!I!(library) m) 
85 \*V 
NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY IN 1890, FROM GREAT' 
SLAVE LAKE TO BEECHY LAKE, ON THE 
GREAT FISH RIVER. 
From the Journal of Mr. James McKinley, officer in charge at Fort Resolution, H. B. Co. 
By D. B. Dowlikg, B.A. Sc. 
The " Barren Ground of Northern Canada," is the title of a book 
recently issued by Mr. Warburton Pike. It contains a popular descrip- 
tion of his experience of travelling and hunting in the country north of 
Great Slave Lake, and on the Peace River. A few notes from the 
diary of his sometime fellow traveller, Mr. James McKinley, may be of 
interest, as supplementing in a somewhat more detailed way the descrip- 
tion there given of the country between Fort Resolution, on the Great 
Slave Lake, and Beechy Lake, on the Great Fish River. A part of 
their route was through the hitherto unexplored region immediately 
north of the Great Slave Lake, a very rugged tract, dotted with lakes, 
followed further north by a more even though somewhat hilly country, 
almost barren, extending to Aylmer Lake. 
Of previous explorations in the region to the north-eastward of 
Slave Lake brief mention will be made. 
The earliest we find was that of Samuel Hearne, commissioned by 
the Hudson Bay Company to undertake an overland expedition, to 
make explorations to the north west of the inland sea on which they 
had their posts, and also to search for a large river, on which a copper 
mine, was said to exist. Leaving Prince of Wales Fort, on the Church- 
ill, he made two unsuccessful attempts to reach this river and copper 
mine, but in the fall of 1770 he again started, and by the middle of 
July, 1 77 1, had reached the Coppermine River. The map of his route, 
with the latitudes of points of interest, are inaccurate and untrustworthy, 
but it is quite certain that in the spring of 1771 he passed near, if not 
over, Artillery and Clinton Golden Lakes. Returning in the faU of the 
same season, he arrived at some point on the north shore of Great Slave 
Lake, and crossed through a chain of islands to the south shore, where 
he arrived about the beginning of 1772. 
Other expeditions, including Franklin's two, have since passed by 
the more western route. These seem to have passed to the west of the 
district under consideration. 
