114 THKOUGH THE ]V[ACKENZIE BASIN 



partners, after a voyage by water and land of over 5,500 

 miles. Franklin spent part of the winter at Cumberland 

 post, which had been founded to counteract the rivalry of 

 Montreal. " Before that time," he says, " the natives took 

 their furs to Hudson's Bay, or sold to the French Canadian 

 traders, who," he adds, " visited this part of the country as 

 early as 1697." If so, the credit for the discovery of the 

 Saskatchewan has been wrongly given to the Chevalier, as 

 he was called, a son of Varenne, Sieur de la Varendrye. 



Franklin left Cumberland in January, 1820, by dog train 

 for Chipewyan, via Fort Carlton and Green Lake. Fort 

 Carlton was the great food supply post, then and long after- 

 wards, of the Hudson's Bay Company, buffalo and wapiti 

 being very abundant. The North-West Company's fort, 

 called La Montee, was three miles beyond Carlton, and 

 harbored seventy French Canadians and sixty women and 

 children, who consumed seven hundred pounds of meat 

 daily, the ration being eight pounds. This post was at that 

 time in charge of Mr. Hallett, a forebear, if I mistake not, 

 of my old friend, William Hallett, leader of the English 

 Plain Hunt, and a distinguished loyalist in the rebellion of 

 1869. 



Franklin and Back left Fort Carlton on the 8th Feb- 

 ruary, and reached Green Lake on the I7th. The North- 

 West Company's post at the lake was managed by Dugald 

 Cameron, and that of the Hudson's Bay Company by a 

 Mr. MacFarlane, and, having been equipped at both posts 

 with carioles, sledges and provisions, they left " under a 

 fusillade from the half-breed women." From the end of the 

 lake they followed for a short distance a small river, then 

 " crossed the woods to Beaver River, and proceeding along 

 it, passed the mouths of two rivers, the latter of which, 

 they were told, was a channel by which the Indians go to 

 Lesser Slave Lake." On the 11th of March they reached 

 Methy Lake — so called from an unwholesome fish of the bur- 

 bot species found there, only the liver of which is fit to eat — 



