=Source.=--Samuel Hearne's _A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort in
Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean_. London, 1795.
After a sleep of five or six hours we once more set out, and walked
eighteen or nineteen miles to the South South East, when we arrived
at one of the copper mines, which lies, from the river's mouth
about South South East, distant about twenty-nine or thirty miles.
This mine, if it deserve that appellation, is no more than an
entire jumble of rocks and gravel, which has been rent many ways by
an earthquake. Through these ruins there runs a small river; but no
part of it, at the time I was there, was more than knee-deep.
The Indians who were the occasion of my undertaking this journey,
represented this mine to be so rich and valuable, that if a factory
were built at the river, a ship might be ballasted with the ore,
instead of stone; and that with the same ease and dispatch as is
done with stones at Churchill River. By their account the hills
were entirely composed of that metal, all in handy lumps, like a
heap of pebbles. But their account differed so much from the truth,
that I and almost all my companions expended near four hours in
search of some of this metal, with such poor success, that among
us all only one piece of any size could be found. This, however,
was remarkably good, and weighed above four pounds. I believe
the copper has formerly been in much greater plenty; for in many
places, both on the surface and in the cavities and crevices of the
rocks, the stones are much tinged with verdigris.
It may not be unworthy the notice of the curious, or undeserving a
place in my Journal, to remark that the Indians imagine that every
bit of copper they find resembles some object in nature; but, by
what I saw of the large piece, and some smaller ones which were
found by my companions, it requires a great share of invention to
make this out. I found that different people had different ideas
on the subject, for the large piece of copper above mentioned had
not been found long before it had twenty different names ... at
last it was generally allowed to resemble an Alpine hare couchant:
for my part, I must confess that I could not see it had the least
resemblance to any thing to which they compared it....
Before Churchill River was settled by the Hudson's Bay Company,
which was not more than fifty years previous to this journey being
undertaken, the Northern Indians had no other metal but copper
among them, except a small quantity of iron-work, which a party of
them who visited York Fort about the year 1713 or 1714 purchased;
and a few pieces of old iron found at Churchill River, which had
undoubtedly been left there by Captain Monk. This being the case,
numbers of them from all quarters used every summer to resort to
these hills in search of copper; of which they made hatchets,
ice-chisels, bayonets, knives, awls, arrow-heads, etc. The many
paths that had been beaten by the Indians on these occasions, and
which are yet, in many places, very perfect, especially on the dry
ridges and hills, is surprising; in the valleys and marshy grounds,
however, they are mostly grown over with herbage, so as not to be
discerned.
The Copper Indians set a great value on their native metal even
to this day; and prefer it to iron for almost every use except
that of a hatchet, a knife, and an awl; for these three necessary
implements copper makes but a very poor substitute.