Ancient Mariner by Ken McGoogan

Author:Ken McGoogan [Ken McGoogan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443400176
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2024-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

ON DECEMBER 24, 1771, Samuel Hearne became the first European to see Great Slave Lake, the fifth largest lake in North America, tenth largest in the world. Cold and deep, it remains frozen for eight months of each year, and it was frozen when Hearne arrived. Seeing the trees around the lake and on the low-lying islands through which he walked—mostly pine, but also tall poplars and birches—Hearne felt moved to rough out a sketch of the scene, a drawing that, turned into an engraving, would testify to his artistic talents: A Winter View in the Athapuscow Lake.

Camped on the northern edge of the lake, southeast of the present-day city of Yellowknife, the travellers found deer and plenty of fish: pike, trout, perch, barble, tittameg, and methy. From the ice they pulled the largest trout and pike that Hearne had ever seen, including some that weighed thirty-five to forty pounds. On the islands dotting the lake, the native people discovered countless beaver. The days had grown short, but the brightness of the aurora borealis, the so-called northern lights, allowed them to hunt beaver at any time, “for it was frequently so light all night, that I could see to read a very small print.”

What was Hearne reading? He does not say. But subsequent third-person testimony, as well as the scientific and humanist attitudes he reveals throughout his career, suggest a likely candidate: Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary, originally published seven years before. This much is certain: at Great Slave Lake, the explorer’s watch, borrowed from Moses Norton, ran out of time. Since breaking his quadrant, Hearne had been using this rudimentary timepiece to estimate distances, especially in foggy weather or worse, when he could not see the sun. He would employ his compass—also faulty, though he did not realize it—to determine direction. Then he would establish distance by multiplying approximate pace by duration: march three miles an hour for four hours and you cover twelve miles.

Now, deprived not only of his quadrant but of any means at all of accurately estimating distance, Hearne crossed Great Slave Lake and carried on, roughing out his map as best he could. Arriving on the south side of the lake, Hearne found fine, level country that contrasted sharply with the rough, rocky hills to the north. He described the spot clearly enough that more than a century later, geographer Charles Camsell would determine that the party had crossed the lake south of what is now the Taltson River.

Here, Hearne saw numerous moose and buffalo. In A Journey to the Northern Ocean, he would include long descriptions of both. His word-pictures of the latter, the wood bison, were the first ever written:

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