6 



Simpson, and at once took his place as a daring and hardy 

 explorer of new ground. In 1834 he volunteered to establish a 

 post at the head waters of a tributary of the Mackenzie and his 

 offer was accepted. Leaving Fort Simpson, which is on an 

 island in the Mackenzie River, and near the junction of that 

 river with the Liard, he ascended the latter river, which was 

 also known as Mountain River, reached Fort Liard, nearly two 

 hundred miles from the junction, and passed on as much further to 

 Fort Halkett, which is built among the mountains. In the winter 

 of 1837, the ardent explorer went on three or four hundred 

 miles, enduring great hardships, and m the spring of 1838 

 succeeded in doing what his predecessors had tried in vain to 

 accomplish, viz., established a Hudson's Bay Company's post on 

 Dease Lake at the source of the wild mountain stream. In the 

 summer of that year the intrepid adventurer crossed to the 

 Pacific slope and reached the head waters of the Stikine River. 

 Indeed, he spent this and the following year in journeys of the 

 most daring kind, in ascending and descending the fierce 

 mountain streams of the Rocky Mountain divide. 



TERRIBLE HARDSHIPS. 



The winter of 18S8-9 was to the explorer one of the greatest 

 trial. The writer has heard the great explorer descant on the 

 adventures of that eventful year. A new post had been erected 

 by Campbell to advance the fur trade, and the energy of the 

 trader awakened the hatred of the Secatqueonays, a tribe who, 

 with their allies, numbered about six thousand souls. These 

 Indians lived at the mouth of the Stikine River, and they were 

 in the habit of going inland for one hundred and fifty miles to 

 trade at a great village mart, which was only sixty miles from 

 Campbell's new fort on Dease's Lake. At this time the trader 

 and his men nearly reached starvation. They were so re- 

 duced in supplies that they subsisted for some time on the 

 skin thongs of their moccasins and snowshoes, and on the 

 parchment windows of their huts boiled up to supply the one 

 meal a day which kept them alive. Early in the year 1840 

 the explorer crossed to the western side of the mountains, and 



