BACK'S JOURNEY TO FORT CHIPPEWYAN 151 



voyageurs and of ammunition for the Indians, had so 

 poor an outlook that it became necessary to accept 

 Back's proposal to return to the forts and bring on 

 supplies which had not been forwarded as promised ; 

 the failure being due to the journey, unlike the 

 successful ventures of Hearne and Mackenzie, being 

 pushed on regardless of climatal conditions, and, in 

 some degree, to the rivalry between the two fur com- 

 panies which were amalgamated while the expedition 

 was in progress. 



Back set out accompanied by Wentzel and two 

 Canadians and two Indians and their wives, crossing 

 lakes frozen just hard enough to bear them, going wide 

 circuits to avoid those which were open, amid mist and 

 fog and storm, over rugged, bare country, through 

 dense woods and snow-covered swamps, rafting across 

 a river with pine branches for paddles, until Fort 

 Providence was reached. From here he sent back 

 Belanger with letters and a hundred bullets he pro- 

 cured on loan. Belanger arrived at Fort Enterprise 

 on the 23rd of October alone ; he had walked con- 

 stantly for the last six-and-thirty hours through a 

 storm, his locks were matted with snow, and he was 

 encrusted with ice from head to foot, so that he was 

 scarcely recognised when he slipped in through the 

 doorway. 



At Fort Providence Back had to wait until the 

 Great Slave Lake was frozen over. On the 18th of 

 November he observed two mock moons at equal 

 distances from the central one, the whole encircled by 

 a halo, the colour of the inner edge of the large circle 

 a light red inclining to a faint purple ; and two days 



