XORTH-AVEST PASSAGE. 37 



The plan of performing a journey in tliis way, 

 for discovering the northern termination of the 

 American Continent, and for tracing it round to 

 its junction with the coasts of the same country 

 washed by the Atlantic, might be in some measure 

 as follows. The party intended for this expedition, 

 which should consist of as few individuals as pos- 

 sible, ought, perhaps, in the course of one suirimer, 

 to make their way to one of the interior settlements 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company, or of the Canadian 

 traders, such as Slave Fort, on tlie Great Slave 

 Lake, situated in the 62d degree of latitude, or Fort 

 Chepewyan, near the Athapescow I^ake, in latitude 

 58° 40', from whence Sir Alexander Mackenzie 

 embarked on his voyage to the Frozen Ocean ; and 

 there abide during the first winter. Supposing the 

 travellers to winter at Slave Fort, they might cal- 

 culate on being within tlie distance of 200 leagues, 

 or thirty or forty days journey, moderate travelling, 

 of the Frozen Ocean *. In tlie month of jMarcli 



* Mackenzie performed his voyrige from the western angle 

 of the Great Slave Lake to the island in latitude 69^ 14', 

 which formed the termination of his navigation towards the 

 north, in fourteen days. Here, if not actually in the frozen 

 ocean, he was evidently very near it, and in a sea communi- 

 cating v»ith it, of which we have full proof, from his having 

 observed traces of Esquimaux, fragments of whalebone, boati* 

 covered v/ith skins, and most particularly from the circum- 

 stance of his having seen several Avhite-whalcs, (^Balisna al- 

 bicans,') animals wliich, though common in the rivers of liud- 

 spn's Bay, are never seen far fi-om the sea. 



