114 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



agents reached the Arctic Circle thirty years before anyone had crossed 

 the territory now embraced within the United States. MacKenzie in 

 1789 reached the river that bears his name and explored it from Great 

 Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean. He was the first white man to cross 

 the Rocky Mountains, and reached the Pacific Ocean in 1793. 



Alaska, too, owed its early exploration and settlement to the fur 

 trade, which is still a very important industry in that region. Early 

 Arctic expeditions were dependent upon the walrus, polar bear and 

 other Arctic mammals for food, before the modern development of 

 the art of condensing and preserving food made it possible for expedi- 

 tions to carry provisions for a long voyage. Wherever one turns in the 

 early history of the northern two-thirds of the continent, one sees in 

 game and fur-bearing mammals two of the very important factors in 

 its exploration and settlement. 



Whales and the whaling and related industries also played a promi- 

 nent part in the early exploration and history of North America, a 

 subject discussed more at length in Chapter vi. Whaling vessels ex- 

 plored the then unknown coasts of the continent, discovered many bays, 

 inlets, harbors, rivers and islands, carried the American flag for the 

 first time into various foreign ports, and furnished hardy, experienced 

 seamen for our naval vessels, notably in the War of 1812. The fur trade 

 was mixed up in the Oregon boundary dispute which led to talk of war 

 between the United States and Great Britain during the "54 40' or 

 fight" campaign, but the trouble was settled by the treaty of 1846. 

 Again the fur trade caused war clouds to float on the political horizon 

 during the dispute over the North Pacific fur-seal fishery, finally set- 

 tled by arbitration and treaties between the United States, Great Britain 

 and Japan. 



