Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

These heights, which at first appeared inaccessible, were yet traversed by a rough and winding path used by the Indians in their wild hunting expeditions, and, following his dusky guides, Hearne succeeded in scaling them and gaining the plain beyond. Another march of short duration brought him to the source of the Coppermine River, which rises near the Great Bear Lake, a tributary of the Mackenzie, the discovery of which was reserved to Hearne’s rival and successor, whose name it bears.

Instead of the wide river navigable for large vessels in the summer, and with mines hiding vast stores of mineral wealth within easy reach, Hearne found the Coppermine to be an unimportant stream flowing through a barren and desolate country. Disappointed and disgusted, he yet resolved to follow it to its mouth, and was proceeding on his journey with dogged resolution, when the monotony of the daily struggle with the difficulties presented by nature was broken by a struggle between his Indian guides and some Esquimaux, resulting in the massacre of the latter. In vain did our hero plead for mercy for the inoffensive dwellers on the coast. The inland races of North America entertain for their Arctic neighbors a hatred and contempt which must be witnessed to be realized; and face to face with Esquimaux, all private quarrels are merged in an eager desire for the blood of the common enemy.

Disgusted at having burdened himself with companions who of course rendered impossible any attempt at studying the ways of the new type of human nature with which he was now brought in contact, Hearne pursued his way northward, and before the close of the summer he was rewarded for his perseverance by reaching the mouth of the Coppermine River, and standing on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. For the first time the eyes of a European rested upon that portion of the universal sea surrounding the North Pole which washes the northern coast of America; for the first time the white man realized the existence of yet another ocean—an ocean which must henceforth replace the fabulous unbroken masses of land figuring on all maps between the most northerly limit reached by explorers and the North Pole.

IN THE ARCTIC SEAS.

Before this great and unexpected revelation, throwing a flood of new light on the geography of North America, and with it of the whole world, all minor details sank into insignificance. Hearne had proved beyond a doubt that the Strait of Anian, if such a strait there were, had its eastern outlet, if any, in the Icy Sea; he had ascertained that the American continent stretched away hundreds of miles beyond what had hitherto been accepted as its western limits; he had seen that the extreme North was inhabited by a race differing essentially from all their southern neighbors; he had noticed the trace of the existence of thousands of whales, seals, and other valuable denizens of the deep; but what was all this, in Hearne’s estimation, compared to the unvarnished fact of the existence of a new ocean!

Hastening back to Hudson’s Bay with the great news, Hearne saw the copper-mine of which Indian tradition had told so much. It was a poor, exhausted mine, not likely to yield the smallest profit to the Company; but what of that? The Arctic Ocean lay beyond it! Following a somewhat more westerly course than on his northern journey, Hearne entered level districts abounding in game; but what of that? The Arctic Ocean washed the desolate shores above the fur-yielding plains! A fair young Indian woman, who had escaped from some Athapescow warriors after the murder of her whole family, was found dwelling alone in a little hut, supporting herself by hunting deer and snaring rabbits. Hearne’s followers wrestled for the possession of the young exile as a wife, and she was carried off by the victor; but this strange and significant scene could scarcely interest our hero now. The Arctic Ocean was awaiting its explorers—alas! also its victims—and the ways of the natives, who had so little valued the great fact of its existence, were of small account.

Roused from its lethargy at last by the report brought home by its gallant employé, the Hudson’s Bay Company now did all in its power to encourage further research, and to its efforts were due the sending forth of Franklin on his first great voyage, which ushered in a new era of Arctic exploration.

Before either Franklin, of Arctic renown, or Mackenzie, second only in fame as an inland explorer to Hearne, was ready to start, however, much good work was done by private adventurers, especially by Finlay, Currie, Frobisher, and Pond, who, between 1763 and 1778, penetrated to the banks of the Saskatchewan and Churchill Rivers, and to the shores of Athabasca Lake, making intimate acquaintance with the Hare and other Indian tribes, and paving the way for the voyages on the Mackenzie, Peace, and Slave Rivers, which were among the most noteworthy feats of the new claimant for the possession of the fur-yielding districts of the extreme North-west.

Alexander Mackenzie, the hero of these important trips, was bred a clerk in the service of the North-west Company, and, before starting on his voyage as a geographical explorer, properly so called, had served a long apprenticeship at the advanced station of Fort Chipewyan, on the Athapescow Lake, whence he made several overland excursions in different directions.