THe ReTurn anv A Fresu Srart 77

therefore decided to go up the Peace River as
far as he could in the autumn of 1792, to spend
the winter there, and to continue in the spring
as soon as the ice went out. Remaining only
a few days at Chipewyan, he left the fort on
October 10, and made his way by the 13th to
Peace Point on Peace River, where the Crees
and the Beaver Indians had settled their dif-
ferences and given the riverits name. Since his
arrival in Athabaska trade had been opened
for some distance up the Peace, and the course
of the river had been already surveyed as far
as the first post upstream, which, though only
four years old, had already earned the name of
the Old Establishment. His detailed obser-
vations begin from this place. On the zoth,
at a new post under a trader named Finlay,
Mackenzie met for the first time some Indians
of the Peace River region. They had gathered
to secure their outfits for the winter’s hunt,
forty-two hunters and their families, and they
were “animated with the prospect of again
indulging themselves in the luxury of rum, of
which they had been deprived since the begin-

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