roject to explore the unknown country along the river mapped as the
Northwest. I have called this country unknown. It is true that in the
winter of 1838 John McLean, then the agent of the Hudson's Bay Company
at Fort Chimo, a post situated on the Koksoak River about twenty miles
above its mouth, passed through a portion of this country in the course
of a journey he made with dogs from his post to Northwest River Post.
His route was up the Koksoak and across country to the northern end of
Lake Michikamau, which he followed for some little distance. After
leaving the lake he again travelled eastward across country until at
length he came upon the "Northwest" or Nascaupee River at a point
probably not far above Grand Lake, from which it was easy travelling
over the ice to the post. The record left by him of the journey,
however, is very incomplete, and the exact route he took is by no means
certain.

Whatever route it was, he returned over it the same winter to Fort
Chimo. His sufferings during this trip were extreme. He and his party
had to eat their dogs to save themselves from starvation, and even then
they would surely all have perished had it not been for an Indian who
left the party fifty miles out of Chimo and fortunately had strength
enough to reach the post and send back relief. Later McLean made
several summer trips with a canoe up the George River from Ungava Bay
and down the Grand River to Hamilton Inlet; but never again did he
attempt to penetrate the country lying between Lake Michikamau and
Hamilton Inlet to the north of Grand River. The fact was that he found
his Grand River trips bad enough; the record he has left of them is a
story of a continuous struggle against heartbreaking hardships and of
narrow escapes from starvation.

It is asserted that a priest once crossed with the Indians from
Northwest River Post to Ungava Bay by the Nascaupee route; but the
result of my inquiries in Labrador convinced me that the priest in
question travelled by way of the Grand River, making it certain that
previous to Hubbard's expedition no white man other than McLean had
ever crossed the wilderness between Hamilton Inlet and Lake Michikamau
by any route other than the aforesaid Grand River. As has been pointed
out, McLean made but a very incomplete record of his journey that took
him through the country north of the Grand River, so that Hubbard's
project called for his plunge into a region where no footsteps wou