Mackenzie and His Voyageurs by Canoe to the Arctic and the Pacific 1789-93
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MACKENZIE AND HIS VOYAGEURS BY CANOE TO THE ARCTIC AND THE PACIFIC 1789-93 By ARTHUR P. WOOLLACOTT With Illustrations from Thirty-two Photographs 1927 London ^ Toronto J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. Education FOREWORD In the preparation of this essay, Mackenzie’s narrative, as contained in the original edition of his Voyages^ i8oi, was used as a basis. Supplementary information regarding the routes followed was obtained from other sources, particularly from the publications of the Geological Survey of Canada. The writer himself travelled over the greater part of the track of the Pacific “voyage” by canoe and portage, from the town of Peace River, below Mackenzie’s Fort, to the Parsnip-Fraser divide, and thence down the Fraser. The tide-water section on the Pacific was checked up by reference to Bulletin No. 6, “Mackenzie’s Rock,” issued by the Historic Sites Commission, Ottawa, 1925; and the Indian Trail from the Blackwater to Bella Coola over the interior plateau, by reference to Dr. G. M. Dawson’s report of 1876, in the Geological Survey Report of Progress for that year. The first two chapters are in the nature of a summary of explorations in the North-West collated from Mackenzie’s own narrative, supplemented, where necessary, by reference to Dr. Davidson’s The North-West Company^ Dr. Elliot Coues’ New Light on the Early History of the Greater North-West. The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and David Thompson^ Lawrence J. Burpee’s Search for the Western Sea^ and L. R. Masson’s Les Bourgeois de la Com- pagnie du Nord-Ouesty Quebec, 1889-90. 2 vols. The outline of Spanish, British, American, and Russian affairs on the Pacific, in chapters vi. and xiii., is derived V 107339 vi Mackenzie’s Voyages largely from Robert Greenhow’s Historical and Political Memoir of the North-West Coast of America^ New York, 1840J and his History of Oregon and California ^ and other Territories on the North-West Coast of America^ New York, 1845. The writer acknowledges the many courtesies extended to him by Mr. E. S. Robinson, the librarian of the Vancouver City Library, who freely placed the library’s valuable collec- tion of material relating to the North-West Coast, and the fur-trade in Canada, at his service; his thanks are also due to Mr. J. Forsyth, the Provincial Librarian, Victoria; to His Honour, Judge F. W. Howay, for permission to quote from his writings; to Mr. A. J. C. Nettel of the Vancouver Office of the Geological Survey; to Mr. J. E. Umbach, surveyor-general, Victoria; to Mr. Iver Fougner, Indian Agent, Bella Coola; to the University of California Press and the University of Chicago Press for permission to quote from their historical publications; and to the following for photographs: the Geological Survey, Ottawa; the North- West Territories and Yukon Branch, Ottawa; and Lt.-Col. H. St. J. Montizambert for a rare photograph of the view observed by Mackenzie in the lower Parsnip valley on 5 June, 1793; and to the Topographical Branch of the Department of the Interior, Ottawa, for excellent maps of the Athabasca and Mackenzie Rivers. A bibliography will be found in Appendix E. This, how- ever, is only a brief indication of the wealth of material relating to the subject of this book. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE Foreword ....... v I. Unrolling the Map of North-Western America, 1670-1789 ..... i II. Stepping Westward . .18 III. Seeking Pond’s Outlet .... 30 IV. La Grande Riviere en Bas . -47 V. Tracking Up-Stream a Thousand Miles . 70 VI. Spanish and Russian America on the Pacific . 91 VII. Wintering on the Peace .... 103 VIII. Through the “Mountain of Rocks” . .119 IX. Over THE Divide TO THE “Tacouche Tesse” . 133 X. “Back-Packing” to the Pacific . 158 XI. “Mackenzie’s Rock” ..... 171 XII. The Return to Fort Chipewyan . .179 XIII. The Vanished Frontier .... 197 Appendices : A. The Bella Coola Trail .... 213 B. A Surveyor’s Report on Bad River . .216 C. Indian Tribes . .219 D. The Nootka Convention .... 223 E. Bibliography ...... 226 Index ......... 229 vii 1 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS North End of Methye Portage . .facing page 9 At Cumberland House 9 A Thirteen-dog Team . „ 20 Fort Chipewyan . „ 20 “Rapids of the Drowned,” Slave River . ,, ,, 27 Salt Springs near Fort Smith . ,, 27 Indians Landing at Fort Resolution . ,, 34 “The Ramparts,” Mackenzie River . 34 His Excellency the Governor-General at the Oil-wells BELOW Fort Norman . , • 57 “Bear Rock,” near Fort Norman. • 57 “The Ramparts,” Mackenzie River . • 68 Fish Reel: Lower Mackenzie River . ,, 68 Waterfront at Aklavik, Mackenzie Delta . ,, 73 Eskimo Women, Aklavik . • 73 Whale-boats in the Mackenzie Delta . ,, 84 “Lone Mountain,” Mackenzie River Area . ,, ,, 84 “Rock by Riverside,” Fort Wrigley . • 91 “Tracking” up Boiler Rapids . 