OF THE POLAR SEA. 287 
At three A. M. June 28th, we embarked in a 
thick fog occasioned by a fall of the temperature 
of the air ten degrees below that of the water. 
Having crossed Knee Lake, which is nine miles 
in length, and a portage at its western extremity, 
we entered Primeau Lake, with a strong and 
favourable wind, by the aid of which we. ran 
nineteen miles through it, and encamped at the 
river’s mouth. It is shaped like the barb of an 
arrow, with the point towards the north, and its 
greatest breadth is about four miles. 
thunder I ever heard. This weather continued 
during the 29th, and often compelled us to land, 
and turn the canoes up, to prevent them from 
filling. We passed one portage, and the con- 
fluence of a river, said to afford, by other rivers 
beyond a height of land, a shorter but more diffi- 
~ eult route to the Athabasca Lake than that which 
is generally pursued. | 
On the 28th we crossed the lest portage, and 
at ten A. M. entered the Isle 4 la Crosse Lake. 
Its long succession of woody points, both banks 
stretching towards the south, till their forms were 
~ lost in the haze of the horizon, was a grateful 
prospect to us, after our bewildered and inter- 
tupted voyage in the Missinippi. The gale 
