222 



A JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 



view in the front is bounded at the distance of three miles, by 

 round-backed hills; to the eastward and westward He the Winter 

 and Bound-rock Lakes, which are connected by the Winter River, 

 whose banks are well clothed with pines, and ornamented with a pro- 

 fusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs. 



In the afternoon we read divine service, and offered our thanks- 

 giving to the Almighty for his goodness in having brought us thus 

 far on our journey ; a duty which we never neglected, when sta_ 

 tionary on the sabbath. 



The united length of the portages we have crossed, since leaving 

 Fort Providence, is twenty-one statute miles and a half; and as 

 our men had to traverse each portage four times, with a load of one 

 hundred and eighty pounds, and return three times light, they 

 walked in the whole upwards of one hundred and fifty miles. The 

 total length of our voyage from Chipewyan is five hundred and fifty- 

 three miles *. 



A fire was made on the south side of the river to inform the 

 chief of our arrival, which spreading before a strong wind, caught 

 the whole wood, and we were completely enveloped in a cloud of 

 smoke for the three following days. 



On the next morning our voyagers were divided into two parties, 

 the one to cut the wood for the building of a store-house, and the 

 other to fetch the meat as fast as the hunters procured it. An in- 

 terpreter was sent with Keskarrah, the guide, to search for the 

 Indians who had made the fire seen on Saturday, from whom we 



Statute Miles. 



* Stoney and Slave Rivers . . . ." . 260 



Slave Lake . . . . .. . 107 



Yellow-Knife River ..... 156.5 



Barren country between the source of the Yellow-Knife River 



and Fort Enterprise .... 29-5 



553 



