NORTHERN OCEAN 279 



which lay nearly in the direction of our course ; but after pro- 1772. 

 ceeding about twenty-two miles on it, the Lake turned more 

 toward the North, on which account we were obliged to leave 

 it, striking ofF to the Eastward ; and after walking fourteen 

 miles farther, we arrived at Noo-shetht Whoie,^ or the Hill- 

 Island Lake, so called from a very high island which stands 

 in it. 



From the twenty-eighth to the thirty-first of March, we 3ist. 

 had so hard a gale of wind from the South, as to render walk- 

 ing on lakes or open plains quite impossible, and the violence 

 with which the trees were blown down made walking in the 

 woods somewhat dangerous ; but though several had narrow 

 escapes, no accident happened. 



From the middle to the latter end of March, and in the 

 beginning of April, though the thaw was not general, [283] yet Ap"i- 

 in the middle of the day it was very considerable : it commonly 

 froze hard in the nights ; and the young men took the 

 advantage of the mornings, when the snow was hard crusted 

 over, and ran down many moose ; for in those situations a 

 man with a good pair of snow-shoes will scarcely make any 

 impression on the snow, while the moose, and even the deer, 

 will break through it at every step up to the belly. Not- 

 withstanding this, however, it is very seldom that the Indians 

 attempt to run deer down. The moose are so tender-footed, 

 and so short-winded, that a good runner will generally tire 

 them in less than a day, and very frequently in six or eight 

 hours ; though I have known some of the Indians continue 



[^ On Heame's map the position of Noo-shetht Whole or Newstheth tooy 

 Lake in relation to the streams in the country is very indefinite, but on the 

 Pennant map it is shown on a stream which flows northward into Great Slave 

 Lake. In King's "Journey to the Shores of the Arctic Ocean," vol. ii. p. 289, 

 a copy of an Indian map of a canoe route northward from Lake Athabasca is 

 published. Most of this route is down the Copper Indian (Yellow Knife or 

 Rock) River, which flows into Great Slave Lake a short distance east of the 

 mouth of Slave River, and one of the lakes there shown is Tazennatooy or 

 Muddy Water Lake, while another is Newstheth tooy, the lake here referred to.] 