91 Roman Catholic Mission at Fort Providence . ,, ,, 98 Crossing Great Slave Lake . ,, 98 A Family Party Travelling: Mackenzie River ,, ,, 119 Native Women and Children at Fort Providence . ,, ,, 119 Double Loop, Lower Parsnip River . - „ 134 Fort George Canyon, Fraser River . ,, ,, 134 Interior Plateau OF British Columbia . ,, ,, 15 Bella Coola Colonists, Bella Coola Valley ,, ,, 15 “Rascals’ Village,” Bella Coola . 166 Totem-pole Art of the Coast Indians of British Columbia . • 166 Squinas, an Indian Chief , . ,, 183 Geological Survey Camp . • 183 Northern Trading Company’s Post, Fort Simpson 198 Caribou on the Shore of Carey Lake . 198 X MACKENZIE AND HIS VOYAGEURS CHAPTER I UNROLLING THE MAP OF NORTH-WESTERN AMERICA 1670 - 1789 The new world offered an opportune field for the absorption of the energies released by the Renascence. The efforts of the three leading nations of Europe to carve out empires in the new domain, the factors that resulted in their successes and failures, the advances made over the terrain, their acquisition of territory, the clashes that occurred, and the accelerated trend of population to the new land are the elements of an epic of enthralling interest. Nothing in history compares with the North American Saga. The migration of millions from all the nations of the earth to the promised land, the beginnings here of a civilisation transcending any- thing yet thought of by man, the material advancement on a scale that takes the breath—these are aspects of a drama that will engage the attention of future historians. Harking back along the trail, the student who is curious about the origins of that structure which to-day amazes him, comes at last to individuals who seem to have been fated to go forward to discover and mark out the paths where legions of the busy world were to follow. Sir Alexander Mackenzie was one of these, and his I 2 Mackenzie’s Voyages discoveries cannot be seen in proper perspective except against a background of history. In such a brief essay as this must be, only the barest outlines of the earlier story can be sketched. His exploits as an explorer place him in the first rank among the score or so of resourceful men whose travels and discoveries in remote parts have served to amplify our know- ledge of the world’s geography. That he was a keen business man, a capable administrator, and a man of broad vision, were matters ofgreater importance to his fur-trading associates than the fact that he had per- formed feats equal to anything in the history of exploration. The reader, however, derives an additional pleasure from his versatility, for, like the Elizabethans, he moves in far camps with a gallant spirit, and a masterful mind that no untoward circumstance can daunt. It is the purpose in these pages to follow his track to the F rozen Sea, and then to the Pacific, with sufficient references to his private life, his business activities, and the events of the time to give perspective to his work as an explorer. The stage on which this romantic drama was enacted covered more than half a continent, and was variously referred to in tire literature of the fur-trade as le pays (TEn Haut, the Indian Territory, the Interior, and by a more recent public as the North-West. When Mackenzie was still a clerk in Montreal it was virtually a terra incognita. Moreover, it is necessary to a proper understanding of the story that a resume of the explorations and discoveries of his immediate predecessors should be given. The first two chapters therefore summarise the French and British advances north-westward, while an account of the growth and recession of Spanish and Russian dominion on the Pacific will be found in chapter vi. North-Western America 5 The continent of North America at the time of the conquest of Canada when the British fur-traders began to take an interest in the country beyond the Great Lakes was known within boundaries roughly indicated by a line drawn from the Bay of San Francisco to the Gulf of Mexico^ thence up the Mississippi and along the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. North and west of that line there existed certain more or less known areas and positions which enabled the cartographers to fill in the general outlines and features of the continent in those quarters. The Alaskan coast had been roughly blocked out from Cape Addington oflF Prince of Wales Island in latitude 55° 30' to the Commander Islands on the Kamschatkan coast by Vitus Bering and his lieutenant Chirikov, 1725-40. But from Drake’s Bay in California to 55° 30' north, the coast- line was not known, nor had any river in that extent flowing into the Pacific been discovered. The whole Arctic coast round from Bering Strait to Baffin Land was a blank. Hud- son Bay had been mapped, and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s people knew the districts around their forts, and had some more or less vague notions of the interior obtained from the tribes that visited them.