THE MACKENZIE; ITS FLORA, FAUNA, AND PEOPLE. 



A. J. STONE. 



Alexander MacKenzie, afterward knight- 

 ed, was the first white explorer of the great 

 river which now bears his name. That was 

 in 1789. No records exist of any other 

 white man's having followed him until 1836, 

 when Dease and Simpson repeated the voy- 

 age to the coast, which they explored both 

 East and West of the mouth of the river. 

 Not, however, until recently was any act- 

 ual survey made of the stream, and up to 

 '99 the Lizard was the only tributary of the 

 great river which had been accurately 

 mapped. The work of Count de Sainville 



a great extent by the Mackenzie, all unsur- 

 veyed, much of it unexplored. Various 

 parties have penetrated the country East 

 of the Mackenzie basin, by way of Great 

 Bear lake, and a chain of small lakes in the 

 same system, to the headwaters of the Cop- 

 permine river, thence following that river 

 to the Arctic coast; but as their object was 

 only to reach that point they have left no 

 data for the guidance of others. Thou- 

 sands of square miles of the regions de- 

 scribed are yet innocent of the footsteps of 

 the white man. Some of the map makers 



SCfcNE ON THE LOWER MACKENZIE DELTA. 



AMATEUR PHOTO BY A. J. STONE. 



on Peel's river is only partly reliable. The 

 chart prepared by Emile Petitot, the priest, 

 in which he pretended to locate the lakes 

 and streams Northward from and near to 

 Great Bear lake, is now known to be inac- 

 curate. 



West of the Mackenzie is a wide region 

 embracing the Rocky mountains, drained 

 Eastwardly by the N. and S. Nahannas, the 

 Gravel, Carcajou, Beaver, Red, Peel and 

 many smaller streams, and Westwardly by 

 ■sister streams into the Pacific. All these 

 are unexplored. East of the Mackenzie 

 lies all that vast region North of Great 

 Slave lake and Hudson's bay, drained to 



have been so honest as to mark small sec- 

 tions of it unexplored ; but the maps made 

 have been largely based on information ob- 

 tained from native hunters, and are in con- 

 sequence of no value. The U. S. Coast and 

 Geodetic Survey has practically completed 

 a chart of the Alaskan and Pacific coasts, 

 with the Yukon river, giving coast sound- 

 ings ; but the smaller important rivers have 

 not been mapped. 



The Mackenzie river country and the re- 

 gion East of it are commonly called posses- 

 sions of Canada, which country doubtless 

 claims them ; but the fact is they belong to 

 the Hudson's Bay Company. They own the 



