THE FRANKLIN SEARCH CONTINUED. 475 



CHAPTER VI. 



EICHAKDSON IN WINTER QUARTERS. 



The site selected for the winter quarters of the Richardson and Rae expedi- 

 tion was Fort Confidence, on Dease River,, and about three miles above 

 the point at which the river enters Great Bear Lake. Fort Confidence, it 

 may be remembered, was built for, and named by, Dease and Simpson in 

 1836. Of the buildings which formed the fort in 1836-39, only a part 

 of the men's house was now standing, and Richardson's " fort " was an 

 entirely new erection. The new building was a log house, built of trunks 

 of trees laid over one another, and morticed into the upright posts of the 

 corners, doorways, and windows. Loam or clay was beat into the spaces 

 between the round logs of the walls and roof, both on the outside and 

 inside, and several coatings of a mixture of clay and water rendered the 

 walls weather-proof. " The building," says Richardson, " was forty feet 

 long by fourteen wide, having a dining-hall in the centre, measuring sixteen 

 by foiuteen, and the remaining space divided into a store-room and three 

 sleeping apartments. A kitchen was added to the back of the house, and 

 a small porch to the front." The officers' rooms were furnished with glazed 

 windows ; in the other rooms deerskin parchment was used instead of 

 glass. On the east of this central building were two houses for the men, 

 and on the west side were store-houses ; so that the whole formed three 

 sides of a quadrangle, facing the south. Two of the men, who were car- 

 penters by trade, were set to make tables and chairs; and Bruce, the half- 

 breed guide, acquitted himself ably and industriously as a joiner. The 

 men were divided into gangs, and employed respectively in cutting and 

 bringing in fuel, in fishing, hunting, etc., and a number of Indians were 

 engaged as hunters to keep the fort well stocked with fresh reindeer meat. 

 At no period during the winter was any inconvenience experienced from scar- 

 city of wholesome food. " Our men," says Richardson, " had each a daily 

 ration of eight pounds of venison on five days of the week, and on the other 

 two days from ten pounds to fifteen pounds of fish." Not many of the 

 Europeans, we are informed, consumed the whole of their rations, which 



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