328 CAPTAIN BACJCS LAND EXPEDITION— ISZ^-Z^. 



into an open space, which, as it contracted, inclined to the north." His 

 hopes were now realised. He had struck the head-waters of the river 

 system of which he was in search ; and now before him extended the waters 

 of the great stream, that had never before been seen by civilised man, and 

 which oflFered to him a water-way to the Polar shores, and possibly to 

 Eegent's Inlet and to Fury Beach. 



Starting on the morning of August 30th, Back resolved to explore the 

 course of the newly-discovered river for a few miles, that he might be able 

 to learn, from the character of its channel,- what build of boat would be 

 best adapted for its navigation. The portage from Lake Aylmer to the sheet 

 of water which forms the source of the river, and which the discoverer 

 named Lake Sussex, was less than a mile, and the height of the dividing 

 land or watershed was no more than two feet. The country became more 

 rocky as he proceeded, and irregular hills lined the banks of the stream. 

 Passing Icy Eiver, an affluent from the westward, a " narrow " brought 

 Back into Musk-Ox Lake, an expansion of the stream. " And now," writes 

 the traveller, " having arrived at the commencement of a series of rapids, 

 which the canoe was too weak to run, and too rickety to be carried over, I 

 had no choice but to stop, and rest satisfied with what had been achieved ; 

 which, if not equal to my hopes, was still sufficient to cheer my companions, 

 and lure them on to the relief, as we then supposed, of our long-sujBfering 

 countrymen." The return journey was at once commenced, and on the 4th 

 September the ascent of the river and of Lake Aylmer was completed, and 

 the narrows of Clinton-Colden Lake reached. 



Akaitcho, the chief of the Coppermine Indians, of whom mention has 

 already been frequently made, as having on several occasions proved of 

 signal service to Franklin, Back, and Richardson, in the two land expedi- 

 tions conducted by the first of these famous dicoverers, was still alive at the 

 time when Back revisited, in 1883, the scenes of his early adventures in 

 1819-22. The old chief was hunting in the Slave Lake district when Back 

 was conducting his search for the source of Great Fish Eiver, and on the 

 evening of the 4th September, two of his Indians, attracted by the smoke 

 of the Englishman's fire, came into camp. Both were gaunt, emaciated, 

 squalid — having evidently suffered much from destitution, " I knew them 

 both," says Back; "one, indeed, had been with me to the Coppermine 

 Eiver, on Sir J. Franklin's first expedition. With the usual apathy of their 

 nature, they evinced no marks of satisfaction or surprise at seeing me ; but 

 received their tobacco, and smoked it as coolly as if it had been given by 

 some gentleman of the country, in the regular routine of a trading expedi- 

 tion. Their silence and seriousness soon, hpwever, underwent an extra- 

 ordinary change, when they heard some half-dozen expressions which I had 

 been accustomed to use on the former occasion. They laughed immoder- 



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