A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean Part 1

A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean.

by Samuel Hearne.

PREFACE

BY SIR EDMUND WALKER _President of the Champlain Society_

When the Champlain Society was first organised in 1905 one of the works on its list of proposed publications was the _Journal_ of Samuel Hearne.

This book, written with great literary charm, is the first account preserved to us of an attempt to explore the interior of far-northern Canada from a base on Hudson Bay. The natives had brought to Fort Prince of Wales glowing reports of a vast store of copper at the mouth of a river which flowed into the Arctic Ocean. An attempt to find it was inevitable. Twice Hearne failed, but his third effort succeeded and, after a laborious journey, he reached the mouth of the Coppermine River.

Soon after he was promoted to command at Fort Prince of Wales, now Churchill, on Hudson Bay. France had joined Britain's revolted colonies in their war on the mother land, and one day, in 1782, a French squadron, under the well-known seaman, La Perouse, dropped anchor before Fort Prince of Wales. Hearne, mightier with the pen than with the sword, surrendered meekly enough in spite of his ma.s.sive walls from thirty to forty feet thick. Thus ingloriously he dies out of history.

Hearne's _Journal_, published after his early death, has become a rather rare book. Besides the narrative of what he did, it contains copious notes on the natural history of the region which he was the first white man to make known. A new edition has long been needed. Yet to secure competent editing was a difficult task, since few knew the remote country which Hearne explored. It may be regarded as fortunate that the new edition has been delayed, for only now are we able to present Hearne's story with the annotations necessary to give it the last possible elucidation. The needed knowledge is supplied by Mr. J. B.

Tyrrell and Mr. E. A. Preble, two writers pre-eminently suited for their task by journeys in the regions described by Hearne, on parts of which so few white men have set eyes.

Mr. J. B. Tyrrell began his work of exploring in North Western Canada in 1883, and during the ensuing fifteen years he made many important additions to our knowledge of the geology and geography of what is still the least known part of Canada. In 1893, accompanied by his brother, Mr.

J. W. Tyrrell, as his a.s.sistant, he traversed the so-called Barren Grounds from Lake Athabasca eastward to Chesterfield Inlet, and from there his party paddled in canoes down the west sh.o.r.e of Hudson Bay to Fort Churchill. Of the 3200 miles thus traversed, 1650 were previously unsurveyed and unmapped. From Fort Churchill Mr. Tyrrell walked eight or nine hundred miles on snowshoes to the southern end of Lake Winnipeg. In 1894 he again crossed the Barren Grounds, this time travelling from the north end of Reindeer Lake to a point on Hudson Bay, about 200 miles south-west of Chesterfield Inlet. Thence he went to Churchill as before in canoes along the open coast. From Churchill Mr. Tyrrell again, but by another route, walked on showshoes to the southern end of Lake Winnipeg.

On this journey he travelled about 2900 miles, of which 1750 were by canoe and 750 on snowshoes. Almost the whole journey was through previously unexplored country. For the geographical work done in these two years he was awarded the Back Premium by the Royal Geographical Society of London.

In response to an enquiry whether any other white man has visited the regions described by Hearne, Mr. Tyrrell writes:--

"I happen to be the only one since Hearne who has conducted explorations in the country lying between Fort Churchill and the eastern end of Great Slave Lake and south of lat.i.tude 63 N.

Except Hearne, I and those who accompanied and a.s.sisted me are the only white men who have crossed that great stretch of country, north of a line between the mouth of the Churchill River and Lake Athabasca and a line between the east end of Great Slave Lake and Chesterfield Inlet. Absolutely the only information that I had about the region when I visited it, other than what I had secured in conversation with Indians, was contained in Hearne's book. My last journey was made sixteen years ago, and no white man has since travelled across that country. With the building of the railroad to Fort Churchill, it will doubtless soon be visited. Since I made a survey of Chesterfield Inlet and its vicinity, my brother, Mr. J. W.

Tyrrell, has crossed from the east end of Great Slave Lake by the Hanbury River to Chesterfield Inlet, making a survey as he went, and the Royal North West Mounted Police have sent parties from the Mackenzie River to Hudson Bay along this route, using my brother's maps as their guide. It is hardly necessary to say that a magnificent field for exploration is still left in that far northern country."

