146 hearne's travels. [1771. 



Hearne had been commissioned, by the directors of the company, to 

 explore those regions, in order to determine, if possible, the question 

 as to the existence of a northern passage between Hudson's Bay and 

 the Pacific ; and also, more especially, to find a rich mine of copper, 

 which was believed, from the accounts of the Indians, to lie on the 

 banks of a river or strait, called, in' their language, " the Far-off 

 Metal River." From the general tenor of the instructions given 

 to Hearne, it is evident that the directors were convinced of the 

 non-existence of such a passage, and that they were merely anxious 

 to have the fact demonstrated, in order to clear themselves from the 

 imputation often cast upon them, of endeavoring to obstruct the 

 progress of discovery in the regions under their control. 



Agreeably to these instructions, Hearne made, between 1769 and 

 1772, three journeys from Fort Prince of Wales, the company's 

 chief establishment on the western shore of Hudson's Bay, near 

 the 60th degree of latitude, through the regions west and north- 

 west of that place, which he examined, in various directions, to the 

 distance of about a thousand miles. In his last journey, he dis- 

 covered the Great Slave Lake, and other similar collections of fresh 

 water, from which issued streams flowing northward and westward ; 

 and he traced one of these streams, which proved to be the Far-off 

 Metal River, since called the Copper Mine River, to its termination 

 in a sea, where the tides were observed, and the relics of whales 

 were strowed in abundance on the shores. The mouth of this river 

 was calculated rudely by Hearne to be situated near the 72d degree 

 of latitude, and about 20 degrees of longitude, west of the most 

 western known part of Hudson's Bay; and he learned from the 

 Indians that the continent extended much farther west, and that 

 there were high mountains in that direction. The sea into which 

 the Copper Mine River emptied was supposed by the traveller to be 

 "a sort of inland sea, or extensive bay, somewhat like that of 

 Hudson ; " and he assured himself, by his own observations, that 

 the territory traversed by him, between this sea and Hudson's Bay, 

 was not crossed by any channel connecting the two waters : whence 

 it followed, that no vessel could sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific 

 north of America, without proceeding beyond the mouth of the 

 Copper Mine River. Hearne also conceived that he had proved 

 the entire impossibility of the existence of any direct communication 

 between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific ; in which he, undoubtedly, 

 assumed too much, as the northern termination of that bay had not 

 then, nor has it to this day, been discovered. 



