the
last day of May. A month of travel over the barren grounds brought
them on the last day of June 1772 to the desolate but welcome
surroundings of Fort Prince of Wales. Hearne had been absent on his
last journey one year, six months, and twenty-three days. From his
first journey into the wilderness until his final return, there had
elapsed two years, seven months, and twenty-four days.

Hearne was not left without honour. The Hudson's Bay Company retained
him in their service at various factories, and three years after his
famous expedition they made him governor of Fort Prince of Wales.
During his service there he had the melancholy celebrity of
surrendering the great fort (unfortunately left without men enough to
defend it) to a French fleet under Admiral La Perouse. Among the
spoils of the captors was Hearne's manuscript journal, which the
generous victors returned on the sole condition that it should be
published as soon as possible. Hearne returned to England in 1787, and
was chiefly busied with revising and preparing his journal until his
death in 1792.

No better appreciation of his work has been written than the words with
which he concludes the account of his safe return after his years {69}
of wandering. 'Though my discoveries,' he writes, 'are not likely to
prove of any material advantage to the nation at large, or indeed to
the Hudson's Bay Company, yet I have the pleasure to think that I have
fully complied with the orders of my masters, and that it has put a
final end to all disputes concerning a North-West Passage through
Hudson's Bay.'

[1] Bag for flint and steel, tobacco, etc.

{70}

CHAPTER III

MACKENZIE DESCENDS THE GREAT RIVER OF THE NORTH

The next great landmark in the exploration of the Far North is the
famous voyage of Alexander Mackenzie down the river which bears his
name, and which he traced to its outlet into the Arctic ocean. This
was in 1789. By that time the Pacific coast of America and the coast
of Siberia over against it had already been explored. Even before
Hearne's journey the Danish navigator Bering, sailing in the employ of
the Russian government, had discovered the strait which separates Asia
from America, and which commemorates his name. Four years after
Hearne's return (1776) the famous navigator Captain Cook had explored
the whole range of the American coast to the north of what is now
British Columbia, had passed Bering Strait and had sailed