A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean in the Years 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 New Edition with Introduction, Notes, and Illustrations — Inside the Classic

had travelled southward until he met the so-called "Naywatamee poets" or Mandan Indians, somewhere near the banks of the Assiniboine or South Saskatchewan Rivers,[8] and in 1754 Anthony Hendry had made a notable journey up the North Saskatchewan River to the great plains, where he had endeavoured to establish friendly relations with the Blackfeet Indians and their allies, and to prevent them from selling their furs to Luc la Corne and the French merchants from Montreal, who had penetrated into the same country several years before. Both these men had been treated with the greatest kindness by the natives and had brought back intelligent accounts of the countries visited by them, though neither of them had the ability of Samuel Hearne to enable them to prepare a report such as the one here published.

Governor Norton was a man of much more than the ordinary intelligence and strength of character, and he saw that if the expedition was to be a success it must be conducted by some one who would be able to make full and accurate surveys of the route followed, and who could intelligently describe the character and value of the "mine" and determine its latitude and longitude by astronomical observations. For this purpose he chose Samuel Hearne, now a young man twenty-four years of age, who, after his service as a midshipman in the British Navy, was at the time employed as a mate on the _Charlotte_, one of the Company's sloops trading from Churchill with the Eskimos. The story of his journey, the hardships which he endured, and the success which he achieved, form the subject of this book and need not be discussed here.[9]

Hearne's character, which had been moulded to a large extent by his surroundings, can be fairly well understood from a careful reading of his book. He was diligent and reasonably accurate but not strong or forceful. In this latter particular he differed from his great successor, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, who descended the Mackenzie River eighteen years after Hearne had reached its waters at Great Slave Lake. Alexander Mackenzie was a man of masterful temperament, and those who accompanied him, whether white men or natives, were merely so many instruments to be used in the accomplishment of any purpose which he had in hand. Their likes and dislikes, and their habits of life, were merely interesting to him in so far as they affected the results that he wished to attain. His book is a detailed description of the directions and distances which he travelled each day, and of the incidents of travel as they occurred. To Samuel Hearne the natives with whom he travelled were beings whose thoughts and habits of life he found supremely interesting. Their intentions and desires largely controlled the expeditions on which he had embarked. With the exception of the accomplishment of the main object in view, of reaching the Coppermine River, their wishes were everything, his nothing.

His first expedition was a complete failure, as the Indians simply took him off with them for a couple of hundred miles into the wilderness until they became tired of his company and then robbed him of everything he had and left him to find his own way back to Churchill as best he could. His second expedition was more successful, as the Indians tolerated his company for eight months and supported him as long as food was plentiful, but their enthusiasm, or duty to the Master at Churchill, did not last long enough to carry them to the Coppermine River.

Of his third and successful expedition Hearne was the historian and surveyor, while Matonabbee, a bold and forceful Chipewyan Indian about ten years his senior, was its leader. If at any time Hearne tried to interfere with the arrangements made by the leader he was promptly told to follow instructions if he wished to reach the copper mine. While Matonabbee probably reciprocated, to some extent at least, Hearne's affection for him, he was evidently thinking of and working for Moses Norton, the rough but powerful governor of Fort Prince of Wales, rather than for the quiet and observant young man who was accompanying him. Hearne's sketch of the life of Matonabbee is one of the most appreciative and sympathetic accounts of a North American Indian that has come to my notice.

