EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 



SAMUEL HEARNE, the author of the book here 

 repubUshed, is one of the most interesting characters 

 to be met with in the annals of exploration in 

 North America. When a young man, only twenty-four years 

 old, he was sent on foot to explore the interior of a great 

 continent. Though he knew nothing of mines or minerals, 

 he, like many a man similarly equipped since his day, was to 

 report on a great mining property. Naturally his report on 

 the " mine " of copper is of little value, but his account of 

 Northern Canada and of the life of the natives who inhabited 

 it is the first published detailed description of any portion of 

 the interior of Western Canada. Very few men of his age 

 accomplished so much, and fewer still have published such 

 admirable narratives of their enterprises. 



All that we know of Hearne's early life is contained in an 

 obituary notice which appeared in the European Magazine and 

 London Review for June 1797, entitled " Some Account of the 

 late Mr. Samuel Hearne, Author of ' A Journey from Prince 

 of Wales Fort, in Hudson's Bay, to the Northern Ocean, 

 undertaken by order of the Hudson's Bay Company for the 

 discovery of Copper Mines, a North- West Passage, &c., in the 

 years 1769, 1770, 1771, and 1772.'" 



" Mr. Samuel Hearne was born in the year 1745. He was the son 

 of Mr. Hearne, Secretary to the Waterworks, London Bridge, a very 

 sensible man, and of a respectable family in Somersetshire ; he died of 

 fever in his 40th year, and left Mrs. Hearne with this son, then but 

 three years of age, and a daughter two years older. Mrs. Hearne, 



A 



