218 A JOURNEY TO THE 



1771. After leaving White Stone Lake, we continued our course 



ep em er. ^^ ^^^ South West quarter, seldom walking more than twelve 

 miles a day, and frequently not half that distance. 



3d- On the third of September, we arrived at a small river 

 belonging to Point Lake, but the weather at this time proved 

 so boisterous, and there was so much rain, snow, and frost, 

 alternately, that we were obliged to wait several days before 

 we could cross it in our canoes ; and the water was too deep, 

 and the current too rapid, to attempt fording it. During this 

 interruption, however, our time was not entirely lost, as deer 

 were so plentiful that the Indians killed numbers of them, as 

 well for the sake of their skins, as for their flesh, which was at 

 present in excellent order, and the skins in proper season for 

 the sundry uses for which they are destined. 



7th- In the afternoon of the seventh, the weather became fine 

 and moderate, when we all were ferried across the river ; and 



8th. the next morning shaped our course to the [202] South West, 

 by the side of Point Lake. After three days journey, which 

 only consisted of about eighteen miles, we came to a few 

 small scrubby woods, ^ which were the first that we had seen 

 from the twenty-fifth of May, except those we had perceived 

 at the Copper-mine River. 



One of the Indian's wives, who for some time had been in 

 a consumption, had for a few days past become so weak as to 

 be incapable of travelling, which, among those people, is the 

 most deplorable state to which a human being can possibly be 

 brought. Whether she had been given over by the doctors, 



[^ Sir John Franklin crossed Point Lake in 1821, and the "small scrubby 

 woods " on its banks were noted by him, when he descended and surveyed the 

 Coppermine River from it to the sea. Hearne places the south side of this 

 lake on his map in North latitude 65° 45', only about thirty-five miles north of 

 its true position. Caspar Whitney crossed Point Lake in the spring of 1895, 

 and calls it Ecka tua (Fat-Water Lake). (" On Snowshoes to the Barren 

 Grounds." By Caspar Whitney, p. 209.) Russell, in speaking of the Copper- 

 mine River which he crossed in April 1894, says, " It takes its rise in a large 

 lake, called Ek-a Tooh, which is two days' journey in length." (" Explorations 

 in the Far North." By Frank Russell, p. 112.)] 



