In 1848, writing of the area between Dease bay (the extreme northeastern arm of Great Bear lake) and Coppermine river, Sir John Franklin states:—“At two we came to another branch of the Kendall, which runs through a ravine of red and spotted sandstone, under whose shelter there grew a remarkably fine grove of white spruces. The best grown tree measured sixty-three inches in circumference and did not taper perceptibly for twenty feet from its root. Its total height was from forty to fifty feet. Other trees of equal girth tapered more, and one decayed trunk, which lay on the ground, looked to be considerably thicker.”
Hanbury mentions that along the north shore of Barry island in Bathurst inlet he “picked up some drift sticks which evidently must have come from Hood river” which flows into Arctic waters some distance east of Coppermine river.
Sir George Back describes the banks of Backs river as being rocky and treeless (“without a single tree on the whole line of its banks”).
CHAPTER XXI.
THE BARREN LANDS OR “ARCTIC PRAIRIE”.
Economic Minerals.
Deposits of Native Copper in the Far North.—Several Areas West of Hudson bay Contain Rocks Similar to Those at Sudbury.—Belts of Huronian Rocks that are Expected by Geologists to be Eventually of Great Economic Importance.—Vast Probable Mineral Bearing Country in the Interior Which Can Now be Reached Via Chesterfield Inlet.—Iron, Gold and Silver in Small Quantities North of Lake Athabaska.—Free Gold in Melville Peninsula.—Lignite and Soft Coal Along the Arctic Coast.
From time immemorial tradition has ascribed to the great northern wilderness which we have come to know as the Barren Lands or Barren Grounds, untold mineral wealth, and what tradition has so long asserted is substantiated by the testimony of scientific experts.
The original exploratory expedition despatched into the country, that under Samuel Hearne in 1771, was inspired by the desire of the Hudson’s Bay Company to locate the copper mines in the far north of which the natives spoke to the pioneer traders.