HUDSON'S BAY TO THE SOUTH SEA.

"Many a shoal marks this stern coast."

The Hudson's Bay Company's grant was meant to promote the discovery of a North-west Passage to India: so the people of England, in giving away such large privileges, expected this would be done without delay.

But the company, at first, made little or no effort in this direction. It was chiefly occupied with making money, and making it from the start. Hence every thing was made to work to that end.

England did not know what she was doing when she created this monopoly. Ignorance led to delusion, and delusion to the inconsiderate granting away of an empire. It was thought the company would explore and settle its grant, and thus England would reap the benefits without spending a penny. The company, on the other hand, meant to do nothing of the sort, unless driven to it by popular clamor. Then it would do as little as it could. Colonization was fatal to the fur-trade, and the company was an association of fur-traders, nothing else. Hence, given a warehouse in London, a ship to carry goods back and forth, a port and factory at Hudson's Bay, a score or more of trading-posts scattered here and there over a vast extent of territory, to which the hunters could bring furs and get goods at the company's price, and we have, briefly told, the whole machinery of this giant monopoly. In dealing with the outside world it pursued a policy of Spanish exclusion and silence. It was not making history, but money.

Yet the company was all the time building better than it knew, for even the coming and going of its own traders gradually enlarged geographical knowledge of the country, so smoothing the way for the future.

From time to time the natives who came to the factories showed specimens of copper ore, which they said came from the Far Off Metal River of the North. The English traders consequently named it the Coppermine. It became an object with them to find the mine, or mines, whence these specimens had been taken. The governor accordingly (1769) sent one of his most trusty men into the unknown wilderness in search of them.

Taking with him some Indian guides, and living as they lived, that is to say one day fasting and the next feasting, as game was found plenty or scarce, Samuel Hearne only succeeded in getting to the Coppermine after making three attempts to do so. His story is a wondrous record of persevering endurance. He found the sacred character of the calumet everywhere acknowledged, even by the most degraded tribes. When they had once smoked together the stranger was as safe from injury or insult as in his own house, though nothing could exceed the curiosity which his white skin, blue eyes and light hair, all so different from their own, caused among the Indians he met in his journey.

The Coppermine was found to run into the Arctic Ocean, instead of Hudson's Bay, as Hearne supposed it did when he first set out, but no copper could be discovered worth the taking of such a journey to look for, as his. Hearne came back (1772) at the end of a year and a half, having established the shore line of the northern ocean at a point where land only was supposed to be. This was considered a great geographical discovery. Thus, year by year, a little was added here and a little there toward completing an accurate map of the north coast line.

In 1789, a Scotch trader, named Alexander Mackenzie, had been living for eight years past at Fort Chipewyan.[1] This was a station nearly central between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific. Mackenzie was an explorer by instinct. He determined to cross the continent. Once he had made up his mind, no thought of hardship could deter him. His course through the Slave River and lakes led him to the river now bearing his own name,—the Mackenzie River. Down this stream the intrepid traveller floated in his frail canoe, to its outlet upon the frozen Arctic Sea.

During his trip, Mackenzie questioned the Indians of this river about the unknown country lying beyond the great western wall of mountains, but found they could tell him little except that the people of that country were so exceeding fierce no stranger durst go among them. But Mackenzie knew the Pacific was there, and meant to reach it.

He first moved up from Fort Chipewyan to the east foot of the mountains, so as to get a better start. He wintered here. In the spring (1793), he was ready to set out again. One large, strong canoe, which held all the provisions, and which two men could carry with ease, enabled the travellers to work their slow and toilsome way up the swollen mountain torrents into the highest defiles, from which they sprung. As the explorers advanced, the stream they were ascending became more and more choked up with rocks or fallen trees, and more and more broken by cascades and rapids. It was often necessary to carry the canoe round or drag it over these obstructions, though at the cost of such toil that the men grew disheartened and wished to turn back, thinking the task a hopeless one. Unsparing of himself, Mackenzie put courage into the downhearted, and after a short rest all were ready to go on again.

Falling, at length, among the Indians who dwelt among the mountains, Mackenzie found that the rest of the journey would be much shortened by leaving his canoes and proceeding by land. He therefore continued his way by land, constantly meeting with natives who lived sumptuously on the salmon that the streams everywhere produced in great abundance and perfection. Mackenzie soon found he had nothing to fear from these people. They fed and sheltered his men in their villages, and willingly helped him on his way. The fatigues and anxieties of the journey were nearly past, for on the 23d of July, 1793, the party of white men arrived on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, near the Straits of Fuca.

Although, in relating the adventures of Mackenzie, we have gone somewhat before our story, the doing so is essential to its design, as subsequent chapters will show.