3 
1731 — The threat of French domination of the Bay induced 
the Hudson's Bay Company to commission the Governor of 
Churchill to build a new stone Fort Prince of Wales on Eskimo 
Point at the river mouth commanding the harbour entrance, which 
is only about a quarter of a mile wide at this point. A battery of 
guns on Cape Merry, on the opposite shore, was set up to face 
the fort. The fort, designed by British military engineers, was 
completed in 1771, during the governorship of Samuel Hearne. Its 
dimensions were 310 feet east and west by 317 feet north and 
south. Masonry walls were nearly 17 feet high, and angular 
bastions guarded each corner. The ramparts, originally 25 feet 
thick, were later brought up to 42 feet in thickness. 
1743—51 — Publication of the earliest important work 
referring to the natural history of the Hudson Bay region, A 
Natural History of Uncommon Birds and of some other Rare and 
Undescribed Animals, by George Edwards. 
1770 — Samuel Hearne set out from Fort Prince of Wales on 
the famous overland journey during which he discovered Copper- 
mine River and Great Slave Lake. In 1768, "Northern Indians" 
(Chipewyans) had brought pieces of copper to the Churchill post 
and said they got it on the banks of a "Far Away Metal River" 
to the northwest flowing into a northern ocean. After almost un- 
believable hardship and misfortune, Hearne reached the mouth 
of the Coppermine in 1771 and returned to Churchill the follow- 
ing year after an absence of almost eighteen months. Unaware 
that England and France were at war, Hearne, in 1782, with a 
garrison of but thirty-nine men, was obliged to surrender Fort 
Prince of Wales to Admiral de la Perouse and a force of four 
hundred French soldiers. When peace was signed the following 
year, Hearne was reinstated as governor at Churchill. 
1774 — Establishment of Cumberland House in present-day 
Saskatchewan by Hearne, marking the beginning of the policy of 
penetration into the interior by the Hudson's Bay Company in 
answer to the opposition of rival fur traders. 
1794 — David Thompson surveyed a new route between 
Cumberland House and York Factory via Goose, Reed, and 
Burntwood lakes to the Nelson. 
68754— 3*/j 
