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Many small lakes and rivers, now fast frozen, were traversed, but the whole country is still so little known that Hearne's path can hardly be traced with certainty. By the middle of November the clumps of trees thickened into the northern edge of the great forest. The way now became easier. They had better shelter from the wind, and firewood was abundant.
As soon as he heard of Hearne's distress he furnished him with a good, warm suit of skins, and had the reindeer skins dressed for the Indian carriers who accompanied Hearne. In journeying together, Matonabi invited him to return once more, with himself as guide, to discover the copper mines.
Indeed, he attributed Hearne's previous failure to their absence. 'Women, he once told his English friend, 'were made for labour; one of them can carry or haul as much as two men can do; they pitch our tents, make and mend our clothing, and in fact there is no such thing as travelling in this country for any length of time without their assistance.
Undeterred by difficulties, Franklin set out from Fort Providence to make his way to the Arctic seas at the mouth of the Coppermine. The expedition reached the height of land between the Great Slave Lake and the Coppermine, on the borders of the country which had been the scene of Hearne's exploits. The northern forest is here reduced to a thin growth of stunted pine and willow.
On the 11th of January, as some of Hearne's companions were hunting, they saw the track of a strange snowshoe, which they followed, and at a considerable distance came to a little hut, where they discovered a young woman sitting alone. As they found that she understood their language, they brought her with them to the tents.
Lights, noises, and singing at night, clearly discerned from the castle, caused much terror to Lady Edgeworth, though her descendants affirm that they were fairies of the same genus as those who beset Sir John Falstaff at Hearne's oak, and intended to frighten her into leaving the place.
During the greater part of the journey, often for a stretch of a hundred miles at a time, the canoe is absolutely useless, or worse, since it must be carried. Here and there, however, for the crossing of the larger rivers, it is indispensable. Large numbers of Indians were assembling at Clowey Lake during Hearne's stay there, and were likewise engaged in building canoes.
Hearne's common-place books are an amusing source of information about Oxford society in the years of Queen Anne, and of the Hanoverian usurper. Tom Hearne was a Master of Arts of St. Edmund's Hall, and at one time Deputy-Librarian of the Bodleian. He lost this post because he would not take "the wicked oaths" required of him, but he did not therefore leave Oxford.
Even before Hearne's journey the Danish navigator Bering, sailing in the employ of the Russian government, had discovered the strait which separates Asia from America, and which commemorates his name.
Here he observed the rise and fall of the tide, and saw porpoises and sea otters. The claim of the discovery of the Frozen Ocean by a north-west route, to which Mr. M'Kenzie lays claim, has been questioned, as well as Mr. Hearne's claim.
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