NORTHERN OCEAN 105 



bewildered, if we had not all perished ; as notwithstanding 1770, 



the advantage of a clear day, and having used every possible 

 precaution, it was with the utmost difficulty that we crossed 

 it without broken limbs. Indeed it would have been next to 

 an impossibility to have done it in the night. 



The twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth proved fine, clear 24th. 

 weather, though excessively cold ; and in the afternoon of the ' 

 latter, we arrived at Prince of Wales's Fort, after having been 

 absent eight months and twenty-two days, on a fruitless, or at 

 least an unsuccessful journey.-^ 



[^ The text gives very little information from which to follow Hearne's course 

 from the point where he broke his quadrant on August I2th, till he arrived at 

 Churchill on November 25th, so that we must follow him as well as possible 

 from the route laid down on his map. 



His route is marked crossing the Dubawnt River in latitude 63^ north, near 

 where it flows into an arm or bay of Dubawnt Lake. The river actually flows 

 into the lake from the south-west in latitude 62° 55', and it is probable that he 

 crossed it three miles above this in latitude 62^ 53' 30", where, in 1893, ^'^ 

 found the most northerly grove of stunted spruce growing on the bank of the 

 river, and where very old remains of Indian camps were plainly to be seen. 



From here he turned south-eastward, and travelling around the south end 

 of Dubawnt Lake reached Kazan River just above Angikuni Lake (called 

 on Alexander Mackenzie's map Titmeg Lake), probably just at its western end, 

 where the caribou cross the river in large numbers in their migration south- 

 ward. This point is in latitude 62° 20' north, while Hearne places his crossing- 

 place in latitude 62° 12'. Thence, keeping south of Angikuni Lake, he 

 turned more to the east, and passing several lakes which cannot be definitely 

 identified, but two of which are probably Magnus and Thaolintoa Lakes, he 

 reached Thlewiaza River east of Island Lake, where he was joined by 

 Matonabbee and a band of Indians, who had left their wives at Island Lake, 

 and were on their way to Fort Prince of Wales to trade. 



At the Thlewiaza River he turned eastward down the stream to a grove of 

 timber to obtain wood for snow-shoes. After making snow-shoes he turned 

 southward and rejoined Matonabbee and his band of Indians for a short time, 

 and then pushed on across Egg and Seal Rivers and around the south end of 

 Button's Bay to Fort Prince of Wales.] 



November. 



