Trails of the Pathfinders

by George Bird Grinnell

On October 10, 1792, Alexander Mackenzie left Fort Chipewyan to proceed up Peace River, his purpose being to go up the stream so far as the season would permit, and, wintering wherever he must, to cross the mountains at its head and continue westward, if possible, to the Pacific Ocean.

Peace River takes its name from the settlement of their differences at Peace Point by the Knisteneaux and Beaver Indians. “When this country was formerly invaded by the Knisteneaux they found the Beaver Indians inhabiting the land about the Portage La Loche; and the adjoining tribes were those whom they called Slaves. They drove both these tribes before them, when the latter proceeded down the river from the Lake of the Hills, in consequence of which that part of it obtained the name of the Slave River. The former proceeded up the river, and when the Knisteneaux made peace with them, this place was settled to be the boundary.”

As they proceeded, the weather was so cold and raw as to make travel unpleasant, but on the afternoon of October 17 they reached the falls, where there were two considerable portages, and where they found recent fires, showing that the canoes that Mackenzie had despatched some days before were not far ahead.

On the 19th they reached what is termed the Old Establishment, an early fort, and found that the people preceding them had slept there the previous night, and had carelessly set the large house on fire. But for Mackenzie’s arrival all the buildings would have been destroyed. On either side of Peace River here were extensive plains, which offered pasturage to great herds of buffalo.

The next morning they reached the fort, and were received with shouts of rejoicing and volleys from the guns, by the Indians, who now expected rum and a carouse. About three hundred Indians belonged here, who, though apparently Chipewyan by race, had adopted the manners and customs of their former enemies, the Crees. The contrast between the neat and decent appearance of the men and the very disagreeable looks of the women was striking. After staying here only long enough to give some advice and presents to the Indians and his instructions to Mr. Findlay, he kept on up the river. It was constantly growing colder and the ice gave some trouble, but on November 1 he reached the place where he expected to winter.

Two men had been sent forward in the spring to cut and square timber for the erection of a house, and about seventy Indians had joined them. The men had worked well, and prepared timber enough for a considerable fort, as well as a ditch in which to set up the palisades of a stockade. Experience at the Old Establishment had shown that many vegetables would grow well in this soil and climate, but this was no time to think about gardening. What was more important was the fact that the plains on either side of the river abounded in buffalo, elk, wolves, foxes, and bears, while a ridge of highlands or mountains to the westward was inhabited by great numbers of deer, being called Deer Mountain.

As with all traders, Mackenzie’s first business was to call the Indians together and give them some rum, tobacco, and advice. They listened to the advice, drank the rum, and smoked the tobacco, promising everything that he asked.

On the 22d of November—although the side-head giving the date in the printed volume says December—the river froze up, so that the hunters had a bridge on which to cross. Game was plenty, yet but for this means of crossing the stream they might have suffered from lack of food. It was here the practice of medicine was forced on Mackenzie. By means of simple remedies and by close personal attention to each case he cured a number of severe ailments among the Indians.

Of one of these he says: “On my arrival here last fall, I found that one of the young Indians had lost the use of his right hand by the bursting of a gun, and that his thumb had been maimed in such a manner as to hang only by a small strip of flesh. Indeed, when he was brought to me his wound was in such an offensive state and emitted such a putrid smell that it required all the resolution I possessed to examine it. His friends had done everything in their power to relieve him, but as it consisted only in singing about him and blowing upon his hand, the wound, as may be well imagined, had got into the deplorable state in which I found it. I was rather alarmed at the difficulty of the case, but as the young man’s life was in a state of hazard, I was determined to risk my surgical reputation, and accordingly took him under my care. I immediately formed a poultice of bark, stripped from the roots of the spruce fir, which I applied to the wound, having first washed it with the juice of the bark. This proved a very painful dressing. In a few days, however, the wound was clean and the proud flesh around it destroyed. I wished very much in this state of the business to have separated the thumb from the hand, which I well knew must be effected before the cure could be performed, but he would not consent to that operation till, by the application of vitriol, the flesh by which the thumb was suspended was shrivelled almost to a thread. When I had succeeded in this object I perceived that the wound was closing rather faster than I had desired. The salve I applied on the occasion was made of the Canadian balsam, wax, and tallow dropped from a burning candle into water. In short, I was so successful that about Christmas my patient engaged in an hunting party, and brought me the tongue of an elk; nor was he finally ungrateful. When he left me I received the warmest acknowledgments, both from himself and the relations with whom he departed, for my care of him. I certainly did not spare my time or attention on the occasion, as I regularly dressed the wound three times a day during the course of a month.”

Just before Christmas, Mackenzie moved from his tent into his house, and now began the erection of houses for the men. Long before this the thermometer had been down far below zero, yet the men had been lying out in the cold and snow without any shelter except an open shed. “It would be considered by the inhabitants of a milder climate as a great evil to be exposed to the weather at this rigorous season of the year, but these people are inured to it, and it is necessary to describe in some measure the hardships which they undergo without a murmur, in order to convey a general notion of them.