Peshew is the Cree word for Wild Cat or Lynx, and therefore Peshew Lake should be the Cat Lake of the map, and not Partridge Lake as stated in the note, which was evidently inserted by Dr. Douglas after the author's death. Peshew or Cat Lake has been identified by Sir George Back, and following him by Sir John Richardson, as Artillery Lake, but this identification is almost certainly wrong. The shores of the southern half of Artillery Lake are wooded, while the Cat Lake of Hearne was three days' journey at least north of the southern edge of the barren lands. I think, therefore, that the Peshew or Cat Lake of this map is the lake which was named by Sir George Back, Clinton-Colden Lake, and which is known by this name on our present maps. Besides, though this argument may have little weight, Hearne's map shows Partridge and Cat Lakes in approximately the same positions in latitude as Partridge Lake (Kasba) and Clinton-Colden Lake respectively. On the Cook and Mackenzie maps, Cat Lake is shown as Cheesadawd Lake, which is certainly the same word as Tchizè-ta, which Abbé Petitot says means Gîte-du-Lynx or Home-of-the-Wild-Cat Lake. Petitot, however, states that this is the name of the lake which is now known as Walmsley Lake. Rt. Rev. J. Lofthouse, Bishop of Keewatin, also informs me that the Chipewyan name for Wild Cat or Lynx Lake is Seeza-tua. Another complication is brought in by the Pennant map, which leaves Hearne's Cat Lake unnamed, and applies the name Peshew (Cat) Lake to the Lake known on Hearne's map as No-name Lake. This is much more nearly in the position of Walmsley Lake of the present maps. It is therefore difficult to avoid the conclusion that Hearne trusted to his memory for the names of these lakes, and that his memory failed him here. It is quite possible that after crossing Partridge Lake the Indians changed their course, for some reason or other, and turned west or south of west to Walmsley Lake, and that in the excitement of meeting Keelshies, just from Churchill with a two-quart keg of brandy, Hearne neglected to make note of the change in the course.
[59] Some of the women and children were thus left on the north side of Peshew, probably Clinton-Colden Lake, and in that case he is correct in saying that they were north of latitude 64°. At the town of Dawson, in the Yukon territory, which is in about the same latitude, there is sufficient light to work and travel at midnight between the 10th of May and the 1st of August.
[60] The map shows that he changed his course a little more to the west from the north shore of Clinton-Colden Lake, but actually he altered his course more than is there shown, and, while his map is reasonably correct thus far, it here becomes very inaccurate, and his distances are greatly exaggerated from this point to the mouth of the Coppermine River, during the time when the party was hurrying, with the lightest equipment possible, across the barren lands. The first lake crossed is said to have been Thoy-noy-kyed Lake, which is identified by Sir John Richardson as Tha-na-koi or Sand Hill Mount or Aylmer Lake. This lake is placed by Hearne about seventy-five miles from Cat (Clinton-Colden) Lake, while actually it is only a very few miles from it, forming, with it, but one body of water with a rapid between them. On the Cook map it is shown as having its discharge in a stream flowing south-westward into the east end of Great Slave Lake. If his Cat Lake should prove to be Walmsley Lake his distances would not be quite so inaccurate, for Walmsley and Aylmer Lakes are about fifty miles apart.
[61] Thoy-coy-lyned Lake has not been definitely located, and as there are very many lakes still unknown in that country, there is little use in making a guess at its position. Between it and Cogead Lake, the women of the party were all left behind at a point which he places in latitude 67° 30', but which must have been much farther south, as we shall see.
[62] One of these streams, just north of Thoy-coy-lyned Lake, is called on the map Thlewey-chuck, which means Great-fish River. This can hardly be the Great Fish River which rises in Sussex Lake and empties into the Arctic Ocean south of King William Island, but it may be a river mentioned by Petitot under the name L'uétchôr des tchègè, which is said by him to flow southward into Great Slave Lake. Or it may be some other stream known by the same name to the Chipewyan Indians.
[63] Cogead Lake.—This lake has been identified by Sir J. Richardson with Contwoy-to or Rum Lake of Franklin, the name which it bore in his day among the Copper Indians. Sir J. Franklin says of it: "The lake is called by them Contwoy-to or Rum Lake, in consequence of Mr. Hearne having here given the Indians who accompanied him some of that liquor." It lies in N. latitude 65° 50', a long way south of the Arctic circle, and therefore Hearne is in error in the next paragraph when he says that the sun "did not set all that night." Mr. Frank Russell visited this district in 1894, and he speaks of a large lake called by the Indians Ko-ă-kă-tcai-tĭ which he thinks must be the Rum Lake of Franklin, and consequently the Cogead Lake of Hearne ("Explorations in the Far North," by Frank Russell, 1898, p. 113).
[64] This place has also been identified by Sir John Franklin, who says: "We subsequently learned from the Copper Indians that the part at which we had crossed the (Anatessy) river was the Congecathawhachaga of Hearne, of which I had little idea at the time" ("First Journey," p. 405). Sir John Richardson ("Polar Regions," p. 126) makes the following statement with regard to the identification of this place:
"Travelling without incumbrance, the war-party, with Hearne in company, reached a river of some size called Congecawthawhachaga, on the 21st of June, and there they met a large body of the Copper Indians or Red Knives, one of whom, then a boy named Cascathry, was well known in 1820-21 to Sir John Franklin. This boy joined the war-party, and in his old age remembered the circumstances well. Hearne says that he ascertained with his Elton's quadrant the position of the ferry over the river to be 68° 46' north, and 118° 15' west of London. According to Sir John Franklin's observations it lies in 66° 14' N., long. 112° W."
[AG] See Postlethwayt on the article of Labour.
[AH] Notwithstanding this is the general character of the Southern Indian women, as they are called on the coasts of Hudson's Bay, and who are the same tribe with the Canadian Indians, I am happy to have it in my power to insert a few lines to the memory of one of them, whom I knew from her infancy, and who, I can truly affirm, was directly the reverse of the picture I have drawn.