RETURN TO FORT CONFIDENCE. 473 



who would follow up our footmarks, and who were certain to break up the 

 boats to obtain their copper fastenings. The unusual tardiness of the spring, 

 and our unexpected delay at Methy Portage for want of horses, caused our 

 arrival on the Arctic coast to be considerably later than I had in secret 

 anticipated, though it differed little from the date I had thought it prudent 

 to mention, when asked to fix a probable time. Even a few days, so unim- 

 portant in a year's voyage elsewhere, are of vital consequence in a boat 

 navigation to the eastward of Cape Parry, where six weeks of summer is aU 

 that can be reckoned upon. Short, however, as the summer proved to be, 

 neither that nor our tardy commencement of the sea-voyage would have 

 prevented me from coasting the south shore of WoUaston Land, and exam- 

 ining it carefully, could I have reached it ; for the distance to be performed 

 would have been but little increased by doing so. The sole hindrance to 

 my crossing Dolphin and Union Strait was the impracticable condition of 

 the close-packed drift-ice." 



Meantime preparations were hurried on for the return march to winter 

 quarters. All necessary stores were divided into packages weighing from 

 sixty to seventy pounds, and distributed among the men. Six " pieces " of 

 pemmican were buried under a limestone cliff, and the position marked. 

 The boats were abandoned, the tents were left standing, and a number of 

 cooking utensils, hatchets, etc., were left for the first Eskimos who should visit 

 the spot, as tokens of goodwill from the white man ; and on the morning of 

 Sunday, 3d September — prayers having been first read — the party, led by 

 Richardson and Eae, set out on the march to the Coppermine. Passing Cape 

 Kendall, the party were ferried across Eae Eiver by Eskimos — this being, 

 probably, the first occasion on which the natives performed the part of paid 

 ferrymen to Europeans. The valley of the Coppermine was reached on the 

 5th, and found filled with snow. The banks of the river, three or four miles 

 above Bloody Fall, were arrived at on the same evening ; and a camp having 

 been formed, a good fire was made, and a famous supper of snow geese, about 

 a dozen of which had fallen to Eae's unerring rifle, was prepared and enjoyed. 

 On the evening of the 7th, Eae has his first encounter with a musk-ox— cer- 

 tainly the most formidable creature of the Arctic wilds. The meeting was 

 not fatal ; and to this day it remains uncertain whether Dr Eae or the ox 

 are the more grateful for that circumstance. On the 9th, the party passed 

 the boat which had been left by Dease and Simpson at the commencement 

 of the portage to Great Bear Lake in 1839. Starting early on the 10th, 

 Eichardson struck the Kendall a short distance above its junction with the 

 Coppermine, and crossed it on a raft constructed of dry timber found on the 

 spot. The explorers now shaped tbeir course across country towards Dease's 

 Eiver. " We steered by the compass," writes Eichardson, " Mr Eae leading, 

 and the rest following in Indian file. ... On the hills the snow covered 

 9 3o 



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