82 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
say 7 Packtons'. Stop + hour to breakfast. Afterwards 1 do? to gum 
our canoe. Encamp at 7 p.m. A great deal of ice along the banks of 
the River. 
Sunday, 6th.—do do. Start + before 5 a.m. At 10 o’clock come 
up with Mr. McDougaË and 4 men from N. Caledonia* who have been 
following the ice these 9 days past from Jasper’s House. Remain here 
3 or 4 hours and proceed again 6 or 7 miles, the ice having given way so 
far. Mr. McDougal gets a bark canoe, left here by Mr. F. MeDonald® 
last fall, repaired to take down in place of a skin one which he brought 
from Jasper’s House. 
Monday, 7th.—Fine warm weather. Make an attempt to continue 
our journey butaresoonstopt. However after breakfast having observed 
that by making a short portage we should gain a clear channel we again 
embark and succeed. Afterwards having occasion to put ashore and 
speak to some Indians about a boat left somewhere hereabouts by Mr. 
F. McDonald last fall we are overtaken by an immense quantity of 
loose floating ice which detains us ashore above an hour till it is passed. 
We then make a fresh start and meet with no further impediment. As 
to the boat we find that it is a good distance above us in one of the 
channels blocked by ice when we passed which prevented us from 
seeing it. Arrive at Fort Assiniboine’ at 8 p.m. and learn that this Post 
has not provisions enough to furnish our men a meal—the want of which 
was one reason for my not delaying longer to endeavour to get down 
the Boat. 


* Pacton; French-Canadian word for ‘bundle,’ particularly one made up for 
portaging—with a carrying strap or ‘tump line.’ 
2 7.e. one ditto (hour). 
3 George McDougall; in charge of Fort Alexandria on Fraser river; left Stuart 
lake March 18, left Fort George on 24th, left Téte Jaune Cache, April 1 and reached 
Jasper House April 18; was at Fort Vermilion on Peace River in the summer of 1815; 
came from Fraser lake to Stuart lake, Feb. 28, 1819. 
* New Caledonia, the portion of present British Columbia, between 50° 30° N. 
and 57° N., approximately. 
5 Possibly “Finan or Finnan McDonald, clerk, North West Co.; was with 
Thompson at various places on the upper Saskatchewan, in the Rocky mountains 
and on headwaters of Columbia, 1806-12” (Coues, Henry and Thompson Journals 
I, 279). 
$ As fort Assiniboine was abandoned over a quarter century ago it is not shown 
on present day maps. It was situated on the Athabaska river 75 miles northwest 
of Edmonton and was at the north end of the main trail from Edmonton. In 1859, it 
consisted “merely of a few ruinous log huts on the left bank built on a beautiful 
level prairie several miles in extent and elevated 30 feet above the river’’ (Hector, 
Journals of Palliser Expedition). 
