[BURPEE] YORK FACTORY TO THE BLACKFEET COUNTRY 315 
show no other river emptying directly into Saskeram lake, but I am 
informed by Mr. D. B. Dowling, of the Geological Survey, to whom I 
am indebted for a great deal of assistance in tracing Hendry’s course 
after he left the main Saskatchewan, that in periods of high water a 
channel might easily be found from Saskeram lake to Carrot river. In 
any event, a short portage would take Hendry to this important tributary 
of the Saskatchewan, and it can safely be assumed that his Peatage 
river was the Carrot. 
July 27th, Hendry abandoned his canoes, and travelled overland 
in a general south-westerly direction. He crossed the South Saskat- 
chewan somewhere about Clark Crossing, north of Saskatoon, and 
three days later reached the North Saskatchewan. He calls the former 
Wapesewcopet, and the latter Sechonby. As far as one can judge he 
reached the North Saskatchewan at the Elbow, where the Canadian 
Northern crosses the river, about midway between Prince Albert and 
Battleford. He did not cross the river, but continued his way to the 
westward, following its banks, to a point somewhere in the neighbour- 
hood of the site of Battleford. 
From here he turned to the south-west until he came to a small 
river which he calls Chacutenah, presumably Sounding Creek. Nearly 
a month later, after an uneventful journey over the Great Plain, he 
crossed the Waskesew. It is pretty safe to assume that this was the Red 
Deer, and that the place where Hendry crossed was a little above Knee 
Hills Creek. This conclusion is based upon a careful comparison of his 
distances and directions and his description of the country, all three 
pointing to the place indicated. Curiously enough Waskesew means 
Red Deer, but this in itself has no particular significance, as there have 
been innumerable Deer rivers throughout the west. 
Anyone who has made a study of early western place-names knows 
how useless they are, generally speaking, as a guide to the route of ex- 
plorers. Sometimes, as in the case of Samuel Hearne, those who attempt 
to trace the course of explorers on a modern map are led absolutely 
astray by the application of a familiar name to an entirely different body 
of water. One experiences the same difficulty, to an acute degree, in the 
case of Hendry. An attempt to identify some of his place-names with 
rivers and lakes known at one time or another under the same name, 
and to reconcile these with his distances and directions as worked out 
on a modern map, resulted in a state of such hopeless confusion that 
the only safe plan seemed to be to ignore place-names altogether, 
so far as the identification of his route was concerned. For instance, 
he mentions a Nelson river, and one is only saved from the mistake of 
confounding it with the present Nelson by the fact that the very next 
