igii] The Coppermine Country 215 



quarters used every summer to resort to these hills in search of copper; 

 of which they made hatchets, ice-chisels, bayonets, knives, awls, arrow- 

 heads, &c. The many paths that had been beaten by the Indians on 

 these occasions, and which are yet, in many places, very perfect, espe- 

 cially on the dry ridges and hills, is surprising; in the valleys and marshy 

 grounds, however, they are mostly grown over with herbage, so as not to 

 be discerned. 



"The Copper Indians set a great value on their native metal even 

 to this day; and prefer it to iron, for almost every use except that of a 

 hatchet, a knife, and an awl; for these three necessary implements, cop- 

 per makes but a very poor substitute. When they exchange copper for 

 iron-work with our trading Northern Indians, which is but seldom, the 

 standard is an ice-chisel of copper for an ice-chisel of iron, or an ice- 

 chisel and a few arrow-heads of copper, for a half-worn hatchet; but 

 when they barter furs with our Indians the established rule is to give 

 ten times the price for everything they purchase that is given for them at 

 the Company's Factory." 



After Hearne's visit in 1771 no white man visited the country for 

 50 years, until Sir John Franklin arrived at the head waters of the river, 

 and then descended and made a survey of it from Point Lake to the Arctic 

 Ocean. Franklin's account of the country may be interesting, and I 

 will accordingly read it to you: — 



"We rejoined our hunters at the foot of the Copper Mountains, and 

 found they had killed three musk-oxen. This circumstance determined 

 us on encamping to dry the meat, as there was wood at the spot. We 

 availed ourselves of this delay to visit the Copper Mountains in search 

 of specimens of the ore, agreeably to my instructions; and a party of 

 twenty-one persons, consisting of the officers, some of the voyagers, and 

 all the Indians, set off on that excursion. We travelled for nine hours 

 over a considerable space of ground, but found only a few small pieces of 

 native copper. The range we ascended was on the west side of the river, 

 extending W.N.W. and E.S.E. The mountains varied in height from 

 twelve to fifteen hundred feet. The uniformity of the mountains is 

 interrupted by narrow valleys, traversed by small streams. The best 

 specimens of metal we procured were among the stones in these valleys, 

 and it was in such situations that our guides desired us to search most 

 carefully. It would appear, that when the Indians see any sparry sub- 

 stance projecting above the surface, they dig there; but they have no 

 other rule to direct them, and have never found the metal in its original 

 repository. Our guides reported that they found copper in large pieces 

 in every part of this range, for two days' walk to the north-west, and that 

 the Esquimaux come hither to search for it. The annual visits which 



