e rivalries of these two companies nearly ruined
both, until they got rid of them by uniting in 1821, when the
Nor'-Westers became as vigorous defenders of King Charles's
Charter as they had before been its defiers and defamers.

Fort Chipewyan was established, Mackenzie says, by Mr. Pond, in
1788, the year after his own arrival at the Athabasca, where, by
the way, in the fall of 1787, he describes Mr. Pond's garden at
his post on that river as being "as fine a kitchen garden as
he ever saw in Canada." Fort Chipewyan, however, though not
established by Mackenzie, was his headquarters for eight years.
From here he set out in June, 1789, on his canoe voyage to the
Arctic Ocean, and from here in October, 1792, he started on his
voyage up the Peace River on his way to the Pacific coast, which
he reached the following year.

In his history he states: "When the white traders first ventured
into this country both tribes were numerous, but smallpox destroyed
them." And, speaking of the region at large, he, perhaps, throws
an incidental side-light upon the Blackfoot question. "Who the
original people were," he says, "that were driven from it when
conquered by the Kinisteneaux (the Crees) is not now known, as
not a single vestige remains of them. The latter and the Chipewyans
are the only people that have been known here, and it is evident
that the last mentioned consider themselves as strangers, and seldom
remain longer than three or four years without visiting their
friends and relatives in the Barren Grounds, which they term their
native country."

[It is a reasonable conjecture that these "original people," driven
from Athabasca in remote days, were the Blackfeet Indians and their
kindred, who possibly had their base at that time, as in subsequent
days, at the forks and on both branches of the Saskatchewan. The
tradition was authentic in Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Richardson's
time. Writing on the Saskatchewan eighty-eight years ago he places
the Eascabs, "called by the Crees the Assinipoytuk, or Stone
Indians, west of the Crees, between them and the Blackfeet." The
Assiniboines are an offshoot of the great Sioux, or Dakota, race
called by their congeners the Hohas, or "Rebels." They separated
from their nation at a remote period owing to a quarrel, so the
tradition runs, between children, and which was taken up by their
parents. Migrating northward the Eascabs, as the Assiniboines called
themselves, were gladly received