He must have acquired a considerable education, even in botany and zoology.

He not only wrote well, and was a good surveyor for rough map making, but he had a considerable talent as a draughtsman.] Samuel Hearne started on the 6th of November, 1769, from Prince of Wales's Fort at the mouth of the Churchill River, on the north-west coast of Hudson Bay.

Presumably he and the two "common white men" who were with him travelled on snowshoes and hauled small sledges after them.

Travelling westward they passed over bleak hills with very little vegetation--"the barren grounds, where, in general, we thought ourselves well off if we could scrape together as many shrubs as would make a fire; but it was scarcely ever in our power to make any other defence against the weather than by digging a hole in the snow down to the moss, wrapping ourselves up in our clothing, and lying down in it, with our sledges set up edgeways to windward".

But the principal Indian guide that he engaged was so obviously determined to make the expedition a failure that Hearne returned to his base, Prince of Wales's Fort, and made a second start on the 23rd of February, 1770, this time taking care not to be accompanied by any other white men, and insisting that the Indians who accompanied him should be more carefully chosen.
It must be remembered that in all these early expeditions, French and English, the explorers relied for their food almost entirely on what could be obtained as they went along, in the way of venison, grouse, geese, fish, and wild fruits.