Hearne was evidently gifted with a very retentive memory, and had the artist's faculty of seeing the interesting features of his surroundings in their true perspective. Though, like Robert Louis Stevenson and many others, he had not been a brilliant student at school, he possessed the literary ability to present what he saw or knew in an interesting and attractive form. In the ordinary quietude of his tent or office, when thinking of nothing but the subject which he was describing, he undoubtedly recorded his observations with accuracy. But in the warmth of dispute, when endeavouring to overcome the criticisms or objections of others, he was liable to be carried beyond the points of strict accuracy and, in order to strengthen his argument, to fill in blanks in his record from his imagination. He says, for example, that the sun was above the horizon at midnight at the mouth of the Coppermine River. But it is certain either that, on the night which he spent there, the weather was too cloudy to permit of seeing the sun, if it had been above the horizon, or that, even if the weather was clear, the sun must necessarily have been below the horizon at the time. His sketch of Moses Norton also has the appearance of being highly coloured by his evident personal dislike of the man. No one can justly accuse Hearne of lack of personal courage, for the annoyances, hardships, and sufferings, which he endured without complaining, put the thought of personal cowardice entirely out of the question. He had acquired the stoicism of the Indian and he suffered quietly, just as an Indian is prepared to suffer. During the years which Hearne spent among the Indians, living on what they were able to obtain from day to day, as well as in his general intercourse with them as a trader bartering for the furs which they were able to collect and bring to him, he had learned to endure privations, to compromise rather than to fight, and to accomplish his purpose by politic and peaceful, rather than by warlike, methods. Naturally of a complaisant disposition, he had learned to give whatever was demanded of him, no matter who made the demand. Nothing could be more typical of the habits which he had thus acquired than the little experiences in trading, recounted on page 285, where, after an Indian had received full payment for the furs which he had brought in, he was given in addition the long list of articles there enumerated. Apparently, the Indian was not refused anything if he persisted in asking.

This habit of acceding to requests to avoid dispute and difficulty, rather than any real fear of personal danger, accounts for Hearne's surrender of Fort Prince of Wales to the French without a struggle. In this case it is quite possible that, in spite of the great strength of the fort which he occupied, he was really not able to make effective resistance against his powerful and determined enemy, who outnumbered him more than ten to one. Although the fort mounted forty heavy guns, and was provided with plenty of ammunition and small arms, it had only thirty-nine men within its walls at the time. But even if Hearne had had a stronger garrison, it is doubtful whether he would have attempted resistance, for his training in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company had taught him to preserve the peace at any price, and it was impossible for him to set aside at a moment's notice what had become second nature to him.

We have seen that Hearne had not the forceful character possessed by Alexander Mackenzie; yet, as a man must be judged by the results which he achieves, it is perhaps all the more creditable to him to have done what he did with his more complaisant and observant disposition. Though he could not control the Indians with whom he travelled, he nevertheless accomplished his purpose of making the journey, and has left a splendid record of it to enrich posterity. He was hardly a great geographer, though he added largely to the geographical knowledge of Northern Canada west of Hudson Bay. It was he who finally set at rest the question of a north-west passage by sea to China and the Orient, south of the mouth of the Coppermine River. He knew nothing of mines or ores, and the information he brought back about the "mine" of copper which he was sent to explore was exceedingly meagre. He verified the report of the existence of native copper on the surface in uncertain quantity. Incidentally he showed that the place where it occurred was too remote and difficult of access to permit of a copper mine being worked at a profit, even if the copper should be found in great abundance. But that was all. In fact, even to the present time, we have very little accurate knowledge of the character and extent of this copper deposit near the Coppermine River, as may be seen by referring to the notes on pages 194 _et seq._

On Hearne's first and second journeys he had quite adequate scientific apparatus, and so could take astronomical observations to determine his true position. So we find that he occasionally made use of his quadrant and took such observations; consequently the positions given on the map for the principal points in these two journeys are approximately correct. But he started on his third journey with very faulty instruments, and he would appear to have made very little use even of them. The map of the course followed by him on this journey strongly suggests a rough sketch made by his Indian guide, rather than a careful plan worked out by himself, from day to day, or week to week. For example, between Island and Kasba Lakes, near the beginning of his journey, and shortly after he had diverged from his course of the previous year, he began to go wrong. If he was using his compass at all, it is possible that some source of local magnetic attraction was influencing it, for the position of the last-named lake (on his map) is some sixty or seventy miles too far north. It is inconceivable that he could have made any serious effort to correct this faulty course by astronomical observations with his quadrant. His book is chiefly valuable therefore not so much because of its geographical information, but because it is an accurate, sympathetic, and patently truthful record of life among the Chipewyan Indians at that time. Their habits, customs, and general mode of life, however disagreeable or repulsive, are recorded in detail, and the book will consequently always remain a classic in American ethnology.

