122 Mackenzie’s Voyages

describes as an excellent spot for a fort, or factory, as there was
plenty of wood, and every reason to believe that the country
abounded in beaver. “As for the other animals they are in
evident abundance, as in every direction, the elk and the
buffalo are seen in possession of the hills and plains. The
land above the spot where we encamped spreads into an
extensive plain, and stretches on to a very high ridge, which
in some parts presents a face of rock but is principally covered
with verdure, and varied with the poplar and white birch
tree. ‘The country is so crowded with animals as to have the
appearance in some places of a stall-yard, from the state of
the ground, and the quantity of dung which is scattered over
it. The soil is black and light. We this day saw two grisly
and hideous bears.”

At two on the afternoon of Friday, 17 May, eight days
after the commencement of the voyage, “the Rocky Moun-
tains appeared in sight with their summits covered with
snow, bearing south-west by south. “They formed a very
agreeable object to every person in the canoe, as we attained
the view of them much sooner than we expected.”

Mackenzie was still in the Peace River Block a few miles
below Hudson’s Hope. The river trough at this point varies
in height up to a hundred feet and more, and it is impossible
usually to get a view of the prairie-level. Mackenzie was
accustomed to the low elevations of the plains, so that a
mountain of two thousand feet looked bigger to him than
it would to one used to the sight of great ranges. What he
really saw was the first ridge of the foothills west of Hudson’s
Hope now known as Bull’s Head Mountain. He was still
over eighty miles in a direct line from the main range, and
probably more than a hundred by the river. As far north as
the fifty-sixth parallel the Rockies have lost more than half
their height, and they continue to diminish northward, Mount