190 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



From Lake Winnipeg, La Vérendrye and his sons, and their 

 successors during the French régime, explored the Red and Assiniboine 

 rivers on the one hand, and that mighty river of the plains, the Sas- 

 katchewan, on the other, though none of the three were actually 

 traced to their headwaters until years after the close of the period 

 of French rule in Canada. The sons of La Vérendrye were also instru- 

 mental in opening to white traders a route that apparently had long 

 been used by the Indians, from the Saskatchewan to the Assiniboine 

 by way of Lakes Winnipegosis and Manitoba. Portage la Prairie, 

 near the site of La Vérendrye's trading post of Fort La Reine, marks 

 the Assiniboine end of the route. 



The headwaters of the North and South Saskatchewan led by 

 Rocky Mountain passes to the upper waters of the Columbia and the 

 Kootenay, and so to the Pacific; but long before the course of western 

 exploration had been pushed so far, adventurous fur-traders had found 

 a way to the vast system of waterways of the extreme north-west. 

 First of these was an enterprising New Englander named Peter Pond 

 who, in 1778, made his way from the Saskatchewan to the Churchill 

 by way of Cumberland Lake and Frog Portage. Thus far he had been 

 preceded by Thomas and Joseph Frobisher and Alexander Henry, 

 and also up the Churchill to Ile à la Crosse lake, but beyond that 

 point Pond was the original explorer. Crossing what was afterward 

 known as Methye Portage, he looked down into the beautiful valley 

 of the Clearwater — a scene made memorable by the travels of many 

 famous explorers of later years, Alexander Mackenzie, Franklin, Back, 

 Richardson and others. Descending the steep slope he found himself 

 on the banks of a river whose waters ultimately find their way to 

 the Arctic ocean. He followed the Clearwater to the Athabaska, 

 and the latter to the lake of the same name. A year or two later he 

 descended Slave river to Great Slave lake, which Samuel Hearne had 

 discovered from the north in 1771, and also appears to have reached 

 the waters of Peace river. 1 



Eleven years after Pond's discovery of Lake Athabaska, Alex- 

 ander Mackenzie left Fort Chipewyan, the North West Company's 

 trading post on that lake, for his memorable journey to the mouth 

 of the river that bears his name. He descended Slave river to Great 

 Slave lake, found the outlet of the Mackenzie, and after many adven- 

 tures finally traced it to the Arctic ocean. Three years later this tire- 

 less explorer set forth again from Chipewyan, ascended the Peace 

 through the Rocky Mountains, and after surmounting almost incred- 

 ible difficulties found himself at last on the shores of the Pacific — 



1 A detailed account of Pond's explorations will be found in "The Search for 

 the Western Sea," chap. vii. 