So much as to Mr. Tyrrell's work. For the notes explaining Hearne's many observations on natural history we are indebted to Mr. E. A. Preble of Was.h.i.+ngton. Mr. Preble spent a summer on the west sh.o.r.e of Hudson Bay north of Fort Churchill. He also spent the summers of 1901 and 1903, the winter of 1903-4, and the summers of 1904 and 1907 on the Athabasca and Mackenzie Rivers and on the Barren Grounds north of Great Slave Lake.

This most important study of the fauna of Northern Canada was undertaken by Mr. Preble on behalf of the Biological Survey of the United States Department of Agriculture. The various reports and other publications arising from the journeys of Mr. Tyrrell and the investigations of Mr.

Preble are mentioned in a bibliographical note at the end of this volume.

This is the first work relating to the West to be published by the Champlain Society. It has already begun an extensive list of the works of early writers on Eastern Canada. The year 1911 will, it is hoped, see the completion of the three volumes of Lescarbot's _History of New France_, now for the first time entirely translated into English. In this as in all other publications of the Society the original text is given with the translation. Nicolas Denys was the first writer to describe in detail the coasts of eastern Canada, and the Society has republished his great book, adequately translated and with copious notes. It has done the same with Le Clercq's account of Gaspe and its interesting natives. The writings of Champlain, entirely translated into English for the first time, will soon appear in six volumes. The regions lying west of Lake Superior have a history as interesting, but the material is scattered. Hearne's _Journal_ makes a good beginning. In preparation are the _Journals_ of La Verendrye, the first white man to come in sight of the Rocky Mountains by an overland route. His writings will now for the first time be translated into English. The Society is sparing no pains to provide volumes bearing on the Hudson's Bay Company.

Much further work on examining and cla.s.sifying the papers of the Company will, however, be necessary before anything final can be done. Meanwhile members will enjoy the pleasant narrative of Hearne edited by the competent observers whose services the Society has had the good fortune to secure.

TORONTO, _January 1911_.

INTRODUCTION

Samuel Hearne, the author of the book here republished, is one of the most interesting characters to be met with in the annals of exploration in North America. When a young man, only twenty-four years old, he was sent on foot to explore the interior of a great continent. Though he knew nothing of mines or minerals, he, like many a man similarly equipped since his day, was to report on a great mining property.

Naturally his report on the "mine" of copper is of little value, but his account of Northern Canada and of the life of the natives who inhabited it is the first published detailed description of any portion of the interior of Western Canada. Very few men of his age accomplished so much, and fewer still have published such admirable narratives of their enterprises.

All that we know of Hearne's early life is contained in an obituary notice which appeared in the _European Magazine and London Review_ for June 1797, ent.i.tled "Some Account of the late Mr. Samuel Hearne, Author of 'A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort, in Hudson's Bay, to the Northern Ocean, undertaken by order of the Hudson's Bay Company for the discovery of Copper Mines, a North-West Pa.s.sage, &c., in the years 1769, 1770, 1771, and 1772.'"

"Mr. Samuel Hearne was born in the year 1745. He was the son of Mr. Hearne, Secretary to the Waterworks, London Bridge, a very sensible man, and of a respectable family in Somersets.h.i.+re; he died of fever in his 40th year, and left Mrs. Hearne with this son, then but three years of age, and a daughter two years older. Mrs. Hearne, finding her income too small to admit her living in town as she had been accustomed to, retired to Bimmester, in Dorsets.h.i.+re (her native place), where she lived as a gentlewoman, and was much respected. It was her wish to give her children as good an education as the place afforded, and accordingly [she] sent her son to school at a very early period, but his dislike to reading and writing was so great that he made very little progress in either. His masters, indeed, spared neither threats nor persuasion to induce him to learn, but their arguments were thrown away on one who seemed predetermined never to become a learned man; he had, however, a very quick apprehension, and, in his childish sports, showed unusual activity and ingenuity; he was particularly fond of drawing, and though he never had the least instruction in the art, copied with great delicacy and correctness even from nature. Mrs.

