A world of
white skin tepees sprang up like mushrooms round the fur post. By June
the traders had collected the furs, sorted and shipped them in
flotillas of keel boat, barge, and canoe, east to Lake Superior and
Montreal. On the evening of June 2, 1789, Alexander Mackenzie, chief
trader, had finished the year's trade and sent the furs to the Eastern
warehouses of the Northwest Company, on Lake Superior, at Fort William,
not far from where Radisson had first explored, and La Verendrye
followed. Indians lingered round the fort of the Northern lake engaged
in mad _boissons_, or drinking matches, that used up a winter's
earnings in the spree of a single week. Along the shore lay upturned
canoes, keels red against the blue of the lake, and everywhere in the
dark burned the red fires of the boatmen melting resin to gum the seams
of the canoes; for the canoes were to be launched on a long voyage the
next day. Mackenzie was going to float down with the current of the
Athabasca or Grand River, and find out where that great river emptied
in the North.
The crew must have spent the night in a last wild spree; for it was
nine in the morning before all hands were ready to embark. In
Mackenzie's large birch canoe went four Canadian _voyageurs_, their
Indian wives, and a German. In other canoes were the Indian hunters
and interpreters, led by "English Chief," who had often been to Hudson
Bay. Few provisions were taken. The men were to hunt, the women to
cook and keep the _voyageurs_ supplied with moccasins, which wore out
at the rate of one pair a day for each man.
Pages:
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263