UP-STREAM BY CANOE TO CHIPEWYAN 301 



We had started on this tramp at two o'clock, and when 

 we had gone about four or five miles it was eight o'clock 

 at night, and, utterly exhausted, we threw down our blan- 

 kets in one of the miry swamps and persuaded ourselves 

 we were resting. 



We were off by daylight the next morning, and for five 

 miles more floundered through mud and ice, until at noon 

 we came out on Salt River, about a mile above where it 

 empties into Great Slave River. Here we found an en- 

 campment of Indians, and, as the river was open, I made 

 arrangements with a couple of them to take our packs by 

 canoe to Fort Smith, while we went on our twenty-five- 

 mile walk along the bank. 



For a while we again encountered muskeg, but after ten 

 or fifteen miles the walking became good, for the country 

 immediately surrounding Fort Smith is the highest in the 

 Northland. 



When I reached Fort Smith that night I found it in one 

 of its periods of starvation. Not a bite of anything was in 

 the Hudson's Bay Company store, and most of the fami- 

 lies gone to one of the small rivers to catch enough fish 

 for daily subsistence. I had expected to find the post in 

 such a condition, and had therefore taken enough dried 

 meat for myself and Indians from Resolution to last to 

 Chipewyan. " Me " was off hunting meat for children who 

 were crying from hunger, and the whole atmosphere of 

 Fort Smith was dismal and empty. 



When at Fort Smith, on my way north, I had considered 

 the probabilities of an early spring (though this one beat the 

 record by two weeks) and of my delayed return, and had 

 not expected to be able to travel on the ice farther south 

 than Fort Smith on my homeward journey. Therefore I 

 had commissioned " Susie " Beaulieu to build me a skiff, 

 because I knew the ice and timber running in the big river 



