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Chapter V - The Ascent of the Great
River
ALL readers of
Mackenzie's journal experience great disappointment as they reach
his account of his nearest approach to the Arctic Sea. The rise of
the sea tide was surely a certain indication to him that he was near
the ocean. The appearance of ice-fields, seen by him from the
heights of the islands among which he passed, suggested to him the
frozen surface of the Arctic Sea. For some reason he turned back,
having only reached the delta of the great river which he had been
descending. Why did he do this?
Not a reflection of
regret do we find, nor is any indication given that he considered
his northward journey ended, save for his erection of the post on
which his name was engraved. An unobservant reader would suppose as
he describes his journey among the islands of the delta that he was
following the same course down stream as lie had been pursuing for
the preceding six weeks.
However, closer
attention will show that on July 16th, after discussing with the
Indian guide the possibility of the party meeting with friendly
Indians, who might inform them further of the route, Mackenzie
received the information that he would not likely meet them unless
it were at a small river coning from the east -which fell into the
great one. The journal says: "We accordingly made for the river, and
stemmed the current." Here is the first indication that the explorer
had given up his journey, and was now ascending the river.
The delta of the
great river had been full of interest for the whole party. One day
Mackenzie's men saw a great many animals in the water which they had
thought at first were pieces of ice. These they found to be whales,
and the party took to their boats in hot pursuit. The prey, however,
evaded the pursuers, and it was well. As the explorer says, "it was
a very fortunate circumstance that we failed in our attempt to
overtake them, as a stroke from the tail of one of these enormous
fish would have dashed the canoe to pieces."
Before getting; back
from this vain expedition a fierce north-east wind arose, and a
heavy fog fell; the waters rose in violence, and the party reached
the land with the greatest difficulty. The only satisfactory course
seemed to be to keep in the lee of the islands, which, as already
mentioned, lie called the Whale Islands, on the greatest of which he
had encamped.
We are thus left to
infer the reasons for his hasty return, which the explorer seems to
attempt so ingeniously to gloss over. The Indians had found it
difficult to obtain much game, the party had not more than five
hundred pounds of food supply on hand, and the prospect of facing an
Arctic winter with its decreasing amount of game was, even to so
brave a man as Alexander Mackenzie, sufficiently alarming. The
islands on which they had encamped were exposed to the winds off the
icefields, and they here found the weather at the season which
elsewhere would be the middle of summer, most severe. The entry in
the journal for July 15th is: "As the evening approached the wind
increased, and the weather became cold. Two swans were the only
provision which the hunters procured for us."
Moreover, there are
constant indications that the guide wished to return homeward, and
the "English chief " after reaching the lower portions of the river
gave evidence very clearly that he would prefer to be back in his
own region of Athabaska. Certainly the ice on the lower part of the
river suggested that the short summer would soon be over, and
pointed to the necessity of hastening southward. Mackenzie's
reticence in regard to the reason for his sudden departure southward
is undoubtedly very remarkable.
One remark alone in
the later part of his voyage may give a clue to his course of
action. On August 13th, nearly a month after the return voyage was
begun, the feeling of distrust between the "English chief" and the
commander showed itself very clearly. After giving an account of the
altercation, Mackenzie, in the journal, says: "I stated to bun that
I had corrie a great way, and at a very considerable expense,
without having completed the object of my wishes, and that I
suspected he had concealed from inc a principal part of what the
natives had told him respecting the country, lest he should have
been obliged to follow me." Here, then, seems the explanation that a
cabal had been made against Mackenzie by reason of which he could
not obtain the necessary information to enable him to proceed. It
would have been more satisfactory to us if the explorer, who had so
nearly accomplished his object, had taken us into his confidence.
On the day of their
return southward Mackenzie records seeing the first spruce tree that
had been in view for some time. He makes the remark that it is
extraordinary that there should be any wood whatever in a country
where the ground never thaws below five inches from the surface. But
as the ascent of the river was made the weather became pleasant, and
the evidences of animal life in the flocks of wild fowl and their
young became more frequent.
Numbers of the
natives, not seen on the way down the river and who were strange to
the ways of white men, were now met. "They were alarmed at the
firearms in our hands, and asked us not to discharge them in their
presence." When they saw the explorer engaged in writing, their
curiosity was excited. 'Through the medium of the "English chief"
Mackenzie ascertained that these Indians had learned from the
Eskimos, whom they had met, that they had seen large canoes (ships)
full of white men, to the westward, eight or ten winters before,
from whom they had obtained iron in exchange for leather. The
expanse of water where they had met them was called by them
Belboullay Toe or White Man's Lake.
On July 24th the
exploring party passed a small river, on each side of which the
Indians and Eskimos collected flint. The bank was crumbling away in
places, and among the debris were found pieces of petroleum, having
the appearance of yellow wax. A few days more brought the returning
travellers to the zone of huckle-berries, raspberries, and that
fruit widespread throughout the fur trader's country, the Saskatoon
berry, known to the French-Canadians as poire.
Fifteen days after
the return journey was begun Mackenzie's party reached the entrance
of the rushing stream running into the great river from Great Bear
Lake. Being now the first day of the month of August the explorers
passed here the first night, since leaving Lake Athabaska, in which
it was dark enough to see the stars. As the party came to this
precipitous part of the river they were compelled to take to the
shore, and, walking along it, to use their towing lines to drag the
canoes up the stream. At times on the banks of the river, at this
point, their attention was called to the whole bank giving off a
sulphurous smell. The source of this odour proved to be a seam of
coal which had been on fire for years.
