80 Mackenzie’s Voyages

The rapid at the head of the Ramparts was passed easily, the canoes in fact were paddled all the way through. The weather was cloudy and the heat insupportable, but the next day they could not put on clothes enough to keep warm. At ten the Sans Sault Rapid was passed by tracking on the west side. The current was found to be much stronger than before; the river had in fact fallen five feet in the interval. Since they had begun the ascent they had consumed only three days’ of their original provisions, and on August the thirty-first they had recourse to their corn rations again.

English Chief was in an irritated state, because of jealousy occasioned by the attentions of one of his young men to one of his wives, and his moroseness was no doubt aggravated by a disinclination to winter in the country in pursuit of a mythical river somewhere in the west. “I now found my interpreter very unwilling to ask such questions as were dictated to him, from the apprehension, I imagined, that I might obtain such intelligence as would prevent him from seeing Athabasca this season.”’

“On the night of Saturday, August the first, it was sufficiently dark for the first time since leaving Athabasca to render the stars visible.” The speed of the tracking may be gathered from Mackenzie’s statement that he walked with the Indians, as they went faster than the canoes. On arriving at Bear Lake River the camp was found to be deserted, and they continued walking till five in the afternoon, when they discovered several smokes along shore. “We quickened our pace, but in our progress experienced a very sulphurous smell, and at length discovered that the whole bank was on fire for a considerable distance. It proved to be a coal mine. The beach was covered with coals and English Chief gathered some of the softest he could find as a black