Note 96 — {189} CHAP. VII.

The lake which he has now reached and which he calls Athapuscow Lake, Arathapescow Lake of the Cook and Pennant maps, is Great Slave Lake of the present maps, or the Slave Lake of Alexander Mackenzie, and not the lake now known as Athabasca Lake; and the point at which he reached it was somewhere east of the entrance to the North Arm. According to l'Abbé Petitot, the name Athabasca is a Cree word, referring to a reedy, grassy mouth of a river, and means "The Herbaceous Network." It does not appear to have been the original name of any particular place or lake, but was doubtless applied to this lake by Hearne on account of the great marsh which covers much of the delta of Slave River, and later it was applied to the lake now known as Athabasca Lake on account of the character of the delta at the mouth of Athabasca River, near which Peter Pond, a trader from Montreal, established in 1778 the first trading-post on the Mackenzie waters. His map of 1785 designates the lake Arabasca Lake. Petitot states (Royal Geographical Society, vol. v. N.S. 1883, p. 728) that Great Slave Lake is called "'Thu-tué,' or 'Lake of the Breasts,' by the Chipewyans, because its eastern part is terminated by two extensive bays, in outline fancifully resembling the female bosom."