Tue Younc Fur-TRApER 25

light canoe with eight men, but he had to
make a cache of his equipment and to send
the rest of his men back on foot. He had still
two hundred miles to cover down the Clear-
water and Athabaska Rivers before he reached
the headquarters of the department, a fort
which Pond had built, some years before,
forty miles above Lake Athabaska. After
eight days of dangerous travel through float-
ing ice, he finally reached his destination.
During the winter he had apparently
little trouble with Pond; they controlled the
trade together, and parted on good terms
when Pond left the country, never to return,
in 1788. Pond had pushed his trading posts
far to the north to Great Slave Lake, and to
the west up the Peace River. At first Macken-
zie thought of drawing in these posts, and
adopting the policy of persuading the Indians
to come to him, instead of sending to find
them on their own grounds; this plan, however
proved ineffective and was soon reversed.
The winter of 1787-8 he spent in the ordinary
routine of the fur-trader, varied by a journey
to Ile A La Crosse to see his cousin, whom he

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