OF THE POLAR SEA. 



209 



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who generally bring such a quantity of rein-deer meat that the resi- 

 dents are enabled, out of their superabundance, to send annually 

 some provision to the fort at Moose-Deer Island. They also occa- 

 sionally procure moose and buffalo meat, but these animals are not 



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numerous on this side of the lake. Few furs are collected. Les 

 poissons inconnus, trout, pike, carp, and white fish are very plentiful, 

 and on these the residents principally subsist. Their great supply of 

 fish is procured in the latter part of September and the beginning of 

 October, but there are a few taken daily in the nets during the 

 winter. The surrounding country consists almost entirely of coarse 

 grained granite, frequently enclosing large masses of reddish felspar. 

 These rocks form hills which attain an elevation of three hundred or 

 four hundred feet, about a mile behind the house ; their surface is 

 generally naked, but in the valleys between them a few spruces, 

 aspens, and birches grow, together with a variety of shrubs and berry- 

 bearing plants. 



On the afternoon of the 2d of August we commenced our jour- 

 ney, having, in addition to our three canoes, a smaller one to 

 convey the women ; we were all in high spirits, being heartily glad 

 that the time had at length arrived when our course was to be di- 

 rected towards the Copper-Mine Kiver, and through a line of 

 country which had not been previously vi sited by any European. 

 We proceeded to the northward, along the eastern side of a deep 

 bay of the lake, passing through various channels, formed by an as- 

 semblage of rocky islands ; and, at sun-set, encamped on a projecting 

 point of the north main shore, eight miles from Fort Providence. 

 To the westward of this arm, or bay, of the lake, there is another 

 deep bay, that receives the waters of a river, which communicates 

 with Great Marten Lake, where the North- West Company had 

 once a post established. The eastern shores of the Great Slave Lake 

 are very imperfectly known : none of the traders have visited thejm 

 and the Indians give such loose and unsatisfactory accounts, that 



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