The Hudson's Bay Company—Samuel Hearne—His journey down the Coppermine River—The North West Fur Company—Sir Alexander Mackenzie—His journey down the Mackenzie—Sir John Franklin's first land journey—Fort Enterprise—Back's journey to Athabasca—The rapids of the Coppermine—Point Turnagain reached—The Wilberforce Falls—The terrible crossing of the Barren Grounds—Franklin's second land journey—Richardson's voyage to the eastward—Discovers Wollaston Land and Dolphin and Union Strait—Franklin's voyage to Return Reef—Back's journey down the Great Fish River—Discovers Montreal Island and King William Land—The Parry Falls—Sir George Simpson—Peter Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson—Exploration of the coast between Return Reef and Point Barrow—Simpson advances beyond Point Turnagain and discovers Victoria Land and Dease Strait—Their second voyage down the Coppermine—Discovery of Simpson Strait—Reach the Great Fish River—Their farthest east—Complete the survey of the northern coast between Boothia and Bering Strait—The first to find the North-West Passage. For two elks and two black beavers, paid yearly whensoever the King of England entered their estate, the Hudson's Bay Company were, in 1670, presented by Charles II with the northern part of the American mainland, thus ensuring an ample stretch of British territory along the passage to the South Sea. But the company soon ceased to be interested in any such passage, finding quite enough to do in developing the very profitable fur trade of their vast possessions. With the exception of John Knight's disastrous voyage to Marble Island in 1719, whatever attempts at discoveries there may have been were kept quiet for fear of aiding their rivals the French to the south, who were fostering the trade in the region of the great lakes; and not until the French dominion ended in 1763 and the Frenchmen's interests were passing to an opposition British company was any effort made to explore the coast of the Polar Sea. [Illustration: MAHLEMUT MAN] Owing to Indian reports of rich deposits of native copper and an abundance of fur-bearing animals, Samuel Hearne, once a midshipman in the Royal Navy, was sent by the company in 1769 to explore to the west and north. After a journey of thirteen hundred miles to the west he found the Coppermine River and the Great Slave Lake, and he traced the river to its mouth and emerged on the northern shore, being the first known white man to see the Arctic Ocean between the Boothia Peninsula and Bering Strait. Among other things he was instructed to discover a north-west passage, and he certainly did something definite towards it by showing there was open water so much further west; but, though he suspected it, he was unable to prove that the northernmost point of the continent was in the unexplored country between the Coppermine and Hudson Bay.