June 20, 1793. Day 43.
“The morning was foggy, and at half past four we proceeded...the fog was so thick, that we could not see the length of our canoe, which rendered our progress dangerous...we perceived two red deer at the very edge of the water; we killed one of them and wounded the other...They are not so large as the elk of the Peace River, but are the real red deer, which I never saw in the North…we now got the venison onboard, and continued our voyage…”
“...when we landed at a deserted house, which was the only Indian habitation of this kind that I had seen on this side of Mechilimakina (Lake Huron). It was about thirty feet long and twenty wide, with three doors, three feet high by one foot and a half in breadth...There were also three fireplaces, at equal distances from each other; and the beds were on either side of them...The roof was supported by a ridge pole, resting on two upright forks of about ten feet high…” He has come across ancient native fishing and hunting sites and habitations, but no one is home.
“...a large machine...of a cylindrical form, fifteen feet long, and four and a half feet in diameter; one end was square, like the head of a cask, and an (sic) conical was fixed inwards to the other end...at the extremity of which was an opening of about seven inches in diameter. This machine was certainly contrived to set in the river, to catch large fish…It was made of long pieces of split wood, rounded to the size of a small finger…” I would certainly like to see a picture of this wonderful fish catching machine.
It’s too bad he never got to see the inhabitants of the “deserted house” on this day. They might have saved him some valuable time and energy by telling him that he was actually near the entrance to the Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail, the historic route which he will later need to take, in order to reach the Ocean. Ancestors of the Ulkatcho, Lhoosk’uz Dené, Nazko, Red Bluff and Nuxalk band members developed and used this trail system thousands of years before Mackenzie arrived in their territory.
“Our canoe was now become so crazy that it was a matter of absolute necessity to construct another; we landed at eight (a.m) with the hope of procuring it (birch-bark)...at twelve they returned with a sufficient quantity to make the bottom of a canoe of five fathom in length...At noon I had an observation, which gave me 53.17.28 North latitude. At this latitude, the Blackwater River joins the Fraser. He continues on downstream.
“Where the cliffs of white and red clay appeared like the ruins of ancient castles...we landed in a storm of rain and thunder...” The white and red “clay” riverbanks that he saw, are on the left side of the river while going downstream through the present day site of Quesnel, B.C. The camp of this day I reckon was on a point of land or an island, about two miles upstream from the present day walking bridge in downtown Quesnel.
Picture 2. The colours of the local formations can easily be seen in the weathered formations at Pinnacles Provincial Park, just outside Quesnel, B.C.
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