THe REeTuRN AND A Fresn Start 65

reached the entrance to Great Slave Lake on
August 22.

Their slow progress had one advantage:
Mackenzie was able to observe the banks of
the river carefully. On July 24 he found
“pieces of Petrolium, which bears a resem-
blance to yellow wax”; oil was discovered a
few years ago not far from this spot. On
August I he notes that the night was dark
enough for stars to be visible for the first time
since they had left Chipewyan. On August
2, near the mouth of Great Bear River, he
noticed some smoke and went to it in hope of
finding Indians; he discovered instead that
“the whole bank was on fire for a very con-
siderable distance”—it was a seam of low-
grade coal which is still burning, nearly a
century and a half later. On August 10 he
made a determined attempt to climb one of
the ridges of the Rockies, but after scrambling
through undergrowth for hours he was stopped
by a marsh in which he sank to his armpits,
and was forced to return.

All the way up he took every chance of
learning about the country from the natives.

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