4 Mackenzie’s Voyages

of tribes of Indians that scoured the plains in the wake
of vast herds of buffalo, Again in 1771 the company
dispatched Samuel Hearne to search for the Coppermine
River, which, after three attempts and long and weary
wanderings along the edge of the ‘“‘barren lands,” he finally
discovered, and explored to within sight of the Arctic sea.
As the result of his three journeys, a number of lakes and
rivers were added to the map, such as Clinton-Colden,
Great Slave, Artillery, Dubawnt, and Yath-Kyed Lakes,
and the Coppermine, Dubawnt, Kazan, and Seal Rivers, and
numerous others of lesser importance, -

Matthew Cocking, a factor of York House, was sent
inland in 1772 to the Saskatchewan to counteract the
encroachments of ‘Thomas Curry and James Finlay, two
adventurous “‘pedlars” from Montreal, who upon the
withdrawal of the French were the first to go into the
country west of the Great Lakes, They had in that year
intercepted a great part of the Fort York trade on its way
to the sea. Incidentally it might be mentioned that it was
not until 1774 that the Hudson’s Bay Company established
a post away from their home bases, when Cumberland
House was built by Samuel Hearne on the Lower Saskatche-
wan in a strategic position which commanded the whole of
the north-west interior.

It will be observed that the Hudson’s Bay Company
made no use of the knowledge of the country brought to
them by their explorers, until forced to action by the in-
dependent Montreal traders. Kellsey’s journey, if it was
ever made, and some authorities doubt it, was presented with
such a lack of definiteness as to be valueless so far as any
geographical information contained in it was concerned.
Anthony Hendry’s story of his journey along one of the

1 See note at end of chapter.