34 



EXPLORATIONS IN THE FAR NORTH 



to the north around Rabbit Point, a muskeg terminated by reefs 

 and shoals. On the 2ist of November, 1819, Mr. Benjamin 

 Frobisher, of the Northwest Company, died from starvation and 

 exposure at this point. Accompanied by two Canadian voy- 

 ageurs, he had made his way from York Factory — a distance of 

 over five hundred miles — only to die there within two days 

 march of Moose Lake House. He had been one of the party 

 captured the preceding June at Grand Rapids, but had escaped 

 from captivity, and after months of suffering and hardship 

 reached Rabbit Point. His companions, with nothing but 

 moose leather to eat, had carried him from the Narrows, but 

 their strength gave out and he was left at the Point, while they 

 sought assistance from the post. A rescuing party found his 

 remains, burned by the fire into which in his weakness he had 

 fallen while trying to renew it. 1 



The Winnipeg country is said to have been visited by Cana- 

 dians in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Joseph La 

 France, in 1740-42, was the first to traverse the intricate network 

 of lakes and rivers connecting Lake Winnipeg with Hudson's 

 Bay. It was not till 1774 that Samuel Hearne reached the 

 Saskatchewan and established the post at Cumberland; while 

 the first Red River post of the Hudson's Bay Company was 

 established in 1799. 



For over two hundred years the Saskatchewan was the only 

 practicable route to the Athabasca River and the Far North. 

 After the consolidation of the fur companies, in 1821, goods 

 were brought in by way of York Factory. The boats used by 

 the company were called York boats because of their annual 

 journey down to York. They were long and open, the rake of 

 bow and stern being alike, guided by a heavy sweep passing 

 through a ring in the sternpost. They were manned by a crew 

 of six or eight oarsmen and a steersman. They were capable 

 of carrying ten tons, would stand rough usage, and were easily 

 repaired. With a full wind, a sail quickly improvised from tar- 

 paulins allowed "a spell" to the crew, who usually worked to 

 the limit of their endurance in their haste to reach their destina- 

 tion, before the short summer closed. These brigades were 

 made up of the Canadian voyageurs, and Cree, Sauteux, and 

 Northern Indians. 



1 (Masson, G. R.), Les Bourgeois , Vol. 11, p. 179. 