Hearne's friends, finding her son had no taste for study, advised her fixing on some business, and proposed such as they judged most suitable for him; but he declared himself utterly averse to trade, and begged he might be sent to sea. His mother very reluctantly complied with his request, took him to Portsmouth, and remained with him till he sailed. His captain (now Lord Hood) promised to take care of him, and he kept his word; for he gave him every indulgence his youth required. He was then but eleven years of age. They had a warm engagement soon after he entered, and took several prizes. The captain told him he should have his share, but he begged, in a very affectionate manner, it should be given to his mother, and she should know best what to do with it. He was a mids.h.i.+pman several years under the same commander; but, either on the conclusion of the war, or having no hopes of preferment, he left the navy, and entered into the service of the Hudson's Bay Company as mate of one of their sloops. He was, however, soon distinguished from his a.s.sociates by his ingenuity, industry, and a wish to undertake some hazardous enterprise by which mankind might be benefited. This was represented to the Company, and they immediately applied to him as a proper person to be sent on an expedition they had long had in view, viz. to find out the North-West Pa.s.sage. He gladly accepted the proposal, and how far he succeeded is shown to the public in his Journal. On his return he was advanced to a more lucrative post at Prince of Wales Fort, on Hudson Bay, and in a few years was made Commander-in-Chief, in which position he remained till 1782, when the French unexpectedly landed at Prince of Wales Fort, took possession of it, and after having given the governor leave to secure his own property, seized the stock of furs, &c. &c., and blew up the fort. At the Company's request Mr. H. went out the year following, saw it rebuilt,[1] and the new Governor settled in his habitation (which they took care to fortify a little better than formerly), and returned to England in 1787.

He had saved a few thousands, the fruits of many years'

industry, and might, had he been blessed with prudence, have enjoyed many years of ease and plenty; but he had lived so long where money was of no use that he seemed insensible of its value here, and lent it with little or no security to those he was scarcely acquainted with by name. Sincere and undesigning himself, he was by no means a match for the duplicity of others.

His disposition, as may be judged by his writing, was naturally humane; what he wanted in learning and polite accomplishments he made up in native simplicity and innate goodness; and he was so strictly scrupulous with regard to the property of others that he was heard to say a few days before his death, 'He could lay his hand on his heart and say he had never wronged any man of sixpence.'

"Such are the outlines of Mr. Hearne's character, who, if he had some failings, had many virtues to counterbalance them, of which charity was not the least. He died of the dropsy, November 1792, aged 47."

He seems to have entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company and to have been sent to Fort Prince of Wales, the great stone fortification on the low bare rocky point at the mouth of the Churchill River on Hudson Bay, when he was about twenty years old. For several years he was engaged in the fur trade with the Eskimos, up and down the coast of Hudson Bay, north of Churchill River. One little glimpse is caught of him, on July 1, 1767, for on that day he chiselled his name on the smooth hard rock of Sloops Cove, on the west side of Churchill harbour.

When I visited the place, in 1894, the name was as fresh and plain as if his hammer and chisel had just been laid aside.

Being possessed of much more than the average amount of ability and enthusiasm, he was chosen by Moses Norton, the energetic Governor of Fort Prince of Wales, to go out with the Indians into the vast, and as far as that was then known, limitless, territory west of Hudson Bay, in order to find and prospect the place where the native copper had been found which the Indians often brought with them to the fort.

During the year preceding his departure on his first expedition, he had had an excellent opportunity to perfect himself in a knowledge of astronomical and geodetic work, for in the summer of 1768 the annual s.h.i.+p had brought William Wales, F.R.S., and Joseph Dymond from London, commissioned by the Royal Society to remain at Fort Prince of Wales throughout the ensuing year in order to observe the transit of Venus over the sun on the 3rd of June 1769.[2] They remained at the fort until the s.h.i.+p left again for London in August of the following year (1769).

Mr. Wales was one of the foremost astronomers, mathematicians, and litterateurs of his age. Shortly after his return to England he was appointed to accompany Captain Cook on his voyage around the world in the _Resolution_ in 1772-74, and again on his last voyage in 1776-79.

His presence for more than a year among the little band of white men a.s.sembled at this remote fur-trading post on Hudson Bay must have had a helpful influence in preparing Hearne for his great explorations overland to the Arctic Ocean. This book is an account of three journeys which he undertook in rapid succession into the country west of Hudson Bay and north-west of Fort Prince of Wales in search of the fabled bed of copper ore, from which pure copper could be loaded directly into s.h.i.+ps at trifling expense. In the first and second journeys he was obliged to turn back before reaching his destination, but in the third journey all difficulties were finally overcome, and he was taken to and shown the "mine" of copper.

