1186 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Napie Falls on Taltson River. 
the north shore of Athabaska Lake in a bay 
a few miles west of the mouth of Chariot River. 
From there a series of five short portages, with 
a total length of 3 miles, leads from one lake to 
another, across the height of land, to Tazin 
Lake. From Tazin Lake, the route is down 
Tazin River, through Thainka, Hill Island and 
a number of other lakes, to the Taltson River 
and thence down that stream to Great Slave 
Lake. 
From the north side of Tazin Lake a canoe 
route through a series of lakes and connecting 
rivers and portages leads to the above-mentioned 
rendezvous on the Barren lands and to the 
headwaters of the Thelon River. Another 
canoe route to the same point, from Fond du 
Lac, on Lake Athabaska, leaves that lake by 
way of Grease River, following a series of small 
lakes and streams northward. These routes are 
still unexplored. 
The Indians known as Caribou Eaters when 
traveling eastward from Smith Landing on Slave 
River to the Barren lands usually follow one 
of three canoe routes. The southern of these 
routes touches our route by way of Tazin and 
Taltson Rivers at Hill Island Lake and leaves 
that lake again on the east side by way of Thoa 
River. The middle route reaches Tazin River 
by Klo Creek, and after following the course 
of Tazin River for a few miles up-stream leaves 
it by a portage at the lower end of Soulier 
Lake. From there it strikes northward to 
Thekulthili River into the large lake of that 
name and 1 ~ence to the Taltson River. The 
northern ro /' reaches Taltson River 3 miles 
below the mouth of Tazin River and thence 
follows the course of Taltson River up to its 
head. These routes also are still unexplored. 
The Resolution Indians in traveling through 
this region follow the Taltson River from its 
mouth up to Deskenatlata Lake; from there they 
turn off the main river up one or the other of 
two streams which enter the east side of that 
lake. An alternative route carries them farther 
up Taltson River through Tsu Lake, 2 miles 
beyond which they leave the main river on the 
northeast side by way of Konth River. All of 
these routes rejoin the Taltson River above the 
mouth of Tazin River and follow that stream 
to its head. 
On account of the great number of lakes and 
watercourses and the broken, rocky character 
of the region, summer travel through it other 
than by canoe is impossible. Consequently, there 
are no summer land trails except short portage 
trails connecting the lakes or navigable portions 
of the rivers with each other. 
The territory through which the Tazin and 
Taltson Rivers flow and which forms the sub¬ 
ject of this report is probably the most accessible 
of all the larger blocks that remain unexplored 
in northern Canada. It has, however, remained 
unexplored and unvisited except by Samuel 
Hearne in the early part of the year 1772 and 
by a few of the voyageurs of the Hudson’s Bay 
Company and other fur traders who enter the 
region during the winter months on occasional 
visits to the Indian camps for meat or furs. 
That this block has remained unexplored so 
long might seem extraordinary on observing 
that the western edge of the block abuts 
against a part of the main highway of the 
whole Mackenzie basin, namely the Slave River, 
a highway which has been traveled constantly 
winter and summer for about 120 years. It is, 
however, not so strange when we realize that 
the block of territory itself has no known na¬ 
tural resources of sufficient importance to attract 
people to the region, nor does it lie on any 
easy or direct route to any particular place of 
importance beyond it. 
For these reasons, as well as for the reason 
that it is not an easy country to travel through 
either in winter or summer, it has remained 
virtually unexplored and our general knowl¬ 
edge of it up to the summer of 1914 has been 
limited to the information contained in Samuel 
Hearne’s book entitled “A Journey from Prince 
of Wales For: in Hudson’s Bay to the North¬ 
ern Ocean,” published in 1795. Besides this the 
writer had some additional information obtained 
on the occasions of former visits to Athabaska 
arid Great Slave Lakes, in the course of con¬ 
versation with Indians who inhabit the region. 
Heafne’s book, a new edition of which has 
lately been published by the Champlain Society 
under the editorship of Mr. J. B. Tyrrell, con¬ 
tains the account of his journey from old Fort 
Prince of Wales, now Churchill, on Hudson 
Bay, to the Coppermine River and return, in 
the years 1769 to 1772. The object of Hearne’s 
expedition was to explore the interior of north¬ 
ern Canada west of Hudson Bay and to de¬ 
termine the source from which the natives of 
that region obtained their supplies of native 
copper. For reasons over which he had no 
control Hearne’s two first attempts failed, but 
in his third effort he succeeded after an ex¬ 
ceedingly arduous journey in reaching the mouth 
of the Coppermine River in July, 1771. 
Returning southward from the Coppermine 
River late in the year 1771, Hearne reached the 
north shore of Great Slave Lake, then known 
as Athapuscow, on December 24. He crossed 
the lake, probably by the same route used to-day 
by the Indians, namely through the Simpson 
Islands and Les lies de Large east of the en¬ 
trance to the north arm of the lake. It is prob¬ 
able that he reached the south shore somewhere 
in the neighborhood of the mouth of Taltson 
River, or to the west of it, for if he had been 
farther to the east he would not have described 
this shore as ‘‘a fine level country in which 
there was not a hill to be seen or a stone to 
be found.” The shore east of the Taltson River 
is rough and very rocky, while that to the west 
forms part of the ancient delta of Slave River 
and is consequently level and well wooded. 
Hearne’s course southward from Great Slave 
Lake is very hard to follow from his descrip¬ 
tion and map, and there are many evident in¬ 
accuracies both in his statements regarding the 
course he followed and in his description of 
the natural features. 
Until recently there was no other geographi¬ 
cal information available concerning this region 
and the general maps of Canada nearly all 
either copied Hearne’s map or left the region 
blank. The most recent maps of Canada show 
some changes and additions, especially in the 
region between Hill Island Lake and Fort Smith, 
which was made by H. V. Radford, the ex¬ 
plorer, recently killed by Eskimo near Bathurst 
Inlet. Radford spent the winter of 1909-10 at 
Smith Landing, and submitted a map of the 
country to the east of that point to the Chief 
Geographer of Canada, which was incorporated 
in the map of Canada; but whether he visited 
the region in person or merely obtained his 
information of the geography from Indians, it 
has been impossible to ascertain. 
Although a route across this region by way 
of the Tazin and Taltson Rivers has been 
known for many years we were the first party 
A Typical View of the Country Drained by the Tazin and Taltson Rivers. 
