112 THROUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN" 



was only established at Sturgeon Kiver, Cumberland Lake, 

 in 1774, by the adventurous, if not over-valiant, Samuel 

 Hearne. The rivalries of these two companies nearly 

 ruined both, until they got rid of them by uniting in 1821, 

 when the l^or'-Westers became as vigorous defenders of 

 King Charles's Charter as they had before been its defiers 

 and defamers. 



Fort Chipewyan was established, Mackenzie says, by Mr. 

 Pond, in 1788, the year after his own arrival at the Atha- 

 basca, where, by the way, in the fall of 1787, he describes 

 Mr. Pond's garden at his post on that river as being " as 

 fine a kitchen garden as he ever saw in Canada." Port 

 Chipewyan, however, though not established by Mackenzie, 

 was his headquarters for eight years. From here he set out 

 in June, 1789, on his canoe voyage to the Arctic Ocean, 

 and from here in October, 1792, he started on his voyage 

 up the Peace River on his way to the Pacific coast, which 

 he reached the following year. 



In his history he states: "When the white traders first 

 ventured into this country both tribes were numerous, but 

 smallpox destroyed them." And, speaking of the region 

 at large, he, perhaps, throws an incidental side-light upon 

 the Blackfoot question. " Who the original people were," 

 he says, " that were driven from it when conquered by the 

 Kinisteneaux (the Crees) is not now known, as not a single 

 vestige remains of them. The latter and the Chipewyans 

 are the only people that have been known here, and it is 

 evident that the last mentioned consider themselves as 

 strangers, and seldom remain longer than three or four 

 years without visiting their friends and relatives in the 

 Barren Grounds, which they term their native country."* 



♦It is a reasonable conjecture that these " original people," driven 

 from Athabasca in remote days, were the Blackfeet Indians and 

 their kindred, who possibly had their base at that time, as in 

 subsequent days, at the forks and on both branches of the Saskatcke- 

 wan. The tradition was authentic in Dr. (afterwards Sir John) 

 Richardson's time. "Writing on the Saskatchewan eighty-eight years 

 ago he places the Bascabs, " called by the Crees the Assinipoytuk, or 

 Stone Indians, west of the Crees, between them and the Blackfeet." 



