OF THE POLAR SEA. 



357 



vision made at Fort Enterprise, and received a renewed assurance 

 of their attending to that point. They were also desired to put as 

 much meat as they could en cache on the banks of the Copper-Mine 

 River on their return. We then furnished them with as much am- 

 munition as we could spare, and they took their departure, promising 

 to wait three days for Mr. Wentzel at the Copper Mountains. We 

 afterwards learned that their fears did not permit them to do so, 

 and that Mr. Wentzel did not rejoin them until they were a day's 

 march to the southward of the mountains. 



We embarked at five A.M. and proceeded towards the sea, which 

 is about nine miles distant from the Bloody Fall. After passing a few 

 rapids, the river became wider, and more navigable for canoes, 

 flowing between banks of alluvial sand. We encamped at ten on 

 the western bank at its junction with the sea. The river is here 

 about a mile wide, but very shallow, being barred nearly across by 

 sand-banks, which run out from the main land on each side to a 

 low alluvial island that lies in the centre, and forms two channels ; 

 of these the westermost only is navigable even for canoes, the other 

 being obstructed by a stony bar. The islands to seaward are high 

 and numerous, and fill the horizon in many points of the compass ; 

 the only open space, seen from an eminence near the encamp- 

 ment, being from N.bE. to N.E.bN. Towards the east the land 

 was like a chain of islands, the ice surrounded the islands apparently 

 in a compact body, leaving a channel between its edge and the 

 main of about three miles. The water in this channel was of a clear 

 green colour, and decidedly salt. Mr. Hearne could have only tasted 

 it at the mouth of the river, when he pronounced it to be merely 

 brackish. A rise and fall of four inches in the water was observed. 

 The shore is strewed with a considerable quantity of drift timber, 

 which is principally of the wood of the populus balsamifera, but none 

 of it of great size. We also picked up some decayed wood far 

 out of the reach of the water. A few stunted willows were growing 



