There was no settlement around any of the company’s forts. The white men in the forts were largely from England and Scotland—gentlemen’s sons—and some were married to Indian girls and French half-breeds. Traders, other than those of the company, were at that date going in for furs, up as far as Great Slave lake. The Hudson’s Bay Company opposed them the best way they could, but had sold the country to the Canadian government. The Church of England, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, had missions throughout the region, and had had them for many years. Mr. Christie informed the committee that he did not think there would be any difficulty in navigating with suitable steamers the Mackenzie from its headwaters to Arctic ocean, because the year before his examination they had had the experience of a successful voyage of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s steamer from Fort Simpson down Mackenzie river nearly to its mouth, below Peel river. They could have gone through to Arctic sea if they had wished to do so, but having no pilot, and not knowing which of the channels they should take, they did not like to venture. It would have been a disastrous thing to the company if that steamer had met with any accident which would have prevented it from returning to Slave river that season. REACHED THE MACKENZIE FROM THE NORTH. As to outside communication via the north, Mr. Christie considered navigation by Hudson bay more certain than by Behring strait. During the search for Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition, however, Commander Pullen, of H.M.S. _Plover_, sailed from Honolulu for Behring strait and Mackenzie river. He went as far north as he possibly could get with the _Plover_. Then with Lieut. Hooper and some sailors he took to the boats and coasted along to the outlet of Mackenzie river. The party ascended that river with their boats to Fort Simpson the same fall—tracked their boats. The _Plover_ returned to Honolulu that same season. Donald McIvor, farmer, of Kildonan East, Manitoba, who had been sixteen years in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s service, and had been stationed in Mackenzie river district for over six years, communicated in writing to the committee a very interesting series of answers in response to a schedule of questions submitted by the committee. Witness explained that he considered he had fair knowledge of the district watered by Mackenzie, Athabaska and Slave rivers.