It has been my good fortune to travel over parts of the same country through which Hearne had journeyed one hundred and twenty-three years before me, and into which no white man had ventured during the intervening time. The conditions which I found were just such as he describes, except that the inhabitants had changed. The Chipewyan Indians, whom he found occupying advantageous positions everywhere as far as the north end of Dubawnt Lake, had disappeared, and in their places the country had been occupied by scattered bands and families of Eskimos, who had almost forgotten the ocean sh.o.r.es of the north, from which they had come. They were depending entirely, for food and clothing, on the caribou, which they killed on the banks of the inland streams and lakes. Traces of old Indian encampments were seen in a few of the scattered groves that are growing along the banks of Dubawnt and Kazan Rivers, but these camps had evidently not been occupied for many years.[3]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. J. B. Tyrrell, Oakley, 1894._ S. HEARNE'S NAME ON THE SMOOTH GLACIATED ROCK AT SLOOP'S COVE, NEAR CHURCHILL]

Whether Hearne remained at Fort Prince of Wales after his return is not certain, but it is possible that he may have gone to some of the other factories near the southern sh.o.r.e of Hudson Bay, and the plans of Albany, Moos, and Slude (East Main) Rivers, at the end of this book, the first two of which are dated 1774, may have been made by him at this time. In the latter year, however, he was at York Factory, and from there, in May or June, he was sent inland to the Saskatchewan River, where he established c.u.mberland House on Pine Island Lake, close to a trading-post which had been previously built by Joseph Frobisher, an enterprising merchant from Montreal. The following year he was recalled to Hudson Bay to take charge of his old home, Fort Prince of Wales, in the place of Governor Norton, who had died, and there he remained quietly trading with the Indians till August 1782, when the fort was taken and burnt by the French under Admiral La Perouse.

As soon as the French with three vessels of war appeared before the fort and demanded its capitulation, Hearne surrendered at discretion, without firing a shot. He was at once taken on board the French s.h.i.+ps, and allowed to retain all his private papers and effects, while the furs and other property of the Hudson's Bay Company were either confiscated or burnt. After pillaging and destroying the fort, La Perouse sailed southward to York Factory, which also surrendered to him as soon as he appeared before it, and then, with all his prisoners on board, including the Governors of Fort Prince of Wales, York, and Severn, he sailed for France.

Hearne does not appear to have been treated by La Perouse as an enemy who had been taken prisoner at the capture of a hostile fort, but rather as a literary man whom he was anxious to encourage and patronise. While a prisoner on board the French s.h.i.+ps he was treated with every consideration, and his generous captor, who was one of the foremost geographers of his time, read his ma.n.u.script journal with evident interest, and returned it to him on the express condition that he would print and publish it immediately on his arrival in England.

On the signing of peace with the French in the following year, Hearne was sent back by the Hudson's Bay Company to Churchill. He made no attempt to live again in the fort, which was very unfavourably situated for obtaining both wood and water, but took up his residence on the site of the original trading-post of the Hudson's Bay Company, five miles south of Fort Prince of Wales, where the buildings of the Company stand at the present day.

In 1784, while Hearne was at Churchill, there arrived from England a boy, fourteen years old, named David Thompson, who afterwards became the great geographer of North-Western America. Thompson remained at Churchill for only one year, during which time he copied some of Hearne's Journal, and though he did not carry away any very friendly feelings towards his superior officer, the knowledge which he gained of the interior country, and of the possibilities of travel through it, must have had a stimulating effect on him in after life. His note-books, which are now in possession of the Government of the Province of Ontario, are filled with detailed information about North-Western America, so much of which he subsequently explored. In 1787 Hearne left Churchill and returned to England, and from that date until his death, in 1792, he probably spent most of his time in revising and preparing his Journal for publication.

Before discussing Hearne's character and the extent and value of his work, it will be interesting to recount briefly the circ.u.mstances which led up to the expedition to the Coppermine River. In the seventeenth century the search for gold and silver monopolised the thoughts of many of the adventurers in the Southern Seas, but those adventurers who turned their attention to the more northern countries recognised that there were other sources of wealth beside the precious metals. They saw that the furs of many of the wild animals which roamed through the forests might easily be obtained from the natives in exchange for articles of European manufacture of but trifling value, and that these furs might be sold in the markets of Europe and Asia at an enormous profit. In this way what is known as the fur trade had its beginning on the American continent.

