46 Mackenzie’s Voyages

along the west side of the North Arm, the point is rounded
and the northern shore hugged as conveniently as possible.
Twice, however, the Red-Knife guide, who had not been
over the route for eight years, led them into deep bays.
English Chief was very much irritated with him and threat-
ened to murder him for undertaking to guide the party in
a course of which he was ignorant. The Red-Knife’s
instinct, however, was true, for he recollected, when
brought to a stand in the rushes at the head of the last deep
bay, that, on a former occasion, he had crossed overland
from the river they were seeking to this spot.

Embarking in the evening at four of Monday, 29 June,
just twenty days after they had entered the lake, they
doubled the point an hour later, and entered a shallow
passage, not more than six feet deep, on the north side of
a large island. The channel was full of fish and swarming
with water-fowl of many kinds. This was the outlet of Great
Slave Lake and the beginning of La Grande Rivitre which
they had been seeking so long.

Had Mackenzie realised that his journey to the frozen
seas from this point and back was a little matter of 2000
miles, would he have attempted it, after battling twenty
days on Great Slave Lake with ice and stormy weather?
A thousand miles downstream is not a difficult undertaking,
at eight miles an hour just a spurt of eight days or so, but
returning up-river by poling and towing the canoes Is a
job of great magnitude. But explorers and leaders, for-
tunately for their projects, are not always called upon to
perform the drudgery. The will to do resides in them, and
theirs is the work to translate that determination, by rewards,
inspiration and driving power, into successful accomplishment.