The manuscript report on Hearne's exploration was submitted to the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company immediately after his return, and they highly commended him for the work he had done, and gave him a handsome bonus.[10] The first account of his journey which seems to have been published was given to the world in 1784 in the "Introduction to Cook's Third Voyage," pp. xlvi-l, written by Dr. John Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, who later also edited Hearne's own book. The route followed by Hearne on his successful third journey is incorporated in the general map of the world accompanying this book. A Mr. Roberts, who prepared this map, makes the following note with regard to it:--

"The whole of Hudson's Bay I took from a chart compiled by Mr. Marley, from all the most authentic maps he could procure of those parts, with which I was favoured by Samuel Wegg, Esq., F.R.S., and Governor of that Company, who also politely furnished me with Mr. Hearne's Journals and the map of his route to the Coppermine River, which is faithfully inserted in the chart.

"(Sgd.) HENRY ROBERTS. "SHOREHAM, SUSSEX, _May 18, 1784_."[11]

Another brief account of Hearne's trip is given in "Pennant's Arctic Zoology," also published in 1784, while his map is incorporated in one of the maps published in "Pennant's Supplement to Arctic Zoology," 1787. Some of the names used on these two maps were continued on the map accompanying Alexander Mackenzie's "Voyages," and also on Arrowsmith's maps up to comparatively recent dates.

The book here republished appeared first in 1795, three years after Hearne's death, as a large quarto volume of xliv + 458 pages, with five maps, and four full-page illustrations. It was edited by the above-named Dr. John Douglas, who is said to have drawn up the narrative, and to have finished the Introduction, though just how much Hearne's diction was altered by the editor is not known. It is probable, however, that the MS. was published almost exactly as Hearne had written it. An octavo edition, similar in letterpress to the original quarto one, but with some slight omissions or differences in the text and in the general map, was published in Dublin in 1796.

A French translation of the 1795 edition, by Lallemant, one of the secretaries in the French Department of the Marine, was published at Paris in 1799. Dr. Arthur G. Doughty, the Archivist of the Dominion of Canada, has very kindly compared this edition with the English one of 1795, and makes the following remarks with regard to it:--

"The dedication of the English version is omitted in the French. In the Introduction, page 27, there is a note in the English edition which is not translated. Pages 441 to 445 of the English edition are omitted in the French. At the beginning of the French version there is a note on Hearne from the 'Voyage of La Pérouse,' and some remarks by Lallemant. The translation of the whole volume appears to be good."

The note from the "Voyage of La Pérouse" and the remarks of Lallemant are as follows:--

"A LA PÉROUSE.--C'est à vous que l'Europe est redevable de la publication de cet ouvrage, dont le manuscrit fut trouvé parmi les papiers du Gouverneur du fort du Prince de Galles, lorsque vous vous rendîtes maître des établissements anglais dans la Baie de Hudson. En le remettant à son auteur, à la condition expresse de le faire imprimer et publier, jamais vainqueur n'exerça plus utilement son droit de conquête et n'imposa au vaincu une condition plus honorable.[12] Elle était digne du marin aussi généreux qu'éclairé qui devait, quelques années après, entreprendre un voyage non moins important, et dont aujourd'hui nous déplorons la perte.

"Pourquoi faut-il, brave et excellent _Dupetit-Thouars_, que vous nous ayez été aussi ravi! vous qui m'excitâtes avec tant d'ardeur à traduire la relation de _Samuel Hearne_, et qui, après avoir tout sacrifié pour aller redemander _la Pérouse_ aux îles de la mer du Sud, soupiriez après la paix pour reprendre vos projets de découvertes. Accablé par le nombre au combat d'_Aboukir_, une mort glorieuse vous a enlevé à votre patrie, à deux soeurs chéries, à l'amitié, aux sciences, et il ne nous est revenu de vous que cette réponse héroïque à l'ennemi: '_Voyez mon pavillon; on ne le déplacera qu'en m'ôtant la vie._'

"_La Pérouse_, vous l'eussiez pleuré comme nous! il était si attaché à son pays, à son métier, et si passionné pour leur gloire. Il avait une âme si forte et un coeur si sensible; un esprit si cultivé et des dehors si modestes. Il était ami si vrai et frère si tendre. _Perpetue, Félicité_, j'en appèle à votre douleur profonde!

