WINTER TRAVEL 



97 



the bodions, 1 which made our progress slow and fatiguing. Five 

 miles offshore we found the lake free from bodions, and in 

 places swept clear of snow. The dogs slipped and floundered 

 as soon as all four of them were on the bare ice; we could not 

 help them, for our snow-shoes slipped so easily that it was 

 difficult to maintain our own equilibrium. The foregoer of the 

 packet team at last refused to cross the ice at all but circled 

 around on the irregular ridges of snow much to "Old John's" 

 disgust. Early in the day we passed Sulphur Point, where 

 small springs emit strong sulphurous odors. We encamped 

 that evening on one of the Burnt Islands, which we had diffi- 

 culty in reaching owing to the high and vertical wall of ice 

 that surrounded it. 



Early on the 15th of December we reach Resolution, where 

 I was a second time hospitably entertained by Mr. Mackinlay, 

 the clerk in charge. I then enjoyed a fortnight of much needed 

 rest. I had traveled over eight hundred miles, on my own 

 snow-shoes, in company with different parties of natives, each 

 of which had tried to "plant" me. The trip from Rae had been 

 a "hard" one. The dogs were nearly worn out, and unfortu- 

 nately there was no extra provision at the post for them. The 

 stock of supplies on hand was the smallest that there had been 

 at that season for years. Easterly winds — offshore — in Septem- 

 ber and October had made the fall fishery almost a failure. 

 No boat had been despatched to the east end of the lake, 

 where large quantities of dried meat and grease might have 

 been obtained from the caribou hunters. The stock of flour 

 was nearly exhausted and all other supplies for the clerk's 

 table had been lost by the wrecking of the boat containing 

 them in the Athabasca Rapids. The post was subsisting prin- 

 cipally on fresh lake trout, caught with hooks set through the 

 ice, from one to five miles out in the bay. I could buy these 

 for one M8 apiece but they were too heavy to carry for dog 

 feed, and unsuited for continuous use as food. The outlook 

 for the projected buffalo hunt was not bright. I could not in- 

 duce Little Francois, the Chippewyan hunter, whom I had 

 engaged in the autumn, to start until after the New-year's fes- 

 tin. There were no other men available, I had to await his 

 pleasure — and he knew it. 



1 Broken ice pushed up by a storm at the time of its setting fast in the fall. 



