CHAPTER VIII. 

 FORT CHIPEWYAN TO FORT M' MURRAY. 



Chipewyan, it may be remarked, is not a Dene word. It is 

 the name which was given by the Crees to that branch of the 

 race when they first came in contact with them, owing to 

 their wearing a peculiar coat, or tunic, which was pointed 

 both before and behind ; now disused by them, but still worn 

 by the Esquimaux, and, until recent years, by the Yukon 

 Indians. Though somewhat similar in sound, it has no con- 

 nection, it is asserted, with the word Chippeway, or Ojibway. 

 Eor all that, the words are perhaps closely akin. The writer 

 for the accurate use in this narrative of words in the 

 Cree tongue is under obligation to experts. When pre- 

 paring his notes to his drama of "Tecumseh" he was 

 indebted to his friend, Mr. Thomas McKay, of Prince Albert, 

 Sask., a master of the Cree language, for the exact origin 

 and derivation of the words Chippeway and Ojibway. Both 

 are corruptions of 0-cheepo-way, cheepo meaning " tapering," 

 and way " sound," or " voice." The name was begot of the 

 Ojibway's peculiar manner of lowering the voice at the end 

 of a sentence. As " wyan " means a skin, it is not improb- 

 able that the word Chipewyan means tapering or " pointed " 

 skin, referring, of course, to the peculiar garb of the Atha- 

 puskow Indians when the Crees first met with them. 



The sites of old posts are to be found all over this region ; 

 but Chipewyan in the beginning of the last century was 

 the great supply and trading-post of the North-West Com- 

 pany. From Sir John Franklin's Journal (1820) it would 

 appear that the Hudson's Bay Company had begun, and, for 

 some reason not given, had ceased trading on Lake Atha- 

 basca, as he says " Fort Wedderbume was a small post built 



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