14 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 



to attain. His book is a detailed description of the directions 

 and distances which he travelled each day, and of the incidents 

 of travel as they occurred. To Samuel Hearne the natives 

 with whom he travelled were beings whose thoughts and 

 habits of life he found supremely interesting. Their inten- 

 tions and desires largely controlled the expeditions on which 

 he had embarked. With the exception of the accomplish- 

 ment of the main object in view, of reaching the Coppermine 

 River, their wishes were everything, his nothing. 



His first expedition was a complete failure, as the Indians 

 simply took him off with them for a couple of hundred miles 

 into the wilderness until they became tired of his company 

 and then robbed him of everything he had and left him to 

 find his own way back to Churchill as best he could. His 

 second expedition was more successful, as the Indians toler- 

 ated his company for eight months and supported him as 

 long as food was plentiful, but their enthusiasm, or duty to 

 the Master at Churchill, did not last long enough to carry 

 them to the Coppermine River. 



Of his third and successful expedition Hearne was the 

 historian and surveyor, while Matonabbee, a bold and forceful 

 Chipewyan Indian about ten years his senior, was its leader. 

 If at any time Hearne tried to interfere with the arrangements 

 made by the leader he was promptly told to follow instructions 

 if he wished to reach the copper mine. While Matonabbee 

 probably reciprocated, to some extent at least, Hearne's affec- 

 tion for him, he was evidently thinking of and working for 

 Moses Norton, the rough but powerful governor of Fort 

 Prince of Wales, rather than for the quiet and observant 

 young man who was accompanying him. Hearne's sketch of 

 the life of Matonabbee is one of the most appreciative and 

 sympathetic accounts of a North American Indian that has 

 come to my notice. 



Hearne was evidently gifted with a very retentive memory, 

 and had the artist's faculty of seeing the interesting features 



