In the very year in which Mackenzie returned from Great Britain, his great purpose to reach the Pacific Coast led him to make his preparations in the autumn, and on October 10th, 1792, to leave Fort Chipewyan and proceed as far up Peace River as the farthest settlement, and there winter, to be ready for an early start in the following spring. On his way he overtook Mr. Finlay, the younger, and called upon him in his camp near the fort, where he was to trade for the winter. Leaving Mr. Finlay "under several volleys of musketry," Mackenzie pushed on and reached the spot where the men had been despatched in the preceding spring to square timber for a house and cut palisades to fortify it. Here, where the Boncave joins the main branch of the Peace River, the fort was erected. His own house was not ready for occupation before December 23rd, and the body of the men went on after that date to erect five houses for which the material had been prepared. Troubles were plentiful; such as the quarrelsomeness of the natives, the killing of an Indian, and in the latter part of the winter severe cold. In May, Mackenzie despatched six canoes laden with furs for Fort Chipewyan. The somewhat cool reception that Mackenzie had received from the other partners at Grand Portage, when on a former occasion he had given an account of his voyage to the Arctic Sea, led him to be doubtful whether his confrères would fully approve the great expedition on which he was determined to go. He was comparatively a young man, and he knew that there were many of the traders jealous of him. Still, his determined character led him to hold to his plan, and his great energy urged him to make a name for himself. Mackenzie had found much difficulty in securing guides and voyageurs. The trip proposed was so difficult that the bravest shrank from it. The explorer had, however, great confidence in his colleague, Alexander Mackay, who had arrived at the Forks a few weeks before the departure. Mackay was a most experienced and shrewd man. After faithfully serving his Company, he entered, as we shall see, the Astor Fur Company in 1811, and was killed among the first in the fierce attack on the ship _Tonquin_, which was captured by the natives. Mackenzie's crew was the best he could obtain, and their names have become historic. There were besides Mackay, Joseph Landry and Charles Ducette, two voyageurs of the former expedition, Baptiste Bisson, François Courtois, Jacques Beauchamp, and François Beaulieu, the last of whom died so late as 1872, aged nearly one hundred years, probably the oldest man in the North-West at the time. Archbishop Taché gives an interesting account of Beaulieu's baptism at the age of seventy. Two Indians completed the party, one of whom had been so idle a lad, that he bore till his dying day the unenviable name of "Cancre"--the crab.