[BURPEE] AN ADVENTURER FROM HUDSON BAY 91 



MATTHEW COOKING'S JOUENAL. 



being the journal of a journey performed by mr. matthew 

 cooking, second factor at york fort, in order to take a view of 

 the inland country, and to promote tjie hudson's bay company's 

 interest, whose trade is diminishing by the canadians yearly 

 intercepting natives on their way to the settlements, 1772-1773. 



Introduction. 



Matthew Cocking's narrative may properly be regarded as a 

 companion document to the Journal of Anthony Hendry, edited for the 

 Eoyal Society last year, and published in the Transactions for 1907. The 

 two Journals are closely related, although the journeys they describe 

 stand nearly twenty years apart. Not only were they both undertaken 

 with the same objects — the exploration of the vast unknown region to the 

 westward of Hudson Bay, and the persuading of the far western tribes 

 to bring their furs down to the Bay ; but they covered substantially the 

 same ground. Both Hendry and Cocking started forth from York Fort, 

 or York Factory as it is more familiarly known; both took the well- 

 known Hayes route as far as Knee Lake, but from there struck off almost 

 due west to Cross Lake on the Nelson, following a route evidently at that 

 time familiar to the men of the Hudson's Bay Company, but afterward 

 forgotten, so much so in fact that this strip of territory is to-day counted 

 among the smaller unexplored areas of the country. From Cross Lake, 

 both travellers followed the Minago Eiver to ]\Ioose Lake, and thence 

 smaller streams to the Saskatchewan. As a description of this portion 

 of the route has already been given in connection with Hendry's Journal, 

 it will not be necessary to repeat it here. Cocking, like Hendry, ascended 

 the Saskatchewan to the mouth of the Pasquia — always an important 

 point in the annals of the fur trade — and for a few miles farther their 

 courses were identical, but ac Saskeram Lake, to which Cocking applies 

 the modest name of Maneneshahsquatanan Sakahegan, the two travellers 

 took different roads. Hendry, it will be remembered, ascended Carrot 

 Eiver and then struck overland between Carrot Eiver and the Eed Deer, 

 working around to the South Saskatchewan, which he crossed somewhere 

 about Clark Crossing, north of the present town of Saskatoon, thence to 

 the Elhow of the North Saskatchewan, and then over the Great Plain 

 to the Eed Deer branch of the South Saskatchewan, which he crossed 

 somewhere about Kneehill Creek. Cocking, on the other hand, after 

 traversing Saskeram Lake, again entered the Saskatchewan, which he 

 ascended to a point not many miles below the Forks. He notes in his 

 Journal, " Formerly the French had a House here." He was evidently 



