From Fort Yukon I directed my boat and party upwards into the Porcupine river. I was accompanied by Mr. Murray, who was conveying the returns and whose duty it was to take back with him the Yukon outfit from La Pierre's house at the head of the Porcupine river, to which point supplies were transported over the mountains in winter by dogsleighs from Peel river. La Pierre's house duly reached, we left our boat there and walked over the mountains to Peel river, about ninety miles; thence by boat we ascended the Mackenzie river to Fort Simpson.
I thus performed a circuit of several thousand miles from my point of departure on the Liard river. Great astonishment was felt by all my friends and acquaintances when they saw me reach Fort Simpson by coming up the Mackenzie river instead of descending the Liard, for no one entertained a suspicion that the Pelly river had any connection with the Yukon or that the Pelly was linked with the Porcupine, Peel and Mackenzie rivers.
Thenceforward this new route, so unexpectedly found out, was made the highway for the transport of outfits to, and results of trade from the Pelly and all intermediate posts.
When I visited England in 1853 this vast stretch of country—until then a blank on the map and untrodden and unknown of white men—was under my direction correctly delineated on his map of North America by J. Arrowsmith, Hudson's Bay Company's topographer; and hence it happens that many of these rivers and places of note are named after my friends or after the rivers in my native glens.
CHIPEWYAN Indians returned to H.B.C. Post with a fine bag of the great grey geese that flock in thousands over Lake Athabasca.
I may mention that in these explorations, which embraced a period of fifteen years, we had to rely for the means of existence almost entirely on the natural resources of the scene of our operations, however dreary and barren a region it might be. We were once cut off from all supplies and connection with our people, to the extreme peril of our lives, for over two years—from May, 1848, till September, 1850—during which time we received neither a letter nor supplies, and the opening up of communication with the outside world was ultimately brought about by our own unaided and determined efforts in the face of appalling obstacles.
The Pelly-Yukon is a magnificent river, increasing in size as it is joined by the many affluents that swell its tide. It sweeps in a gentle, serpentine course round the spurs of the double mountain range that generally skirts each side of the valley. Of these twin ranges the more distant is the loftier. Many of its summits are dotted with wreaths of snow, while others wear a perpetual mantle of white.