"Twenty-five miles from the fork are some bituminous springs, into which a pole may be inserted without the least resistance. The bitumen is in a fluid state, and when mixed with resin is used to gum the canoes. In its heated state it emits a smell like sea-coal. The banks of Slave River, which are elevated, discover veins of the same bituminous quality."[1]
His winter quarters were near Lake Athabasca, at Fort Chippewayan, more than thirteen hundred miles northwest from Chicago. He thus writes in regard to the country:—
"In the fall of 1787, when I first arrived at Athabasca, Mr. Pond was settled on the bank of the Elk River, where he remained three years, and had as fine a kitchen-garden as I ever saw in Canada" (p. 127).
Of the climate in winter he says that the beginning was cold, and about one foot of snow fell. The last week in December and the first week in January were marked by warm southwest breezes, which dissolved all the snow. Wild geese appeared on the 13th of March; and on the 5th of April the snow had entirely disappeared. On the 20th he wrote:—
"The trees are budding, and many plants are in blossom" (p. 150).
Mackenzie left the "Old Establishment," as one of the posts of the Hudson Bay Company was called, on the Peace River, in the month of May, for the Rocky Mountains. He followed the stream through the gap of the mountains, passed to the head-waters of Fraser River, and descended that stream to the Pacific. He thus describes the country along the Peace River:—
"This magnificent theatre of nature has all the decorations which the trees and animals can afford it. Groves of poplars in every shape vary the scene, and their intervales are relieved with vast herds of elk and buffaloes,—the former choosing the steeps and uplands, the latter preferring the plains. The whole country displayed an exuberant verdure; the trees that bear blossoms were advancing fast to that delightful appearance, and the velvet rind of their branches reflecting the oblique rays of a rising or setting sun added a splendid gayety to the scene which no expressions of mine are qualified to describe" (p. 154).
This was in latitude 55° 17', about fourteen hundred miles from St. Paul.
The next traveller who enlightened the world upon this region was Mr. Harman, a native of Vergennes, Vermont, who became connected with the Northwest Fur Company, and passed seventeen years in British America. He reached Lake Winnipeg in 1800, and his first winter was passed west of the lake. Under date of January 5th we have this record in his journal:—
"Beautiful weather. Saw in different herds at least a thousand buffaloes grazing" (p. 68).