About August 11th
Mackenzie began to find the "English chief" restless and moody. The
wily leader seems to have been afraid that the explorer would leave
the great river, and explore some of the larger tributaries coming
into it from the east. The "English chief" had told some of the
French-Canadians that he intended before the party reached Slave
Lake to leave them, and make a visit to a tribe of Indians, whom he
knew.
It was at this
juncture that the "English chief" drew upon himself the reproaches
of Mackenzie, to which reference has been made. When rebuked the
"English chief" denied the charges made by the explorer, stated that
he would not accompany the party any further, and after the Indian
fashion gave way to a loud and bitter lamentation, in which his
relatives assisted him in their vociferations of grief, though they
gave as their excuse that their tears flowed for their dead friends.
Mackenzie, after two hours of this extravagant sorrow, soothed their
wounded feelings, and the chief returned to his allegiance.
On August 22nd the
party was rejoiced at reach-in; Great Slave Lake; here, making use
of sails on their canoes, they greatly hastened their speed. Two
days afterwards the worried explorer was rejoiced to meet his trader
Leroux, whom the had left on the lake to pursue the fur trade.
Leroux had not succeeded very well, but had visited a band of
Indians on Martin Lake, and obtained a number of peltries. While on
Great Slave Lake Mackenzie matured a plan for sending Leroux, under
the guidance of the "English chief" to visit the Beaver Indians,
whose country lay to the west. When he reached Leroux' house, which
had been built at the mouth of Yellow Knife River, and which
afterwards became known as Fort Providence, he tells us "he spent
the whole night making the necessary arrangements for the
embarkation of the morning, and in preparing instructions for Leroux."
Leaving his faithful
trader Leroux, whose name as a pioneer has ever since been
associated with Great Slave Lake, Mackenzie and his party struck
across the lake, and after a somewhat stormy passage arrived at the
entrance of the river running from the south into Slave Lake, at
which point Leroux' first house for trading had been built. The
ascent of the river—the Slave—had now to be made, and its rapids and
fierce eddies required skill in his canoemen, 'though the effort of
the ascent was not, on the whole, more arduous than that of the
descent had been.
To face the
well-known portages gave some variety and excitement to the sturdy
French-Canadians, who had gone the whole journey without a murmur,
and who had the greatest confidence in L'ecossais, commanding and
imperative as he was to them and to all. Ten days sufficed to
traverse the distance of something more than two hundred and sixty
miles, and the fact that on the day before their arrival at Lake
Athabaska " it froze hard during the night, and was very cold
throughout the day," showed llo`v fortunate the party was in
reaching its destination at the very spot where they had encamped on
June 3rd.
The last entry of the journal is as follows September 12th, 1789.
"The weather was cloudy, and also very cold. At eight we embarked
with a northeast wind, and entered the Lake of the Hills. About ten
the wind veered to the westward, and was as strong as we could bear
it with the high sail, so that we arrived at Fort Chipewyan by three
in the afternoon, where we found Mr. McLeod with five men busily
employed in building a new house. Thus, then, we concluded this
voyage, -which had occupied the considerable space of one hundred
and two days."
The results of this
great journey of Alexander Mackenzie down La Grande Riviere are
worthy of consideration:-
1. There was opened
up to the knowledge of the world a region some two thousand miles in
length, with resources of coal, petroleum, salt, and furs that are
only now beginning to be fully known.
2. Mackenzie, from
conference with the Indians met on the lower Mackenzie River,
established the existence and course of the Yukon River more
correctly than it was laid down on the maps for two generations
following his time. He made out that the Yukon emptied into Norton
Sound rather than into the Arctic Sea, as some early maps give it.
3. The great
explorer, though of a commanding spirit, adopted in treating the
Indians the pacific measures which have always been successful with
them, and began the policy which was consistently followed by the
Hudson's Bay Company during the century just closed.
4. While the daring
leader took with him a certain quantity of provisions, leaving at
Ile a la Cache a small supply of pemmican for his return journey,
yet in the main lie adopted the policy afterwards followed by the
Arctic explorer, Dr. John Rae, on his great journey tip the west
coast of Hudson Bay in search of Franklin, viz., of depending on the
game and fish that might be secured along the line of exploration.
Mackenzie's journal gives minute accounts' of the number of ducks,
geese, swans, beavers, reindeer, and fish obtained en route.
5. The explorer
gathered much useful knowledge from Indian and Eskimo hearsay and
experience, which led him to infer from their story of Belboullay
Toe or White Man's Lake (or Sea) that they were speaking of the
great Pacific Ocean, and referred to Spanish expeditions or perhaps
to the voyage of the celebrated Captain Cook up the west coast of
America some ten or eleven years before.
Mackenzie, by his
determined courage, reticence, and prudence, by his shrewdness and
intelligence, and by his consummate leadership, added not only to
the sum total of British Heroism, but also on this voyage secured
the experience and laid the foundation for the greater expedition by
which he was to gain his chief fame as being the first white man
north of Mexico to cross the continent to the Pacific Ocean. |
