Moreover, this has been done already, not only in
their own published journals and books, but in the admirable works of
Elliot Coues, Dr. George Bryce, Dr. S.J. Dawson, Alexander Ross, and
others. I must confine myself here to a description of the adventures
of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, with a glance at incidents recorded by
Simon Fraser and by Alexander Henry the Younger.
Mackenzie, having been appointed at the age of twenty-two a partner in
the New North-west Company, proceeded to Grand Portage in 1785, and
by the year 1788 (after founding Fort Chipewayan on Lake Athabaska)
conceived the idea of following the mysterious Slave River to its
ultimate outlet into the Arctic or the Pacific Ocean. He left Fort
Chipewayan on June 3, 1789, accompanied by four French-Canadian
_voyageurs_, two French-Canadian women (wives of two _voyageurs_), a
young German named John Steinbruck, and an Amerindian guide known as
"English Chief". This last was a follower and pupil of the Matonabi
who had guided Hearne to the Coppermine River and the eastern end of
the Great Slave Lake. The party of eight whites packed themselves and
their goods into one birch-bark canoe. English Chief and his two
wives, together with an additional Amerindian guide and a hunter,
travelled in a second and smaller canoe. The expedition, moreover, was
accompanied as far as Slave River by LE ROUX, a celebrated
French-Canadian exploring trader who worked for the X.
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