118 Mackenzie’s Voyages

_ receiving a second message by people of weight among them,
Mackenzie thought it prudent to comply, on the express
condition that they would remain peaceably at home.

The winter purchases of furs were loaded into half a dozen
canoes and dispatched to Chipewyan on 8 May, and Mac-
kenzie closed the business of the year for the company by
writing his public and private dispatches.

The following day the canoe was put into the water.
It was built so lightly “that two men could carry her on a
good road three or four miles without stopping. It was
twenty-five feet long inside, twenty-six inches deep, and
four feet nine inches wide. In this slender vessel we shipped
provisions, goods for presents, arms, ammunition, and bag-
gage to the weight of three thousand pounds and an equipage
of ten people, viz., Alexander Mackay, Joseph Landry,
Charles Ducette, Francois Beaulieux, Baptist Bisson,
Francois Courtois, and Jaques Beauchamp, with two
Indian hunters and interpreters. With these persons I
embarked at seven in the evening. My interpreter and
another whom [I left to take care of the fort, shed tears on
reflecting upon those dangers which we might encounter
in our expedition, while my own people offered up their
prayers that we might return in safety from it.”