CHAPTER VI
THE GREAT JOURNEY
(1). To the Forks of the Peace River

ACKENZIE’S first objective was a fork

of the Peace River, of which he had
heard from an old Indian who had been on a
war-party through the mountains. He was
informed that he should find, if he went up
the southern branch, “a carrying-place of
about a day’s march for a young man” to a
river flowing to the west. To reach the fork
he had to go upstream for nearly two hundred
and fifty miles. The Peace River was unknown -
to white men above his wintering place, and
during this part of its course it actually breaks
through the main chain of the Rockies by
Peace River Pass. He had heard the usual
Indian tales of impassable rapids, huge water-
falls, and enormous cliffs, and he had, as usual,
discounted the stories; but he was to find that
he had been told little more than the truth.
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