Journals, стр. 5
.—We embarked at half past two in the morning, the weather being calm and foggy. Soon after our two young men joined us, whom we had not seen for two days; but during their absence they had killed four beavers and ten geese. After a course of one mile northwest by north, we observed an opening on the right, which we took for a fork of the river, but it proved to be a lake. We returned and steered southwest by west one mile and a half, west-southwest one mile and a half, west one mile, when we entered a very small branch of the river on the east bank; at the mouth of which I was informed there had been a carrying-place, owing to the quantity of drift wood, which then filled up the passage, but has since been carried away. The course of this river is meandering, and tends to the north, and in about ten miles falls into the Slave Lake, where we arrived at nine in the morning, when we found a great change in the weather, as it was become extremely cold. The lake was entirely covered with ice, and did not seem in any degree to have given way, but near the shore. The gnats and mosquitoes, which were very troublesome during our passage along the river, did not venture to accompany us to this colder region.
The banks of the river both above and below the rapids, were on both sides covered with the various kinds of wood common to this country, particularly the western side; the land being lower and consisting of a rich black soil. This artificial ground is carried down by the stream, and rests upon drift wood, so as to be eight or ten feet deep. The eastern banks are more elevated, and the soil a yellow clay mixed with gravel; so that the trees are neither so large or numerous as on the opposite shore. The ground was not thawed above fourteen inches in depth; notwithstanding the leaf was at its full growth; while along the lake there was scarcely any appearance of verdure.
The Indians informed me, that, at a very small distance from either bank of the river, are very extensive plains, frequented by large herds of buffaloes; while the moose and reindeer keep in the woods that border on it. The beavers, which are in great numbers, build their habitations in the small lakes and rivers, as, in the larger streams, the ice carries everything along with it, during the spring. The mud-banks in the river are covered with wild fowl; and we this morning killed two swans, ten geese, and one beaver, without suffering the delay of an hour; so that we might have soon filled the canoe with them, if that had been our object.
From the small river we steered east, along the inside of a long sandbank, covered with drift wood and enlivened by a few willows, which stretches on as far as the houses erected by Messrs. Grant and Le Roux, in 1786. We often ran aground, as for five successive miles the depth of the water nowhere exceeded three feet. There we found our people, who had arrived early in the morning, and whom we had not seen since the preceding Sunday. We now unloaded the canoe, and pitched our tents, as there was every appearance that we should be obliged to remain here for some time. I then ordered the nets to be set, as it was absolutely necessary that the stores provided for our future voyage should remain untouched. The fish we now caught were carp, poisson inconnu, white fish, and trout.
.—It rained during the greatest part of the preceding night, and the weather did not clear up till the afternoon of this day. This circumstance had very much weakened the ice, and I sent two of the Indians on an hunting party to a lake at the distance of nine miles, which, they informed me, was frequented by animals of various kinds. Our fishery this day was not so abundant as it had been on the preceding afternoon.
.—The weather was fine and clear with a strong westerly wind. The women were employed in gathering berries of different sorts, of which there are a great plenty; and I accompanied one of my people to a small adjacent island, where we picked up some dozens of swan, geese, and duck-eggs; we also killed a couple of ducks and a goose.
In the evening the Indians returned, without having seen any of the larger animals. A swan and a grey crane were the only fruits of their expedition. We caught no other fish but a small quantity of pike, which is too common to be a favourite food with the people of the country, The ice moved a little to the eastward.
.—The weather continued the same as yesterday, and the mosquitoes began to visit us in great numbers. The ice moved again in the same direction, and I ascended an hill, but could not perceive that it was broken in the middle of the lake. The hunters killed a goose and three ducks.
.—The weather was cloudy, and the wind changeable till about sunset, when it settled in the north. It drove back the ice which was now very much broken along the shore, and covered our nets. One of the hunters who had been at the Slave River the preceding evening, returned with three beavers and fourteen geese. He was accompanied by three families of Indians, who left Athabasca the same day as myself: they did not bring me any fowl; and they pleaded in excuse, that they had travelled with so much expedition, as to prevent them from procuring sufficient provisions for themselves. By a meridian line, I found the variation of