The story of MacKenzie’s voyages is told elsewhere. He was welcomed back to Chippewyan by Norman McLeod on October the 12th at 3 P. M., and spent the winter there with his cousin, Rory. Hurrying to Lake Superior with his report next summer, Alexander MacKenzie suffered profound disappointment. He was received coldly. The truth is, the old guard of the original Nor’Westers—Simon McTavish and the Frobishers—were jealous of the men, who had come in as partners from the Little Company. They had no mind to see honors captured by a young fellow like MacKenzie, who had only two shares in the Company, or $8000 worth of stock, compared to their own six shares or $24,000, and found bitter fault with the returns of furs from Athabasca, and this hostility lasted till McTavish’s death in 1804. MacKenzie came back to pass a depressing winter (’90-’91) at Chippewyan when he dispatched hunters down the newly discovered river, which he ironically called “River Disappointment.” But events were occurring that spurred his thoughts. Down at the meeting of the partners he had heard how Astor was gathering the American furs west of the Great Lakes; how the Russians were gathering an equally rich harvest on the Pacific Coast. Down among the Hare Indians of MacKenzie River, he had heard of white traders on the West coast. If a boat pushed up Peace River from Athabaska Lake, could it portage across to that west coast? The question stuck and rankled in MacKenzie’s mind. “Be sure to question the Indians about Peace River,” he ordered all his winter hunters. Then came the Hudson’s Bay men to Athabasca: Turner, the astronomer, and Howse, who had been to the mountains. If the Nor’Westers were to be on the Pacific Coast first, they must bestir themselves. MacKenzie quietly asked leave of absence in the winter of ’91-’92, and went home to study in England sufficient to enable him to take more accurate astronomic observations. The summer of ’92 found him back on the field appointed to Peace River district.
The Hudson’s Bay men had failed to pass through the country beyond the mountains. Turner and Howse had gone down to Edmonton. Thompson, the surveyor, left the English Company and coming overland to Lake Superior, joined the Nor’Westers. It was still possible for MacKenzie to be first across the mountains.
The fur traders had already advanced up Peace River and half a dozen forts were strung up stream toward the Rockies. By October of ’92, MacKenzie advanced beyond them all to the Forks on the east side and there erected a fort. By May, he had dispatched the eastern brigade. Then picking out a crew of six Frenchmen and two Indians, with Alexander McKay as second in command, McKenzie launched out at seven o’clock on the evening of May 9, 1793, from the Forks of Peace River in a birch canoe of three thousand pounds capacity.
If the voyage to the Arctic had been difficult, it was child’s play compared to this. As the canoe entered the mountains, the current became boisterously swift. It was necessary to track the boat up stream. The banks of the river grew so precipitous that the men could barely keep foothold to haul the canoe along with a one hundred and eighty-foot rope. MacKenzie led the way cutting steps in the cliff, his men following, stepping from his shoulder to the shaft of his axe and from the axe to the place he had cut, the torrent roaring and re-echoing below through the narrow gorge. Sulphur springs were passed, the out-cropping of coal seams, vistas on the frosted mountains opening to beautiful uplands, where elk and moose roamed. An old Indian had told MacKenzie that when he passed over the mountains, Peace River would divide—one stream, now known as the Finlay, coming from the north; the other fork, now known as the Parsnip, from the south. MacKenzie, the old guide said, should ascend the south; but it was no easy matter passing the mountains. The gorge finally narrowed to sheer walls with a raging maelstrom in place of a river. The canoe had to be portaged over the crest of a peak for nine miles—MacKenzie leading the way chopping a trail, the men following laying the fallen trees like the railing of a stair as an outer guard up the steep ascent. Only three miles a day were made. Clothes and moccasins were cut to shreds by brushwood, and the men were so exhausted they lay down in blanket coats to sleep at four in the afternoon, close to the edge of the upper snow fields. MacKenzie wrote letters, enclosed them in empty kegs, threw the kegs into the raging torrent and so sent back word of his progress to the fort. Constantly, on the Uplands, the men were startled by rocketing echoes like the discharge of a gun, when they would pass the night in alarm, each man sitting with his back to a tree and musket across his knees, but the rocketing echoes—so weird and soul-stirring in the loneliness of a silence that is audible—were from huge rocks splitting off some precipice. Sometimes a boom of thunder would set the mountains rolling. From a far snow field hanging in ponderous cornice over bottomless depths would puff up a thin, white line like a snow cataract, the distant avalanche of which the boom was the echo. Once across the divide, the men passed from the bare snow uplands to the cloud line, where seas of tossing mist blotted out earth, and from cloud line to the Alpine valleys with larch-grown meadows and painters’ flowers knee deep, all the colors of the rainbow. Beside a rill trickling from the ice fields pause would be made for a meal. Then came tree line, the spruce and hemlock forests—gigantic trees, branches interlaced, festooned by a mist-like moss that hung from tree to tree in loops, with the windfall of untold centuries piled criss-cross below higher than a house. The men grumbled. They had not bargained on this kind of voyaging.
Once down on the west side of the Great Divide, there were the Forks. MacKenzie’s instincts told him the north branch looked the better way, but the old guide had said only the south branch would lead to the Great River beyond the mountains, and they turned up Parsnip River through a marsh of beaver meadows, which MacKenzie noted for future trade.
From a photograph by Mathers.
The Ramparts of MacKenzie River.
It was now the 3rd of June. MacKenzie ascended a mountain to look along the forward path. When he came down with McKay and the Indian Cancre, no canoe was to be found. MacKenzie sent broken branches drifting down stream as a signal and fired gunshot after gunshot, but no answer! Had the men deserted with boat and provisions? Genuinely alarmed, MacKenzie ordered McKay and Cancre back down the Parsnip, while he went on up stream. Whichever found the canoe was to fire a gun. For a day without food and in drenching rains, the three tore through the underbrush shouting, seeking, despairing till strength was exhausted and moccasins worn to tatters. Barefoot and soaked, MacKenzie was just lying down for the night when a crashing echo told him McKay had found the deserters. They had waited till he had disappeared up the mountain, then headed the canoe north and drifted down stream. The Indians were openly panic-stricken and wanted to build a raft to float home. The French voyageurs pretended they had been delayed mending the canoe. MacKenzie took no outward notice of the treachery, but henceforth never let the crew out of his own or McKay’s sight.
A week later, Indians were met who told MacKenzie of the Carrier tribes, inlanders, who bartered with the Indians on the sea. One old man drew a birch bark map of how the Parsnip led to a portage overland to another river flowing to the sea. Promising to return in two moons (months), MacKenzie embarked with an Indian for guide. On the evening of June 12th, they entered a little lake, the source of Peace River. A beaten path led over a low ridge to another little lake—the source of the river that flowed to the Pacific. This was Bad River, a branch of the Fraser, though MacKenzie thought it was a branch of the Great River—the Columbia. The little lake soon narrowed to a swift torrent, which swept the canoe along like a chip. MacKenzie wanted to walk along the shore, for some one should go ahead to look out for rapids, but the crew insisted if they were to perish, he must perish with them, and all hands embarked. The consequence was that the canoe was presently caught in a swirl. A rock banged through the bottom tearing away the keel. Round swung the tottering craft to the rush! Another smash, and out went the bow, the canoe flattening like a board, the Indians weeping aloud on top of the baggage, the voyageurs paralyzed with fear, hanging to the gun’els. On swept the wrecked canoe! The foreman frantically grabbed the branch of an overhanging tree. It jerked him bodily ashore and the canoe flat as a flap-jack came to a stop in shallow sands.