"En associant son nom au vôtre, _la Pérouse_, permettez qu'il partage avec vous l'hommage d'une traduction à laquelle je me suis empressé de consacrer mes veilles pour concourir à vos vues respectives d'utilité. Puisse ce monument être digne de vous deux!

"LALLEMANT, "l'un des Secrétaires de la Marine."

Hearne intimates on page 32 that the map here reproduced differs slightly from those which he had previously published, a reference doubtless to the one in Cook's "Voyage," but he claims that this one is the most accurate, since he had revised it with great care. Both maps are here given; further explorations in the northern country alone can determine which is the more correct.

Fort Prince of Wales, from which place Hearne started on his expedition, was built by the Hudson's Bay Company in the years 1733 to 1771. It is said to have been designed by English military engineers, and, according to Joseph Robson, was built under the direction of the resident Governor, though Robson himself had much to do with its construction.

The fort, which is one of the most interesting military ruins on the continent, stands on Eskimo Point, just west of the mouth of Churchill River, and though some parts of the walls have fallen, it was, when I visited it, in much the same condition as when built, except that the houses within it had been gutted by fire. It is 310 feet long on the north and south sides, and 317 feet long on the east and west sides, measured from corner to corner of the bastions. The walls are from 37 to 42 feet thick, and 16 feet 9 inches high to the top of the parapet, which is 5 feet high and 6 feet 3 inches wide. On the outside the wall was faced with dressed stone, except towards the river, while on the inside undressed stone was used. The interior of the wall is a rubble of boulders, held together by a poor mortar. In the parapet are forty embrasures and forty guns, from six to twenty-four pounders, are lying on the wall near them, now partly hidden by low willows, currant and gooseberry bushes. The three store-houses and the magazine, which once occupied the centres of the bastions, have disappeared. Within the square enclosure are the stone walls of a house 103 feet long, 33 feet wide, and 17 feet high, which is said to have had a flat roof covered with lead. The small observatory used by Mr. Wales in 1769 was situated on the south-east bastion.

This new edition is a reprint of the quarto edition of 1795. The pagination of the original has been inserted, enclosed within square brackets, at the proper places in the text, and the notes are given as in the original volume. The notes of the present editor are indicated by Arabic numerals.

Most of the photographs here reproduced were taken by the editor in 1893 and 1894, but those of Artillery Lake were taken by Mr. J. W. Tyrrell in 1900, and the Eskimo implements of native copper were obtained by him at that time.

Several additional maps have been added. Among these are the portions of Cook's and Pennant's maps of parts of North America showing the first published records of Hearne's courses; a map of the Coppermine River as surveyed by Sir John Franklin in 1821; and a general map of Northern Canada drawn on the same scale and projection as Hearne's large map, and with his routes laid down as correctly as it has been possible for me to determine them. The latter map is much more easily compared with Hearne's original map than one drawn on the polyconic projection in common use at the present time.

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Edward A. Preble of the Biological Survey, Washington, D.C., U.S.A., author of "A Biological Investigation of the Hudson Bay Region" and "A Biological Investigation of the Athabaska-Mackenzie Region," who has so kindly annotated Chapter X. on the fauna and flora of Hudson Bay, and has also added the notes to which his initials are attached in other parts of the volume.

J. B. TYRRELL. TORONTO, _February 1, 1910_.

[1] This is an error, as the fort was neither rebuilt nor refortified.

[2] The results of their observations were published in the _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. lix. (1769), pp. 467 and 480, and vol. lx. (1770), pp. 100 and 137.

[3] "Report on the Dubawnt, Kazan, and Ferguson Rivers," by J. B. Tyrrell. "Geological Survey of Canada," Part F, vol. ix. 1896. Ottawa, 1897.

[4] "Six Years' Residence in Hudson's Bay," by J. Robson, 1752, p. 15. Robson strongly urged an overland expedition to discover the copper, p. 60.

[5] Hudson's Bay Report, 1749, p. 230.

[7] Hudson's Bay Report, 1749, p. 226.