There were also temporal as well as spiritual leadings. The adventurous fur-traders pushed further and further into the primæval wilderness and established forts as centres of supplies and as definite places for their barter with the Indians. Two separate and important companies entered on this quest, the famous Hudson's Bay Company and the North-West Fur Company. The outposts that each of these energetic associations established were like lighted torches into the darkness; even this untrodden wilderness began to respond to the first conquest of humanity. Myths and traditions also led on. There were rumours in the air, whisperings of voices on the wind, that some vast and unknown sea lay between the western coast and Japan. The Pacific Ocean was known, but these nebulous intimations pointed to a body of water never yet discovered. In 1731 the Sieur De la Verendrye, as gallant a gentleman as ever sought his fortune in the new world, started gaily from Montreal upon the quest for this great sea. With his company he took the route up the {299} Red River to its junction with the Assiniboine, making camp at Fort Rouge, the site of the present city of Winnipeg. Rumours still haunted the air of "mighty waters beyond the mountains," and over the infinite and trackless expanse of prairie they still further extended the march, but the formidable foothills of the Rocky Mountains proved too great a barrier, and it was due to the persistence, and probably, too, also to the greater physical vigour of a young fur-trader, Alexander Mackenzie, of the North-West Company, that the mysteries of the mountain ranges were penetrated, the foothills crossed, and the river traced that now bears his name. These two fur-trading companies became important factors in the development of the North-West. There was an intense rivalry between them, yet the very intensity of the discord and ill feeling became an added impetus in the rivalry of exploration. Many and diverse qualities are brought into play in the conquering of a wilderness. Evil and good are always sown together like the wheat and the tares, and even the evil has its part to play and its work to do. Of this fierce rivalry between the two was born that activity which created so large a number of trading-posts, and the energy that founded numerous settlements, many of which are now recognised as prosperous centres. In 1670, under the patronage of Prince Rupert, there was incorporated the "Honourable Company {300} of Merchant-Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay," which developed later into the Hudson's Bay Company.