left England at the {95} end of
May. He was accompanied by Dr Richardson, a naval surgeon, afterwards
Sir John Richardson, and second only to Franklin himself as an explorer
and writer, Midshipman Back, later on to be Admiral Sir George Back,
Midshipman Hood, and one Hepburn, a stout-hearted sailor of the Royal
Navy. They sailed in the Hudson's Bay Company ship _Prince of Wales_,
and passed through the straits to York Factory. Thence by canoe they
went inland, up the Hayes river, through Lake Winnipeg and thence up
the Saskatchewan to Cumberland House, a Hudson's Bay fort established
by Samuel Hearne a few years after his famous journey. From York
Factory to Cumberland House was a journey of six hundred and ninety
miles. But this was only a beginning. During the winter of 1819-20
Franklin and his party made their way from Cumberland House to Fort
Chipewyan on Lake Athabaska, a distance, by the route traversed, of
eight hundred and fifty-seven miles. From this fort the party,
accompanied by Canadian voyageurs and Indian guides, made their way, in
the summer of 1820, to Fort Providence, a lonely post of the North-West
Company lying in latitude 62 deg. on the northern shore of the Great Slave
Lake.

{96}

These were the days of rivalry, and even open war, between the two
great fur companies, the Hudson's Bay and the North-West. The
Admiralty had commended Franklin's expeditions to the companies, who
were to be requisitioned for the necessary supplies. But the disorders
of the fur trade, and the demoralization of the Indians, owing to the
free distribution of ardent spirits by the rival companies, rendered it
impossible for the party to obtain adequate supplies and stores.
Undeterred by difficulties, Franklin set out from Fort Providence to
make his way to the Arctic seas at the mouth of the Coppermine. The
expedition reached the height of land between the Great Slave Lake and
the Coppermine, on the borders of the country which had been the scene
of Hearne's exploits. The northern forest is here reduced to a thin
growth of stunted pine and willow. It was now the end of August. The
brief northern summer was drawing to its close. It was impossible to
undertake the navigation of the Arctic coast till the ensuing summer.
Franklin and his party built some rude log shanties which they called
Fort Enterprise. Here, after having traversed over two thousand miles
in all from York Factory, they spent their second wi