page_title: Samuel Hearne
section_title: Exploration
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel Hearne / Exploration
caption_attribution_description: Hudson's Bay Company - Exploration Western Interior / Expeditions of Hearne, Henday &amp; Kelsey &#160;&#160; Henry Kelsey 1690-92 &#160;&#160; Samuel Hearne 1770, 1770-72 &#160;&#160; Anthony Henday 1754-55
context_page_description: Samuel Hearne was an English explorer, fur-trader, author, and naturalist. He was the first European to make an overland excursion across northern Canada to the Arctic Ocean, actually Coronation Gulf, via the Coppermine River. In 1774, Hearne built Cumberland House for the Hudson's Bay Company, its first interior trading post and the first permanent settlement in present Saskatchewan.
context_section_description: The English on Hudson Bay had long known that the Indians to the northwest used native copper, as indicated by such words as Yellowknife. When, in 1768, a northern Indian (some say it was Matonabbee) brought lumps of copper to Churchill, the governor, Moses Norton, decided to send Hearne in search of a possible copper mine. The basic theme of Hearne's three journeys is the Englishmen's ignorance of the methods of travel through this very difficult country and their dependence on Indians who knew the land and how to live off of it.
  First Journey: Since there was no canoe route to the northwest, the plan was to go on foot over the frozen winter ground. Without canoes, they would have to carry as much food as possible and then live off the land. Hearne planned to join a group of northern Indians that had come to trade at Churchill and somehow induce them to lead him to the copper mine. He left Churchill on 6 November 1769 along with two company employees, two Cree hunters and a band of Chipewyans and went north across the Seal River, an east-west river north of Churchill. By 19 November their European provisions gave out and their hunters had found little game (Hearne had left too late in the season and the caribou had already left the Barren Grounds for the shelter of the forested country further south). They headed west and north, finding only a few ptarmigan, fish and three stray caribou. The Indians, who knew the country, had better sense than to risk starvation in this way and began deserting. When the last Indians left, Hearne and his European companions returned to the sheltered valley of the Seal River, where he was able to find venison, and reached Churchill on 11 December.
  Second Journey: Since he could not control the northern Indians, Hearne proposed to try again using 'home guards', that is, Cree who lived around the post and hunted in exchange for European supplies. He left Churchill on 23 February. Reaching the Seal River, he found good hunting and followed it west until he reached a large lake, probably Sethnanei Lake. Here he decided to wait for better weather and live by fishing. In April the fish began to give out. On 24 April a large body of Indians, mostly women, arrived from the south for the annual goose hunt. On 19 May the geese arrived and there was now plenty to eat. They headed north and east past Baralzone Lake. By June the geese had flown further north and they were again threatened with famine. At one point they killed three muskoxen and had to eat them raw because it was too wet to light a fire. They crossed the Kazan River above Yathkyed Lake where they found good hunting and fishing and then went west to Lake Dubawnt which is about 450 miles northwest of Churchill. On 14 August his quadrant was destroyed, which accounts for the inaccuracy of latitudes on the remainder to this and the next journey. At this point the sources become vague, but Hearne returned to Churchill in the autumn. On his return journey he met Matonabbee who was to be his guide on the next journey. Matonabbee may well have saved him from freezing or starving to death. Most of the land Hearne crossed on his second journey is very desolate and was not properly explored again until Joseph Tyrrell in 1893.
  Third Journey: Hearne contrived to travel as the only European with a group of Chipewyan guides led by Matonabbee. The group also included eight of Matonabbee's wives to act as beasts of burden in the sledge traces, camp servants, and cooks. This third expedition set out in December 1770, to reach the Coppermine River in summer, by which he could descend to the Arctic in canoes.
  Matonabbee kept a fast pace, so fast they reached the great caribou traverse before provisions dwindled and in time for the spring hunt. Here Northern Indian (Dene) hunters gathered to hunt the vast herds of caribou migrating north for the summer. A store of meat was laid up for Hearne's voyage and a band of "Yellowknife" Dene joined the expedition. Matonabbee ordered his women to wait for his return in the Athabasca country to the west.
  The Dene wer
caption: Map of Samuel Hearne's second and third expeditions (red)
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