f the North-West Company. But
in reality, his incentive was that instinctive desire to widen the
bounds of geographical knowledge, and to roll back the {75} mystery of
unknown lands and seas which had already raised Hearne to eminence, and
which later on was to lead Franklin to his glorious disaster.

It was on Wednesday, June 3, 1789, that Alexander Mackenzie's little
flotilla of four birch-bark canoes set out across Lake Athabaska on its
way to the north. In Mackenzie's canoe were four French-Canadian
voyageurs, two of them accompanied by their wives, and a German. Two
other canoes were filled with Indians, who were to act as guides and
interpreters. At their head was a notable brave who had been one of
the band of Matonabbee, Hearne's famous guide. From his frequent
visits to the English post at Fort Churchill he had acquired the name
of the 'English Chief.' Another canoe was in charge of Leroux, a
French-Canadian in the service of the company, who had already
descended the Slave river, as far as the Great Slave Lake. Leroux and
his men carried trading goods and supplies.

The first part of the journey was by a route already known. The
voyageurs paddled across the twenty miles of water which here forms the
breadth of Lake Athabaska, entered a river running from the lake, and
followed its {76} winding stream. They encamped at night seven miles
from the lake. The next morning at four o'clock the canoes were on
their way again, descending the winding river through a low forest of
birch and willow. After a paddle of ten miles, a bend in the little
river brought the canoes out upon the broad stream of the Peace river,
its waters here being upwards of a mile wide and running with a strong
current to the north. On our modern maps this great stream after it
leaves Lake Athabaska is called the Slave river: but it is really one
and the same mighty river, carrying its waters from the valleys of
British Columbia through the gorges of the Rocky Mountains, passing
into the Great Slave Lake, and then, under the name of the Mackenzie,
emptying into the Arctic.

In the next five days Mackenzie's canoes successfully descended the
river to the Great Slave Lake, a distance of some two hundred and
thirty-five miles. The journey was not without its dangers. The Slave
river has a varied course: at times it broadens out into a great sheet
of water six miles across, flowing with a gentle current and carrying
the light canoes