198 A JOURNEY TO THE 



1771- about the year one thousand seven, hundred and thirteen, or 

 ■ one thousand seven hundred and fourteen, purchased ; and a 

 few pieces of old iron found at Churchill River, which had 

 undoubtedly been left there by Captain Monk. This being 

 the case, numbers of them from all quarters used every 

 Summer to resort to these hills in search of copper ; of which 

 they made hatchets, ice-chissels, bayonets, knives, awls, arrow- 

 heads, &c.* The many [176] paths that had been beaten by the 

 Indians on these occasions, and which are yet, in many places, 

 very perfect, especially on the dry ridges and hills, is surpris- 

 ing ; in the vallies and marshy grounds, however, they are 

 mostly grown over with herbage, so as not to be discerned. 



The Copper Indians set a great value on their native metal 

 even to this day ; and prefer it to iron, for almost every use 

 except that of a hatchet, a knife, and an awl : for these three 

 necessary implements, copper makes but a very poor substi- 

 tute. When they exchange copper for iron-work with our 

 trading Northern Indians, which is but seldom, the standard 

 is an ice-chissel of copper for an ice-chissel of iron, or an ice- 



* There is a strange tradition among those people, that the first person who 

 discovered those mines was a woman, and that she conducted them to the 

 place for several years ; but as she was the only woman in company, some of 

 the men took such liberties with her as made her vow revenge on them ; and 

 she is said to have been a great conjurer. Accordingly when the men had 

 loaded themselves with copper, and were going to return, she refused to accom- 

 pany them, and said she would sit on the mine till she sunk into the ground, 

 and that the copper should sink with her. The next year, when the men went 

 for more copper, they found her sunk up to the waist, though still alive, and the 

 quantity of copper much decreased ; and on their repeating their visit the year 

 following, she had quite disappeared, and all the principal part of the mine with 

 her ; so that after that period nothing remained on the surface but a few small 

 pieces, and those were scattered at a considerable distance from each other. 

 Before that period they say the copper lay on the surface in such large heaps, 

 that the Indians had nothing to do but turn it over, and pick such pieces as 

 would best suit the different uses for which they intended it.^ 



[^ A slightly different version of this tradition is given by Sir John Franklin, 

 who heard it at Fort Chipewyan in 1820 from an old Chipewyan Indian named 

 •'Rabbit's Head," a stepson of Matonabbee. See Franklin's "First Journey," 

 pp. 145-7-] 



