CHIPEWYAN TO BLACK •LAKE 



discovery of some interest was made. Just east of the Beaver 

 Hills -we found a veritable mountain of iron ore, of the kind 

 known as haematite. Coal to smelt it is not found in the 

 vicinity, though there is plenty of wood in the forest. The 

 shore of this part of the lake was very much obscured by 

 islands, upon the slopes of which the remains of the last 

 winter's snowbanks could still be seen. 



We made an early start on the morning of the 28th, break- 

 ing camp at five o'clock, but before we had made any distance 

 a fog settled over the lake, so dense that we could not see ten 

 yards from*the canoes. For some time we groped along in 

 the darkness, every little while finding our way obstructed 

 by the rocky wall of some island or point of land, and finally, 

 meeting with a seemingly endless shore, we were obliged to 

 wait for the weather to clear. All hands landed and climbed 

 the precipitous bank, with a view to discovering something 

 about the locality, but all was obscurity. Toward noon the 

 fog lifted, and we were able to make out our position, which 

 was on the mainland, north of Old Man Island. On this 

 point we observed a solitary grave, and, near by, the remains 

 of an old log house. As to who had been the occupant of this 

 solitary hut, or whose remains rested in the lonely grave, we 

 knew not, but their appearance- on this uninhabited shore 

 made a realistic picture of desolation and sadness. 



On the morning of the 29th of June, high west winds 

 and heavy rain were again the order of the day, but venturing 

 ■out, we made a fast run before the wind and reached the Fort 

 in a heavy sea. Fond-du-Lac is a fort only in name, and 

 •consists in all of two or three small log shanties and a little 

 log mission church, situated on a bare, exposed sandy shore, 

 without any shelter from the fierce winter storms which hold 

 high carnival in this country six or seven months of the year. 

 Having already met the white residents of Fond-du-Lac on 

 -the lake, we found most of their houses, few though they 

 were, locked up. Two or three Indians and their families 



55 



