150 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 



the long journey being mainly due to the rigours of 

 the climate at that time of year ; and thence, in July, 

 the party followed Mackenzie's route to Fort Provi- 

 dence on Great Slave Lake. Here they were joined 

 by Mr. Wentzel, of the North West Company. 



Starting for the north on the 2nd of August in four 

 canoes, they were joined next day at the mouth of the 

 Yellow Knife by a band of Indians, under a chief 

 named Akaitcho, in seventeen canoes. The Indians 

 were to guide the party and supply them with food by 

 hunting and fishing on the way, but game and fish 

 proved scarce and scarcer owing to the poorness of 

 the Indian marksmanship provisions were short and 

 portages long, so that the journey, which soon led 

 across a series of lakes, was pursued under toilsome 

 and hazardous conditions until it ended at Winter 

 Lake in 64 30', where it became necessary to winter 

 in a log house built by Wentzel, and named Fort 

 Enterprise. The site was delightful : a hillside amid 

 trees three feet in diameter at the roots, the view in 

 front bounded at a distance of three miles by round- 

 backed hills, to the eastward and westward the Winter 

 and Roundrock Lakes connected by the Winter River, 

 its banks clothed with pines and ornamented with a 

 profusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs. 



In a few weeks, however, the weather became so 

 severe that, according to Franklin, the trees froze to 

 their very centres and became as hard as stones, on 

 which some of the axes were broken daily, until but 

 one was left. And though at first the reindeer appeared 

 in numbers, their visits lasted only for a short time, 

 and the party, short of tobacco for the Canadian 



