1908.] 



KOUTES TRAVERSED MACKENZIE. 



107 



length of the more contracted part of the canyon is 5 miles and for 2 

 miles more the channel is but slightly expanded. Then it widens out 

 and incloses the Manitou Islands. 



Fort Good Hope (PL XIII, fig. 1) is built on the right bank of the 

 Mackenzie, about 2 miles beloAv the Ramparts, only a few miles south 

 of the Arctic Circle. It consists of the establishments of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company and one or two private traders, and that of the Koman 

 Catholic mission, whose church, a highly ornamente'd structure, is the 



Fig. 9. — Riyiit bank of Mackenzie, near lu\vi>r vml m uaiiiparls;, near laiiUule G6°. 



largest in the region north of Fort Resolution. The post has occupied 

 its present site since 1837." A low^ limestone ridge, the continuation 



^ Fort Good Hope probably existed in effect as a Northwest post early in the 

 nineteenth centnry, but acconn's differ as to its precise location, both Sans Sanlt 

 Rapid and the foot of the Ramparts being given as the earliest site. A tem- 

 porary post Avas built in the summer of 1805 at ' Bluefish River,' about GO miles 

 below the mouth of Bear Lake River. (Masson, Les Bourgeois, 11, p. 104. 1M)0.) 

 It was established as a Hudson's Bay post on the west bank of the Mackenzie, 

 about 120 miles below the Ramparts, about 1823, after the union of the rival 

 companies, being spoken of by Franklin in 1825 as " but recently established." 

 It was removed about 1835 to Manitou Island, below the Ramparts, where its 

 site may still be seen on the eastern shore of the island nearly opposite the pres- 

 ent establishment. It was destroyed in June, 1836, by a flood caused by an ice 

 jam in the Ramparts and was rebuilt on its present site in 1837. 



