At certain seasons Indian tepees dot the
surrounding plains; and bronze-faced savages, clad in the ill-fitting
garments of white people, shamble about the stores, or sit haunched
round the shady sides of the log houses, smoking long-stemmed pipes.
These are the Chipewyans come in from their hunting-grounds; but for
the most part the fort seems chiefly populated by regiments of husky
dogs, shaggy-coated, with the sharp nose of the fox, which spend the
long winters in harness coasting the white wilderness, and pass the
summers basking lazily all day long except when the bell rings for fish
time, when half a hundred huskies scramble wildly for the first meat
thrown.
A century ago Chipewyan was much the same as to-day, except that it lay
on the south side of the lake. Mails came only once in two years
instead of monthly, and rival traders were engaged in the merry game of
slitting each other's throats. All together, it wasn't exactly the
place for ambition to dream; but ambition was there in the person of
Alexander Mackenzie, the young fur trader, dreaming what he hardly
dared hope. Business men fight shy of dreamers; so Mackenzie told his
dreams to no one but his cousin Roderick, whom he pledged to secrecy.
For fifty years the British government had offered a reward of 20,000
pounds to any one who should discover a Northwest Passage between the
Atlantic and the Pacific. The hope of such a passageway had led many
navigators on bootless voyages; and here was Mackenzie with the same
bee in his bonnet.
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