EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 5 



hundred and twenty-three years before me, and into which 

 no white man had ventured during the intervening time. 

 The conditions which I found were just such as he describes, 

 except that the inhabitants had changed. The Chipewyan 

 Indians, whom he found occupying advantageous positions 

 everywhere as far as the north end of Dubawnt Lake, had 

 disappeared, and in their places the country had been occupied 

 by scattered bands and families of Eskimos, who had almost 

 forgotten the ocean shores of the north, from which they had 

 come. They were depending entirely, for food and clothing, 

 on the caribou, which they killed on the banks of the inland 

 streams and lakes. Traces of old Indian encampments were 

 seen in a few of the scattered groves that are growing along 

 the banks of Dubawnt and Kazan Rivers, but these camps 

 had evidently not been occupied for many years. ^ 



Whether Hearne remained at Fort Prince of Wales after 

 his return is not certain, but it is possible that he may have 

 gone to some of the other factories near the southern shore 

 of Hudson Bay, and the plans of Albany, Moos, and Slude 

 (East Main) Rivers, at the end of this book, the first two of 

 which are dated 1774, may have been made by him at this 

 time. In the latter year, however, he was at York Factory, 

 and from there, in May or June, he was sent inland to the 

 Saskatchewan River, where he established Cumberland House 

 on Pine Island Lake, close to a trading-post which had been 

 previously built by Joseph Frobisher, an enterprising merchant 

 from Montreal. The following year he was recalled to Hudson 

 Bay to take charge of his old home. Fort Prince of Wales, in 

 the place of Governor Norton, who had died, and there he 

 remained quietly trading with the Indians till August 1782, 

 when the fort was taken and burnt by the French under 

 Admiral La Perouse. 



As soon as the French with three vessels of war appeared 



^ " Report on the Dubawnt, Kazan, and Ferguson Rivers," by J. B. Tyrrell. 

 "Geological Survey of Canada," Part F, vol. ix. 1896. Ottawa, 1897. 



