North-Western America Il

House, since it commanded the whole of the interior. Hearne
left this place to become governor of Fort Prince of Wales,
and was the official who surrendered that post to La Pérouse
in 1782. Up to this time the Hudson’s Bay Company had
built only three posts away from tide-water. “These were
Henley House on Albany River, Split Lake House on
Nelson River, and Fort Nelson on Footprint River, all
close to the Bay. ;

Joseph Frobisher thus carried the frontier over to the
Churchill River in 1772, an important step forward, for this
route by way of Frog Portage, or Portage du Traite, opened
the door to the whole of Canada north of the 56th parallel,
and west of the Rockies.

Alexander Henry, the elder, had reached the west, for
with Cadotte he is recorded as passing up the east side of
Lake Winnipeg, in 1775, and being overtaken by Peter
Pond, and later by Joseph and Thomas Frobisher. ‘Travelling
together, the traders reached the mouth of the Pasquia River
on the lower Saskatchewan where there was a Cree settle-
ment of thirty families under the famous brigand, Chatique,
who, in his inimitable way, held up the traders after the
manner of Robin Hood or Claude Duval, exacting from them
a proportion of their rum and goods, The traders were glad
enough to pass on with their lives, no doubt recognising the
poetic justice of this forced tribute to a petty potentate.

Henry and the Frobishers with forty men and ten canoes
wintered at Amisk or Beaver Lake, while Pond went on
to Dauphin and Cadotte to Fort des Prairies.

A permanent fort on the Churchill was begun by Thomas
Frobisher on 12 April, 1776, and on 15 June he was joined
by Joseph Frobisher and Alexander Henry, who immediately
proceeded up the Churchill to look for a tribe of Indians
expected to be en route to Hudson Bay with their annual