390 Arctic Eand Expedition. 
be transported to the interior in spite of such frightful obstruc- 
tions. His men were fatigued in the extreme, and he found it 
indispensably necessary to request that the officers of the Hud- 
son’s Bay Company would lighten his boat of the greater part 
of the luxuries and instruments. This accommodation was: rea- 
dily given ; and after the most laborious: efforts, the expedition 
reached the Rock depot, one of the Company’s pests, having 
devoted seven days to the exhausting toil. of working up) thirty 
miles of their journey. Upon arriving at.the depot, the expedi- 
tion were treated with great hospitality by Mr. Bunn, the officer 
in charge, who entertained them with the tittimeg, a fish which 
they admitted was the most delicious they had ever tasted, and 
which was caught in God’s Lake (an immense piece of water, so “ 
named from the abundance and excellence of its inhabitants). 
Mr. Hood, who is one of the draftsmen of the expedition, took’ 
a sketch of the Rock Fall and the Post, which presented one: of 
the most beautiful objects in these desolate regions, and intro- 
duced a distant view of a wigwam (an Indian tent). with its in- 
mates. Five days after the expedition left the Rock depot, : 
they reached another post, having encountered numberless dif- 
ficulties .similar to those which have been described. There 
was, however, some relief to the painful sameness of the journey, 
in several beautiful lakes through which they had to pass.' At 
Oxford House post, which was reached four days subsequently, 
they were provided with pimmzkin, the celebrated winter food of 
the country, made of dried deer or buffalo flesh pounded and 
mixed with a large quantity of the fat of the animal. This food » 
is substituted for the luxuries, in winter, is the mast portable of 
all victuals, and satisfies the most craving hunger in a very short 
time.. The officers of the expedition were not a little surprised 
at the difficulty of cutting their meat, but they soon reconciled 
themselves to the long-established practice of chopping it with 
a hatchet. During the summer, ducks, geese, partridges, &c. 
are to be had in the greatest abundance; but the frost soon drives 
all these delicacies out of the reach of the active Indian, and 
pimmikin becomes the only resource of the traveller, The next 
post at which they arrived was Norway House; upon leaving 
which they entered upon Lake Winnipic, at the further side of 
. which they had to encounter the grand rapid, extending nearly: 
three miles, and abounding in obstructions quite insurmountable, 
Here they were obliged to drag their boats on shore, and carry 
them over the land, or, to use the technical language, “launch 
them over the portage.’’ The woods along the banks were all in 
a blaze, it being the custom of the natives, as well as of the traders, 
to set fire to the trees around the up-putting places, for the 
double purpose of keeping off the cold and the wolves, whose 
howling 
