Journal of a Voyage through the 



having expressed the pride they felt on beholding me in 

 their country, took their leave. 



I now proceeded to examine my situation ; and it was 

 with great satisfaction I observed, that the two men who 

 had been sent hither some time before us, to cut and square 

 timber for our future operations, had employed the inter- 

 vening period with activity and skill. They had formed a 

 sufficient quantity of pallisades of eighteen feet long, and 

 seven inches in diameter, to inclose a square spot of an 

 hundred and twenty feet ; they had also dug a ditch of three 

 feet deep to receive them ; and had prepared timber, 

 planks, &c. for the erection of an house. 



I was, however, so much occupied in settling matters 

 with the Indians, and equipping them for their winter 

 hunting, that I could not give my attention to any other 

 object, till the Tth, when I set all hands at work to con- 

 struct the fort, build the house, and form store-houses. 

 On the preceding day the river began to run with ice, which 

 we call the last of the navigation. On the 11th we had a 

 South- West wind, with snow. On the 16th the ice stop* 

 ped in the other fork, which was not above a league from 

 us, across the intervening neck of land. The water in 

 this branch continued to How till the 22d, when it was ar- 

 rested also by the frost, so that we had a passage across 

 the river, which would last to the latter end of the suc- 

 ceeding April. This was a fortunate circumstance, as we 

 depended for our support upon what the hunters could 

 provide for us, and they had been prevented by the run* 

 ning of the ice from crossing the river. They now, how- 

 ever, very shortly procured us as much fresh meat as we 

 required, though it was for some time a toilsome business 

 to my people, for as there was not yet a sufficient quantity 

 of snow to run sledges, they were under the necessity of 

 loading themselves with the spoils of the chase. 



On the 27th the frost was so severe that the axes of the 

 workmen became almost as brittle as glass. The weather 

 was very various until the 2d of December, when my Faren- 

 heit's thermometer was injured by an accident, which ren- 

 dered it altogether useless. The following table, there- 

 fore, from the 16th of November, to this unfortunate cir- 

 cumstance, is the only correct account of the weather 

 which I can offer* 



