The mouth of Peace River was passed a mile broad as it pours down from the west, and the boatmen portaged six rapids the third day, one of the canoes, steered by a squaw more intent on her sewing than the paddles, going over the falls with a smash that shivered the bark to kindling-wood. The woman escaped, as the current caught the canoe, by leaping into the water and swimming ashore with the aid of a line. Ice four feet thick clung to the walls of the rampart shores, and this increased the danger of landing for a portage, the Indians whining out their complaints in exactly the tone of the wailing north wind that had cradled their lives—"Eduiy, eduiy!—It is hard, white man, it is hard!" And harder the way became. For nine nights fog lay so heavily on the river that not a star was seen. This was followed by driving rain and wind. Mackenzie hoisted a three-foot sail and cut over the water before the wind with the hiss of a boiling kettle. Though the sail did the work of the paddles, it gave the voyageurs no respite. Cramped and rain-soaked, they had to bail out water to keep the canoe afloat. In this fashion the boats entered Slave Lake, a large body of water with one horn pointing west, the other east. Out of both horns led unknown rivers. Which way should Mackenzie go? Low-lying marshlands—beaver meadows where the wattled houses of the beaver had stopped up the current of streams till moss overgrew the swamps and the land became quaking muskeg—lay along the shores of the lake. There were islands in deep water, where caribou had taken refuge, travelling over ice in winter for the calves to be safe in summer from wolf pack and bear. Mackenzie hired a guide from the Slave Indians to pilot the canoes over the lake; but the man proved useless. Days were wasted poking through mist and rushes trying to find an outlet to the Grand River of the North. Finally, English Chief lost his temper and threatened to kill the Slave Indian unless he succeeded in taking the canoes out of the lake. The waters presently narrowed to half a mile; the current began to race with a hiss; sails were hoisted on fishing-poles; and Mackenzie found himself out of the rushes on the Grand River to the west of Slave Lake.
[Illustration: Fort William, Headquarters Northwest Company, Lake Superior.]
Here pause was made at a camp of Dog Ribs, who took the bottom from the courage of Mackenzie's comrades by gruesome predictions that old age would come upon the voyageurs before they reached salt water. There were impassable falls ahead. The river flowed through a land of famine peopled by a monstrous race of hostiles who massacred all Indians from the South. The effect of these cheerful prophecies was that the Slave Lake guide refused to go on. English Chief bodily put the recalcitrant into a canoe and forced him ahead at the end of a paddle. Snow-capped mountains loomed to the west. The river from Bear Lake was passed, greenish of hue like the sea, and the Slave Lake guide now feigned such illness that watch was kept day and night to prevent his escape. The river now began to wind, with lofty ramparts on each side; and once, at a sharp bend in the current, Mackenzie looked back to see Slave Lake Indians following to aid the guide in escaping. After that one of the white men slept with the fellow each night to prevent desertion; but during the confusion of a terrific thunder-storm, when tents and cooking utensils were hurled about their heads, the Slave succeeded in giving his watchers the slip. Mackenzie promptly stopped at an encampment of strange Indians, and failing to obtain another guide by persuasion, seized and hoisted a protesting savage into the big canoe, and signalled the unwilling captive to point the way. The Indians of the river were indifferent, if not friendly; but once Mackenzie discovered a band hiding their women and children as soon as the boatmen came in view. The unwilling guide was forced ashore, as interpreter, and gifts pacified all fear. But the incident left its impression on Mackenzie's comrades. They had now been away from Chipewyan for forty days. If it took much longer to go back, ice would imprison them in the polar wilderness. Snow lay drifted in the valleys, and scarcely any game was seen but fox and grouse. The river was widening almost to the dimensions of a lake, and when this was whipped by a north wind the canoes were in peril enough. The four Canadians besought Mackenzie to return. To return Mackenzie had not the slightest intention; but he would not tempt mutiny. He promised that if he did not find the sea within seven days, he would go back.
That night the sun hung so high above the southern horizon that the men rose by mistake to embark at twelve o'clock. They did not realize that they were in the region of midnight sun; but Mackenzie knew and rejoiced, for he must be near the sea. The next day he was not surprised to find a deserted Eskimo village. At that sight the enthusiasm of the others took fire. They were keen to reach the sea, and imagined that they smelt salt water. In spite of the lakelike expanse of the river, the current was swift, and the canoes went ahead at the rate of sixty and seventy miles a day—if it could be called day when there was no night. Between the 13th and 14th of July the voyageurs suddenly awakened to find themselves and their baggage floating in rising water. What had happened to the lake? Their hearts took a leap; for it was no lake. It was the tide. They had found the sea.
How hilariously jubilant were Mackenzie's men, one may guess from the fact that they chased whales all the next day in their canoes. 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.
