The
whales dived below, fortunately; for one blow of a finback or sulphur
bottom would have played skittles with the canoes. Coming back from
the whale hunt, triumphant as if they had caught a dozen finbacks, the
men erected a post, engraving on it the date, July 14, 1789, and the
names of all present.
It had taken six weeks to reach the Arctic. It took eight to return to
Chipewyan, for the course was against stream, in many places tracking
the canoes by a tow-line. The beaver meadows along the shore impeded
the march. Many a time the quaking moss gave way, and the men sank to
mid-waist in water. While skirting close ashore, Mackenzie discovered
the banks of the river to be on fire. The fire was a natural tar bed,
which the Indians said had been burning for centuries and which burns
to-day as when Mackenzie found it. On September 12, with a high sail
up and a driving wind, the canoes cut across Lake Athabasca and reached
the beach of Chipewyan at three in the afternoon, after one hundred and
two days' absence. Mackenzie had not found the Northwest Passage. He
had proved there was no Northwest Passage, and discovered the
Mississippi of the north--Mackenzie River.
[Illustration: Running a Rapid on Mackenzie River.]
Mackenzie spent the long winter at Fort Chipewyan; but just as soon as
the rivers cleared of ice, he took passage in the east-bound canoes and
hurried down to the Grand Portage or Fort William on Lake Superior, the
headquarters of the Northwest Company, where he reported his discovery
of Mackenzie River.
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