OF THE POLAR SEA 



149 



Bay Company, all of whom kindly gave very satisfactory answers to 

 a series of questions which we had drawn up for the occasion, and 



promised all the aid in their power. 



Furnished with the information thus obtained, we proceeded to 

 make some arrangements respecting the obtaining of men, and the 

 stores we should require for their equipment, as well as for presents 

 for the Indians ; and on the following day a requisition was made 

 on the Companies for eight men each, and whatever useful stores 

 they could supply. We learnt with regret, that, in consequence of 

 the recent lavish expenditure of their goods in support of the oppo- 

 sition, their supply to us would, of necessity, be very limited. The 

 men, too, were backward in offering their services, especially those of 

 the Hudson's Bay Company, who demanded a much higher rate of 

 wages than I considered it would be proper to grant. 



June 3. — Mr. Smith, a partner of the North- West Company, ar- 

 rived from the Great Slave Lake, and was the bearer of the very 

 gratifying intelligence that the principal Chief of the Copper Indians 

 had received the communication of our arrival with joy, and given 

 all the intelligence he possessed respecting the route to the sea-coast 

 by the Copper-Mine Kiver ; and that he and a party of his men, at 

 the instance of Mr. Wentzel, a clerk of the North-West Company, 

 whom they wished might go along with them, had engaged to accom- 

 pany the Expedition as guides and hunters. They were to await 

 our arrival at Fort Providence, on the north side of the Slave Lake. 

 Their information coincided with that given by Beaulieu. They 

 had no doubt of our being able to obtain the means of subsistence 



travelling to the coast. This agreeable intelligence had a happy 



effect upon the minds of the Canadian voyagers, many of their fears 

 being removed : several of them seemed now disposed to volunteer ; 

 indeed, on the same evening, two men from the North-West Com- 

 pany offered themselves and were accepted. 



June 5.— This day Mr. Back and I went over to Fort Wedder- 



