[Footnote 13:  These may have been small seals, but the sea otter (Enhydris lutris), now nearly extinct, was at one time found in numbers along the north-west American coast, from the Aleutian Islands and Alaska to Oregon.  Owing to persecution it now leads an almost entirely aquatic life, resting at times on the masses of floating seaweed.]

The rise and fall of the tide here was noted at fifteen feet in height.  Mr. Mackay collected a quantity of small mussels, which were boiled and eaten by the two Scotchmen, but not by the Canadians, who were quite unacquainted with sea shellfish.

Near Point Menzies, which had already been reached and named by Captain VANCOUVER in the spring of 1793 on his great voyage of discovery up the North American coast,[14] Alexander Mackenzie met a party of Amerindians, amongst whom was a man of insolent aspect, who, by means of signs and exclamations, made him understand that he and his friends had been fired at by a white man named Makuba (Vancouver), and that another white man, called “Bensins”, had struck him on the back with the flat of his sword.  This man more or less compelled Mackenzie to accompany him in the direction of his village, and on the way explained that “Makuba” had come there with his “big boat”.  Indeed, Mackenzie’s party perceived the remains of sheds or buildings on the shore where Europeans had probably made a camp, and here they established themselves, taking up a position of defence, because the attitude of the natives was rather threatening.

[Footnote 14:  GEORGE VANCOUVER (born about 1758, and probably descended from Dutch or Flemish ancestors) was one of the great pioneers of the British Empire.  His name is commemorated in Vancouver’s Island, an important portion of British Columbia.  Vancouver entered the navy when only thirteen, sailed with Captain Cook, and eventually was appointed to command a naval expedition sent out in 1791 to survey and take over from the Spaniards the north-west American coast north of Oregon.  It is remarkable that he should only have missed Mackenzie’s arrival at Point Menzies by about two months.  With what amazed rejoicing would these two heroic explorers have greeted one another had they met on this remote point of the Pacific coast, the one coming overland (so to speak) from Quebec and the Atlantic, and the other all the way by sea from Falmouth via the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii.]

At this camp there was a rock, and on this Alexander Mackenzie, mixing up some vermilion or red clay in melted grease, inscribed in large characters the following words:  “Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three”.  He then shifted his camp to a place three miles to the north-east, below a precipice from which issued streams of fine water as cold as ice.  And here he took careful observations with his astronomical and surveying instruments, in order to fix his position.  Fortunately the day was one of bright sunshine.  Otherwise, had there been a long persistence of cloud, he might have been obliged to leave the Pacific coast without being able to fix precisely the place where he had reached the sea.