Alexander Mackenzie and his long Journey.
Even after the English had won the country for themselves, they did not know how large it was, for no one had explored the country from north to south or from east to west. At last a brave Scotchman named Alexander Mackenzie came to settle in Canada. He was fond of adventure and liked nothing better than roaming for miles through the wilderness, hunting the wild animals in the forest, and skimming over the lakes and down the streams in an Indian canoe. He visited many a settlement where the red children had never before looked upon a white man; he discovered rivers and lakes of which the French and English knew nothing before. He arrived in his wanderings on the shore of the Great Slave Lake in the very heart of the country. A large river flowed out of it. Where did it go, and how far? The Indians could not tell him.
At the beginning of the summer, he set out with a small party of white men and an Indian guide. At first it was very pleasant paddling down the river in their canoes, but after a few days they came to rapids. Then they had to take to the land and carry their canoes and their supplies on their shoulders. As they traveled onward they came to still other rapids which stopped their course again and again.
The farther north they traveled, the colder it became. The days were much longer, too, for it was nearing mid-summer. It seemed very strange to them to have the midnight as bright as daylight. The wild animals were scarce now.
“Suppose,” thought Mackenzie, “we are unable to shoot enough for our food,” but still he kept on. He passed Indian villages on his way, and at last met with Eskimos who were wandering about on their summer hunt.
The wild animals were different now from what the explorers had met before; they had reached the home of the polar bear and the arctic fox. The river was full of broken ice and there were whales in the water. They were close to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and had traveled a thousand miles down the great river, which they named Mackenzie in honor of their brave leader. The party did not remain long in the bleak, northern country, but turned about and journeyed homeward as quickly as possible.
Three years afterwards Mackenzie made up his mind to cross Canada to the westward. Slowly but surely he made his way, now gliding along a stream or over a lake in his canoe; now cutting a path through a thick forest; again finding himself stopped by high cliffs or by a rushing torrent. But he kept on until he came to the Rocky Mountains, whose snowy tops reached far up towards the heavens.
“Not far beyond those mountains is the sea,” Mackenzie’s Indian guide told him.
He still pushed on, through narrow passes, between walls of rock, up steep slopes and down through deep valleys. At last he reached the other side, launching his boats in a stream flowing to the west. In a short time the Pacific Ocean lay stretched before his eyes.