DEPART FOR CHURCHILL FACTORY. 159 



to visit the Esquimaux at Churchill, the Com- 

 pany's most northern Post on the Bay. It was 

 the advice of Captain Franklin, that I should 

 walk the distance of about one hundred and 

 eighty miles, from York Fort to that Factory, 

 as I might be delayed in a canoe, by the vast 

 quantities of floating ice in the Bay, so as not 

 to meet these Indians in time. I followed this 

 advice, and having engaged one of the Com- 

 pany's servants, with an Indian who was an 

 excellent hunter, we set off on our expedition, 

 on the morning of the 11th of July, accom- 

 panied by two Indians, who had come express 

 from Churchill, and were returning thither. 

 It was necessary that we should embark in a 

 boat, to cross the North River ; and in rowing 

 round the Point of Marsh, we perceived a 

 brightness in the northern horizon, like that 

 reflected from ice, usually called the blink, 

 and which led us to suppose that vast fields of 

 it were floating along the coast in the direction 

 that we were going. It happened to be low 

 water when we crossed the mouth of the river, 

 so that the boat could not approach nearer 

 than about a mile from the shore, which 

 obliged us to walk this distance through the 

 mud and water, to the place where we made 

 our encampment for the night, and where the 



