110 Thirty Years 



sacre committed by the Indians on the Esquimaux. 

 They pointed out another lake to the southward of 

 the river, about three days' journey distant from it, 

 on which the chief proposed the next winter's estab- 

 lishment should be formed, as the rein-deer would pass 

 there in the autumn and spring. Its waters con- 

 tained fish, and there was a sufficiency of wood for 

 building as well as for the winter's consumption. 

 These were important considerations, and determined 

 me in pursuing the route they now proposed. They 

 could not inform us what time we should take in 

 reaching the lake, until they saw our manner of 

 traveling in the large canoes, but they supposed we 

 might be about twenty days, in which case I enter- 

 tained the hope that if we could then procure pro- 

 vision we should have time to descend the Copper- 

 Mine River for a considerable distance, if not to the 

 sea itself, and return to the lake before the winter 

 in. 

 It may here be proper to mention that it had been 

 my original plan to descend the Mackenzie's! River, 

 and to cross the Great Bear Lake, from the eastern 

 Bide of which, Boilean Informed me, there is a com- 

 munication with the Copper- Mine River by four small 

 and portages : but, under our present circum- 

 stances, this course could not be followed, because it 

 would remove us too far from the establishments, at 



