! also its victims――and the ways of the natives, who had so little valued the great fact of its existence, were of small account.

Roused from its lethargy at last by the report brought home by its gallant employé, the Hudson’s Bay Company now did all in its power to encourage further research, and to its efforts were due the sending forth of Franklin on his first great voyage, which ushered in a new era of Arctic exploration.

Before either Franklin, of Arctic renown, or Mackenzie, second only in fame as an inland explorer to Hearne, was ready to start, however, much good work was done by private adventurers, especially by Finlay, Currie, Frobisher, and Pond, who, between 1763 and 1778, penetrated to the banks of the Saskatchewan and Churchill Rivers, and to the shores of Athabasca Lake, making intimate acquaintance with the Hare and other Indian tribes, and paving the way for the voyages on the Mackenzie, Peace, and Slave Rivers, which were among the most noteworthy feats of the new claimant for the possession of the fur-yielding districts of the extreme North-west.

Alexander Mackenzie, the hero of these important trips, was bred a clerk in the service of the North-west Company, and, before starting on his voyage as a geographical explorer, properly so called, had served a long apprenticeship at the advanced station of Fort Chipewyan, on the Athapescow Lake, whence he made several overland excursions in different directions.

On the 3d June, 1789, our hero embarked in a native canoe on the Slave River, and following its course, then unimpeded by ice, in a northerly direction, he arrived on the 9th of the same month at the Slave Lake. Skirting along its shores in a westerly direction, he presently discovered the important river bearing his name, which has since been found to be identical with the Athabasca, rising in the Rocky Mountains near Mount Brown, and also with the Slave, the combined waters of the two streams flowing, after their junction, to the Arctic Ocean in Mackenzie Bay, N. lat. 70°, W. long. 136°.

Anxious to trace the course of the Mackenzie, the explorer was about to proceed along it in his canoe, when he was told by some wandering Indians that certain death would be the result, for the bed of the stream was haunted by huge monsters, who would devour all who came in their way. Moreover, it would take many years to reach the salt water. The white man had better return the way he came. In any case, he could hope for no help from the redskins.

Though these terrible prophecies did not affect Mackenzie himself, they paralyzed his guides, who declared they would go no further; and after trying alike persuasion and force, the Europeans determined to do the best they could alone. They appear to have penetrated as far north as the Great Bear Lake, but here, for some reason of which we find no explanation in Mackenzie’s journal, the canoe was turned southward, and the voyage back to the Slave Lake resumed. “My people,” says Mackenzie, “could not refrain from some expressions of real concern that they were obliged to return without reaching the sea;” but he apparently made no great effort to gratify them.

Back again to Fort Chipewyan, Mackenzie lost no time in preparing for a second journey of discovery. Embarking on the Peace River, a tributary of the Slave or Athabasca, he followed its course in a south-westerly direction, till he reached the first spurs of the snow-clad Rocky Mountains, whence issued the river under examination. Here the canoe was, of necessity, abandoned, and an arduous climb began, resulting, however, in the successful scaling of the rugged ridge, and the safe arrival at a village on its western side, where the weary travelers were regaled with salmon, a fish never before met with on their travels in North America.

Illustration: MACKENZIE’S FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

The inhabitants of this remote home in the wilderness were of a far more civilized appearance than the Indians of the East; and as the sea was approached by the explorers, they passed through settlements numbering hundreds of well-built houses, peopled by various tribes belonging to the southern branches of the great hyperborean group. Members of the Sicannis and other Rocky Mountain families were met with, who, one and all, showed courtesy to the white strangers, though they were jealous of any interference with their fishing or hunting; and as the western coast was approached, the active and intelligent Thinkleets, chiefly of the Stikeen and Tungass tribes, excited the admiration of their visitors by their ingenuity in the construction of domestic and other implements, and their skill in painting and carving.

The shores of the North Pacific Ocean were finally reached in north latitude 52° 20′ 48″. The whole of the continent of British America had for the first time been traversed; its vast breadth had been proved beyond a doubt; and the connecting link between the discoveries on the western coast and those from the East, whether from Hudson’s Bay, New England, or the Southern States, was added at last. Yet in Mackenzie’s account of his work he scarcely notes the first sight of the sea; we have searched in vain for any details of his sojourn on its shores. Having done what he came to do, he turned back, and retraced his steps, winding up the ♦narrative of his adventures with this simple and unostentatious sentence:――“After an absence of eleven months I arrived at Fort Chipewyan, where I remained for the purposes of trade during the succeeding winter.”

♦ ‘narative’ replaced with ‘narrative’