BACK'S LAND EXPEDITION. 219 



with the icinerated tinge which overspread vast tracts 

 of country where once the dense forests had been con- 

 sumed by fire." 



The party arrived at Fort Chipewyan the 29th of 

 July ; at Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake, the 8th 

 of August. Here, having obtained all possible informa- 

 tion from the Indians relative to the course of the 

 northern rivers of which he was in search, he divided 

 Ids men into two parties, five being left as an escort for 

 Mr. McLeod, and four being appointed to accompany 

 himself in search of the Thlew-ee-choh or Great Fish 

 River, since named after Back himself. 



On the 19th of August, Back and his men began the 

 ascent of the Hoar Frost River. Its course was a series 

 of the most fearful cascades and rapids. Almost im- 

 pervious woods of stunted firs, bogs, and swamps, 

 occasioned great trouble to the party. They arrived, at 

 length, in an open space, where the scene was one of 

 barrenness and desolation : crag was piled upon crag 

 to the height of two thousand feet from the base, and 

 the course of the river here, in a state of contraction, 

 was marked by an uninterrupted line of foam. 



Rapid now succeeded rapid ; scarcely had the party 

 surmounted one fall than another presented itself, rising 

 like an amphitheatre before them to the height of fifty 

 feet. They, however, gained at length the ascent of 

 this turbulent and unfriendly river, the romantic beauty 

 and wild scenery of which were very remarkable ; and, 

 after passing successively a series of portages, rapids, 

 falls, lakes, and rivers, on the 27th Back observed from 

 the summit of a high hill a very large lake, full of deep 

 bays and islands, and which has been named Aylmei 

 Lake, after the Governor-General of Canada at that 

 oime. The boat was sent out, with three men, to search 

 for the lake, or outlet of the river ; which they discov- 



