Matonabbee biography of william

by Strother Roberts
History Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Number 55, June 2007

In March 1771, Matonabbee, an important leader among the Chipewyan Indians, found himself on the shores of Wholdaia Lake in what is now south-eastern Northwest Territories.

For the last four months, he had been escorting a young Englishman named Samuel Hearne, an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), across the barrens of Canada’s northern interior, searching for a copper mine that native rumours placed along the banks of a northward flowing river.

Hearne had made two prior attempts to seek out this “coppermine” river, and both had been utter failures. But crossing frozen Wholdaia Lake, Hearne found something besides the mineral wealth for which he sought. In this most unlikely spot, on the shores of a frozen lake among people who his