About Slave Lake—it is named after the Slave Indians, who were called “Slaves,” not because they were slaves, but because they had been driven from their territory of the South.
MacKenzie’s Voyage, I have told fully in “Pathfinders of the West.” The authority for that volume is to be found in MacKenzie’s Journals, and in MacKenzie’s letter to his cousin, Roderick. Norman McLeod, the clerk under MacKenzie, became the aggressive partner of a later day.
The dates of Thompson’s service with the H. B. C. are variously given. I do not find him in H. B. C. books after 1789, and rather suspect that he wintered with Alexander MacKenzie as well as Rory before the former went to the Pacific; but I left this unsaid. It is well to note that Howse did as great service as an explorer as Thompson, but Thompson’s services became known to the world. Howse’s work passed unnoticed, owing to the policy of secrecy followed by the H. B. C. Father Morice’s “History of Northern B. C.” traces MacKenzie’s course very clearly.
In H. B. C. Archives of 1804 is Duncan McGillivray’s letter to the English company proposing division of the hunting field, the H. B. C. to keep the bay, the Nor’Westers to have inland—which was very much like the boy’s division of the apple when he offered the other boy the core.
November 16, 1808, Minutes record £800 of stock transferred to Sir Alexander MacKenzie, £742-10—to Earl of Selkirk. This marks as far as I could find the beginning of the end. Selkirk’s visit to Canada was in 1803. His observations will be found in his book on “Sketch of the British Fur Trade,” 1815, pp. 38-52. The Minutes of H. B. C., 1804, order suit against John Richards, “late commander for the Co’y,” for entering H. B. in the month of August in the Eddystone, and erecting a fort at “Charlton Island and leaving men with goods for trade.”