110 Thirty Year's 
ra 
sacre committed by the Indians on the Esquimaux. 
“They pointed out another lake to the southward of 
the river, about three days’ journey distant from it, 
on which the chief proposed the next winter's estab- 
lishment should be formed, as the rein-deer would pass 
there in the autumn and spring. Its waters con- 
tained fish, and there was a sufficiency of wood for 
building as well as for the winter’s consumption. 
These were important considerations, and determined 
me in pursuing the route they now proposed. They 
could not inform us what time we should take in 
reaching the-lake, until they saw our manner of 
traveling in the large canoes, but they supposed we 
might be about twenty days, in which case I enter- 
tained the hope that if we could then procure pro- 
vision we should have time to descend the Copper- 
Mine River for a considerable distance, if not to the 
sea ‘itself, and return to the lake before the winter 
set in. 
It may here be proper to mention that it had been 
niy original plan to descend the Mackenzie’s River, 
and to cross the Great Bear Lake, from the eastern 
side of which, Boileau informed me, there is a com- 
munication with the Copper-Mine River by four small 
lakes and portages ; but, under our present cirenm- 
stances, this course could not be followed, because it 
would remove us too far from the establishments. at 
