e went farther
north to Cedar Lake, near the mouth of the Saskatchewan river, and
there built another fort. The purpose was to intercept the trade of
the Indians with the English on Hudson Bay. For over half a century
the Indians of this region had taken their furs down the rivers leading
from Lake Winnipeg to the trading-posts of the Hudson's Bay Company on
the shores of the Bay, but now the French intended to offer them a
market nearer home and divert to themselves this profitable trade. The
first of their new forts was named Fort Dauphin, and the one on Cedar
Lake was called Fort Bourbon.

{93}

Having built Fort Bourbon, Francois La Verendrye had ascended the
Saskatchewan river as far as the Forks, where the north and south
branches of that great river join. Here he met a number of Crees, whom
he questioned as to the source of the Saskatchewan. They told him that
it came from a great distance, rising among lofty mountains far to the
west, and that beyond those mountains they knew of a great lake, as
they called it, the water of which was not good to drink. The
mountains were of course the Rocky Mountains, and the waters of the
great lake which the Crees spoke of were the salt waters of the Pacific
ocean. Francois La Verendrye had continued his work of building forts.
Shortly after building Fort Bourbon, he built Fort Paskoyac, on the
Saskatchewan, at a place now known as the Pas, between Cedar Lake and
the Forks. It is interesting to know that a railway has just been
completed to this place, and that it is to be continued from there to
the shores of Hudson Bay. How this modern change would have startled
the old fur-traders! Even if they could have dreamed of anything so
wonderful as a railway, we can imagine their ridicule of the idea that
some day men should travel from the East to the far-off {94} shores of
the Saskatchewan in two or three days, a trip which cost them months of
wearisome paddling.

In carrying on his work in the West, La Verendrye had to face
difficulties even greater than those caused by the hard life in the
wilderness. His base of supplies was in danger. He had many enemies
in Canada, who took advantage of his absence in the West to prejudice
the governor against him. They even sent false reports to the king of
France, saying that he was spending his time, not in searching for a
way to the Western Sea, but in making money out of the fur trade. This
was not true. Not only was h