24 The Ottawa Naturalist. [May 



Trading into Hudson Bay," a charter was obtained from Charles 

 the Second, which carried with it not only the right to trade, 

 but the ownership of most of the region now included in northern 

 and western Canada. 



For 100 years after its formation, "The Company" as it 

 is familiarly known all over this vast territory, confined its 

 operations to the immediate shores of Hudson bay. In 1770, 

 however, they were induced to send an explorer, Samuel Hearne, 

 into the country west of the Bay for the purpose of finding the 

 locality from which the Esquimaux obtained the native copper 

 which they made into arrow heads and other implements. 

 Hearne's first two attempfs to reach the locality failed, because, 

 as his Indians told him, he had no women on the part3^ 

 "Women," they said, "were useful to draw the toboggans 

 and carry the loads, while the men hunted; and, besides that, 

 they could easih^ subsist on the bones from which the men had 

 eaten the meat." On his last journey, Hearne discovered Great 

 Slave lake, and explored the Coppermine river to the Arctic 

 coast. His journey is one of the most remarkable that has ever 

 been made in the history of northern inland travel, and for a 

 year and a half he travelled with a band of Chipewyan Indians, 

 living as one of themselves, under the conditions of the greatest 

 hardship. 



About this time other fur trading companies, financed from 

 Montreal and Boston, began to enter the field in opposition to 

 the Hudson Bay Company. Competition, however, soon became 

 so keen that they had to unite under the name of the North- 

 West Company. Between this and the Hudson Bay Company 

 the rivalry was so fierce that it often led to bloodshed, but it 

 greatly stimulated explorations in the Mackenzie basin. 



The North-West Company was the more aggressive of the 

 two and pushed their outposts far into the interior. In 1778 we 

 find them establishing a post near Athabasca lake, and in 1785 

 they reached Great Slave lake, fifteen years after Hearne. 



It was from Athabasca lake that in 1789 Alexander 

 Mackenzie, an employee of the North-West Company, started 

 on his voyage of exploration northward. On this journey he 

 crossed Great Slave lake, and descended the Mackenzie to its 

 mouth, the first white man to make the trip. He was six weeks 

 in descending the river, and during this time he met with many 

 discouragements. Meeting a party of Indians at the mouth of 

 Great Bear river, he was told that it would still take years to 

 reach the mouth, and they would be all old men before they 

 returned. 



