EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 7 



gained of the interior country, and of the possibilities of travel 

 through it, must have had a stimulating effect on him in after 

 life. His note-books, which are now in possession of the 

 Government of the Province of Ontario, are filled with detailed 

 information about North-Western America, so much of which 

 he subsequently explored. In 1787 Hearne left Churchill 

 and returned to England, and from that date until his death, 

 in 1792, he probably spent most of his time in revising and 

 preparing his Journal for publication. 



Before discussing Hearne's character and the extent and 

 value of his work, it will be interesting to recount briefly the 

 circumstances which led up to the expedition to the Copper- 

 mine River. In the seventeenth century the search for gold 

 and silver monopolised the thoughts of many of the adven- 

 turers in the Southern Seas, but those adventurers who turned 

 their attention to the more northern countries recognised that 

 there were other sources of wealth beside the precious metals. 

 They saw that the furs of many of the wild animals which 

 roamed through the forests might easily be obtained from the 

 natives in exchange for articles of European manufacture of 

 but trifling value, and that these furs might be sold in the 

 markets of Europe and Asia at an enormous profit. In this 

 way what is known as the fur trade had its beginning on the 

 American continent. 



The Dutch, French, and English strove for shares in this 

 lucrative trade, and many of the wars and massacres of that 

 time had their origin in the strenuous endeavours of one or 

 other of these nations to outwit its rivals. The Dutch had 

 headquarters on the Hudson River, in what is now the State 

 of New York, the French on the St. Lawrence River, in the 

 present Provinces of Quebec and Ontario, while the English 

 established themselves on the shores of Hudson Bay, founding 

 a fur-trading company, which was destined to survive till the 

 present time, and to be one of the greatest commercial cor- 

 porations that the world has ever known. 



