312 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
branch bearing 8. by E., which he calls Peatagow River. On Fleming's 
map (Hind’s “ Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition, 
1858”), a small stream is shown entering the Saskatchewan from the 
south-east, about 103° 55”. As the middle post was about ten miles above 
Peatagow River, we will be reasonably safe in placing it in long. 104°. 
Whether or not this was the fort which Judge Prud’homme calls Fort 
Poskoyac le second, built by La Corne between 1753 and 1755, it is 
impossible to say. It certainly is nowhere near the site fixed by Judge 
Prud’homme. 
We have, then, the evidence of both Hendry and Cocking as to the 
existence of two French posts on the Saskatchewan, between the Forks 
and The Pas; and Cocking bears witness to the presence of a third. 
With the exception of Fort La Corne, however, it is impossible to re- 
concile Judge Prud’homme’s descriptions with the evidence of these 
early explorers. Hendry visited the French post at the mouth of the 
Pasquia in 1754-55, and says of it, “ This House has been long a place 
of Trade belonging to the French.” Judge Prud’homme dates the three 
posts below the Forks between 1753 and 1755; that is to say, just about 
the time of Hendry’s visit. . 
To sum up, the evidence afforded by these two journals goes to show 
that there were three French posts on the Saskatchewan between The 
Pas and the Forks. Of these the oldest was that at The Pas, or the 
mouth of the Pasquia, built by the Chevalier de La Vérendrye about 
1748. The other two, built by Saint-Luc de La Come, were minor 
posts; the first situated about 104°; and the upper post—Fort La Corne 
-—about 104° 32’. Fort La Corne was built in 1753; the lower fort may 
have been built after Hendry descended the river in 1755. 
As Hendry is the only British explorer or trader known to have 
visited Fort Poskoyac, or indeed any of the French forts west of Lake 
Superior, up to the close of the period of French rule in Canada, his 
description of the fort, with the account of his meeting with the French 
traders, is of exceptional value. 
In this connection the following, from Robson’s “Account of Six 
years residence in Hudson’s-Bay” (pp. 62-63), is of interest: “It is 
universally believed among the servants, that the French travel many 
hundred miles over land from Canada to the heads of our rivers in 
the Bay, and that they have erected huts and settled a considerable 
factory upon a lake at the head of Nelson-river; trading with the 
natives for the lightest and most valuable furs, which they carry a 
long way before they find a conveyance by water; and this general 
cpinion is not taken up at random, but supported by particular incon- 
testable evidences of the fact. I have seen French guns among the 
