]
Besides Mackenzie's, another name, renowned in the tragic annals of
science, is inseparably connected with this region, viz., that of
Franklin, who has already been incidentally referred to. Others
recur to one, but these two great names are engrained, so to
speak, in the North, and cannot be lightly passed over in any
descriptive work. The two explorers were friends, or, at any rate,
acquaintances; and, before leaving England, Franklin had a long
conversation in London with Mackenzie, who died shortly afterwards.
The record of his "Journey to the Shores of the Polar Ocean,"
accompanied by Doctor Richardson and Midshipmen Back and Hood, in
the years 1819-20-21 and '22, practically began at York Factory in
August of the former year. The rival companies were still at war,
and in making the portage at the Grand Rapids of the Saskatchewan,
with a party of Hudson's Bay Company traders, "they advanced," he
says, "armed, and with great caution." When he returned on the 14th
July, 1822, to York, the warring companies had united, and he and
his friends were met there by Governor Simpson, Mr. McTavish, and
all the united partners, after a voyage by water and land of over
5,500 miles. Franklin spent part of the winter at Cumberland post,
which had been founded to counteract the rivalry of Montreal.
"Before that time," he says, "the natives took their furs to
Hudson's Bay, or sold to the French Canadian traders, who," he adds,
"visited this part of the country as early as 1697.
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