The Dutch, French, and English strove for shares in this lucrative trade, and many of the wars and ma.s.sacres of that time had their origin in the strenuous endeavours of one or other of these nations to outwit its rivals. The Dutch had headquarters on the Hudson River, in what is now the State of New York, the French on the St. Lawrence River, in the present Provinces of Quebec and Ontario, while the English established themselves on the sh.o.r.es of Hudson Bay, founding a fur-trading company, which was destined to survive till the present time, and to be one of the greatest commercial corporations that the world has ever known.

This Company was called "The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson's Bay," or in brief, "The Hudson's Bay Company." At first it occupied a few small buildings, called factories or forts, situated at advantageous places near the mouths of rivers on the sh.o.r.e of Hudson Bay, where the Indians, who were accustomed to roam through the great unknown inland country, could come down in canoes to trade their furs for guns, knives, and other commodities brought from England by the white people.

About the beginning of the eighteenth century, some of the Indians who came to the more northern factories or trading-posts, and especially to those situated at the mouths of the Churchill and Nelson Rivers, brought with them rough pieces of native copper, and ornaments and weapons fas.h.i.+oned from this metal. On being asked where the copper came from, they said that they found it on the banks of a river, far away to the north, and that it could be collected from the surface in great abundance, but that the distance through which it was necessary for them to carry it prevented them from bringing much of it to the factories.

These stories, along with the specimens which the Indians had in their possession, gradually aroused more and more interest in the minds of the fur-traders. At last they determined that there were far greater riches within their reach than could be obtained by trading with the Indians for furs, and decided to go in search of the copper mines whatever the cost of such a search might be. Among the first to take up this quest was Captain James Knight, a man of about eighty years of age, who had spent most of his life in trading for furs with the Indians, and who for several years had been in charge of York Factory for the Hudson's Bay Company. With him were Captain Barlow, another fur-trader from Fort Albany, and Captain Vaughan.

When the Committee, appointed in 1748 by the British House of Commons to inquire into the state and conditions of the countries adjoining Hudson Bay, was taking evidence, one of the chief witnesses was a Captain Carruthers, who in his evidence stated "that he had heard a good deal of a Copper Mine to the northward of the Churchill River--that the Governor (Knight) was mighty fond of the Discovery, and made great inquiries about it,--that the witness had seen copper which was said to be brought from thence,--that the Governor (Knight) was very earnest in this Discovery, which was always his topic."

Joseph Robson states that "Governor Knight and Captain Barlow being well a.s.sured that there were rich mines to the northward, from the accounts of the Indians of those parts who had brought some of the ore to the factory, they were bent upon making the discovery; and the Governor said he knew the way to the place as well as to his bedside."[4] In the year 1719, Captain Knight and his a.s.sociates sailed from England in two s.h.i.+ps, the _Albany_ and the _Discovery_, well provided with stores and provisions, and even with strong iron-bound boxes in which to bring back the copper and other precious metals. Unfortunately the expedition was wrecked on Marble Island, and all the officers and crew were lost, although their fate was not definitely known until nearly half a century later.

Three years later, when the two s.h.i.+ps had not returned, and no word had been received from them, Captain Scroggs was sent by the Hudson's Bay Company from Churchill to look for them, and at the same time to continue the search for copper. The story of his journey, as given by Dobbs in his "Account of the Countries adjoining to Hudson's Bay"

(London, 1744), says nothing about the explorers who had been lost, but comments on the copper deposits as follows:--

"He [Scroggs] had two Northern [Chipewyan] Indians with him, who had wintered at Churchill, and told him of a copper mine somewhere in that country upon the sh.o.r.e near the surface of the earth, and they could direct the sloop so near it, as to lay her side to it, and be soon laden with it; and they brought some pieces of copper from it to Churchill that made it evident there was a mine thereabouts. They had sketched out the country with charcoal upon a skin of parchment before they left Churchill, and so far as they went it agreed very well. One of the Indians desired to leave him, saying he was within three or four days'

journey of his own country, but he would not let him go. Captain Norton, late Governor of Churchill, was then with him."

The Captain Norton here mentioned was the father of Governor Moses Norton who afterwards despatched Hearne to look for the Coppermine River. Captain Carruthers, who is mentioned above, and who, according to his own statement, had "quitted" the service of the Hudson's Bay Company thirty-five years before 1748, said that he "himself carried Mr. Norton, who was afterwards Governor, and two Northern Indians to Churchill where he put them in a canoe, and the purpose of their voyage was to make discoveries and encourage the Indians to come down to trade and bring copper ore."[5]