[BURPEE] YORK FACTORY TO THE BLACKFEET COUNTRY 323 
are rocky and very little woods. The land looks very barren. We have 
neither seen fish nor fowl yet, so we are scarce of provisions. 
3. Wednesday. Took my departure from Tickomeg-Reach, and 
paddled up a branch of Steel River 12 miles N.W.; passed much shoal 
water with rocky ground; obliged to carry our canoes over it. Passed 
thirty islands; on one of them grows a few birch trees. The banks of 
the River are low, on which grows Small Pines. Saw several Craw-fish 
and killed a duck. 
4. Thursday. Left Craw-fish Fall and paddled 22 miles West." 
Falls and Islands much the same as yesterday. Indians killed three 
Beaver; here are plenty of their houses. 
5. Friday. Took my departure from fortunate Fall and paddled 
25 miles W.b.So. & W.S.W.; passed much shoal water, and twenty-four 
islands; there is not a foot of water for a mile. We are greatly fatigued 
with carrying and hauling the Canoes, and not very well fed, but the 
Natives are continually Smoking, which I already experience allays 
hunger. 
6. Saturday. Took my departure from Pike-reach, and paddled 
26 miles W.b.S.; then we left Steel River and entered Attick-Sagohan, 
or Deer Lake?; killed a good many pike and three Ducks, which are 
very acceptable. 

1Hendry was now passing through Swampy lake. At the entrance to 
the lake there was, in Franklin’s day, a point bearing the significant name 
of the Dramstone. “We complied,’ he says, dryly, “ with the custom from 
whence it derives its name.” Here the boats’ crews were accustomed to 
celebrate the “termination of the laborious ascent of Hill River.” David 
‘Thompson, the famous astronomer of the North West Company, in a descrip- 
tion of the Hayes route, says of the portion of the river below Swampy lake: 
“This distance is but a succession of banks of sand, impetuous currents, 
broken rocks cropping up to water level; it requires twelve portages, inde- 
pendently of partial discharges and disembarkments at several places.’ Dr. 
Robert Bell, in his Report on the country between Lake Winnipeg and 
Hudson Bay, 1878, says that Swampy lake is a narrow strip of water ten 
miles long; that its name is derived from a point composed of peat on the 
northwest side, about half-way down. He adds that for nineteen miles 
below Swampy lake the river flows through a labyrinth of small islands. 
*Hendry’s distances rather fit in with the theory that his Attick- 
Sagohan was present Oxford lake, but the course below cannot be reconciled 
with his passage through the broad expanse of Knee lake. It seems more 
reasonable to conclude that this lake, the first mentioned on his journey, 
was Knee lake. From Swampy lake, which is nothing more than a com- 
paratively insignificant widening of the river, his course lay up Jack river. 
His distances here are exaggerated. Jack river is only about ten miles long, 
very much broken by rapids in the lower half of its course. Knee lake, 
according to Dr. Bell, has a total length of forty miles. Hendry traversed 
the lower portion, and then entered the river, which he is now about to 
describe. 
