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Updated: July 18, 2025
The place was suffused with a soft radiance as though into it the far, bright stars were pouring all their rays, filling it as a cup with their pale flames. It was luminous as the Alaskan valleys when on white arctic nights they are lighted, the Athabascans believe, by the gleaming spears of hunting gods. The walls of the valley seemed to be drawn back into infinite distances.
The explorer halted before a fur-muffled form, six feet in its moccasins, erect as a mast pole, haughty as a king; and the gauntleted hand of the Indian chief went up to his forehead in sign of peace. It was Matonabbee, the ambassador of the Hudson's Bay Company to the Athabascans, now returning to Fort Prince of Wales, followed by a long line of slave women driving their dog sleighs.
That was the way Matonabbee had won the Athabascans for the Hudson's Bay Company. Officers of the garrison, bluff sea-captains, spinning yarns of iceberg and floe, soldiers and traders, made up the rest of the company. Among the white men was one eager face, that of Samuel Hearne, who was to explore the interior and now scanned the birch-bark drawings to learn the way to the "Far-off-Metal River."
With the Athabascans went Hearne, reaching Fort Prince of Wales on June 30, 1772, after eighteen months' absence. He had discovered Coppermine River, the Arctic Ocean, and the Athabasca country, a region in all as large as half European Russia. For his achievements Hearne received prompt promotion. Within a year of his return to the fort, Governor Norton, the Indian bully, fell deadly ill.
The Athabascans listened to the message of peace with a treacherous smile. At midnight assassins stole to his tent, overpowered his slave, and dragged the captive out. Leaping to his feet, Matonabbee shouted defiance, hurled his assailants aside like so many straws, pursued the raiders to their tents, single-handed released his slave, and marched out unscathed.
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