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North-Western America 9

Dauphin, and the Saskatchewan River, which they explored
as far up as the forks. ‘Their maps show Lake Winnipeg
receiving the waters of the Saskatchewan, and emptying
into Hudson Bay by way of the Nelson. Fort Bourbon was
built by them at the north end of Cedar Lake, a large expan-
sion of the Saskatchewan not far from its outlet, and Fort
Poskoia at the mouth of the Pasquia River. They also
erected Nipawi on the south side of the river about a hundred
miles above ‘The Pas, and another post referred to variously
as Fort St. Louis, des Prairies, or La Corne, about twelve
miles below the forks,

Vérendrye the elder died in 1749, and his forts were
turned over by an ungrateful government to Le Gardeur
de Saint Pierre, who was absolutely unfitted for frontier
administration. He selected Fort La Reine as his head-
quarters, whence he dispatched Chevalier de Niverville to
the Saskatchewan with orders to explore it and establish a
post three hundred leagues up its course. Niverville fell ill,
and was left behind at Fort Poskoia, but ten of his voyageurs
in two canoes ascended the south branch, and in 1751,
three years before Anthony Hendry’s journey to the Red
Deer River, established Fort La Jonquiére, which according
to Masson must have been near the present site of Calgary.

The capture of Canada, involving as it did a change of
proprietors, had its effect on the fur-trade, which almost at
once passed out of French control. In 1761, a year after
Montreal was taken, English traders and a few French
merchants sent goods to Lake Superior. In that year,
Alexander Henry, the elder, purchased goods at Albany,
and set out for Michilimackinac by the Ottawa route. As
he had no knowledge of the Indian trade, or of the wilder-
ness, but was actuated by a sportsman’s desire to thread the
wilds and perhaps pick up a fortune, he relied upon an old