CHAPTER III.

WE held a big council as to ways and means, and, after much discussion, finally came to the decision that our best chance was to leave the main body of women and children with sufficient men to attend to the nets for them, while the rest of us pushed on to the north with our two biggest canoes, in the hope of falling in with the caribou, and afterwards the musk-ox. We were to leave all the dogs at Fond du Lac, as we expected to send back before the setting in of winter; only two women, King's wife and daughter, were to come with us to dry meat, dress deerskins, and make moccasins. Besides them our crew consisted of King Beaulieu, his sons François, José, Paul, and Baptiste (a boy of twelve), Michel (King's son-in-law), and a small Indian boy who had thrown in his lot with us as the best visible means of getting anything to keep him alive during the autumn. All the provisions that I had brought with me were exhausted, and we had nothing but a dozen small dried whitefish when we left Fond du Lac on September 7th to paddle another thirty miles along the north shore before leaving the lake. Our loads were cut down to the smallest weight possible in order to save time on the portages. I left

my Paradox behind as the ammunition was heavy, and trusted entirely to a Winchester rifle; a pair of glasses and a blanket about completed my share of the cargo. I had no instruments for taking observations, no compass, and no watch; and, take it all round, it was a very poorly-equipped expedition. We made a bad start, as, after an hour's travel across a deep bay, we found ourselves storm-bound on a small island, the canoes hauled up on the beach, and such a heavy sea on all sides that we could not get out a net. We spent an uncomfortable night on the island, but the wind moderated a little in the morning and we put out again. After being once driven back to our refuge we managed to reach the mainland, with the canoes half full of water and our blankets and clothes soaked. However, a good fire soon mended matters, and, as we caught enough whitefish to stave off present hunger, contentment reigned in the camp.

The next evening, after another long struggle against the wind, we camped in the small bay at which we intended to make our first portage, and our long journey on the Great Slave Lake was finished. Three ducks, our whole bag for the day, and a kettle of black tea gave us a scanty supper, and, as there was still a little daylight, we each carried a small load to the top of the hill, a distance of two miles, but were disappointed in not seeing any caribou tracks. We thought we had a chance of finding them close to the lake, but as a matter of fact we had several days' journey yet before we fell in with them. It now seemed pretty certain that we were in for a

spell of what my companions alluded to as les misères till we reached the meat-country, the joys of which formed the chief subject of talk round the camp-fires.

With the first streak of light we began the portage in a driving snowstorm, and long before midday the rest of the cargo and the biggest canoe were landed at the top of the steep climb; the other canoe we abandoned, thinking one was ample for our work in the Barren Ground. We sat down for a smoke at the top of the hill, and took our last view of the Great Slave Lake. Looking southward we could see the far shore and the unknown land beyond rising in terraces to a considerable height, and very similar in appearance to the range we were on. Ahead of us, to the north, lay a broken rocky country sparsely timbered and dotted with lakes, the nearest of which, a couple of miles away, was the end of our portage; a bleak and desolate country, already white with snow and with a film of ice over the smaller ponds. Three hundred miles in the heart of this wilderness, far beyond the line where timber ceases, lies the land of the musk-ox, to which we were about to force our way, depending entirely on our guns for food and for clothing to withstand the intense cold that would soon be upon us. A pair of hawks hovering overhead furnished the only signs of life, and the outlook was by no means cheerful. As I was sitting on a rock meditating upon these things old King came up and said: 'Let us finish the portage quickly; it is dinner-time.' I quite agreed with him, but put his remark down as a rather unseasonable joke, as I did not think there was a bite to eat

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among us; but on reaching the lake I was pleasantly surprised to see King fish out a lump of bacon, which he had stowed away some time ago after one of my lectures on improvidence. It was really the last piece, and, although there was no bread (and for the matter of that there was none for the next three months) we all made a good enough meal. The lake was of course named Lac du Lard to commemorate this event.

I think no white man had ever passed through this chain of lakes before, as Sir John Franklin went up by a more westerly route, following the course of the Yellow Knife River, while Hearne and Back both left from the east end of the Great Slave Lake; Stewart and Anderson, when they were searching for survivors of Franklin's last ill-fated expedition, reached the head waters of the Great Fish River by a chain of lakes about eighty miles to the eastward of my present route. If the lakes were known among the Indians by any particular names I enquired their meaning and preserved them; the others I named from incidents in the voyage or from the Company's officers of Athabasca and Mackenzie River districts.

During the afternoon we made four more short portages, passing through the same number of lakes, some of them of a considerable size. We kept a good look-out for the caribou but saw no signs of them, and at dark, after a hard day's work, camped on the east shore of the Lac de Mort. It acquired this name from a disaster that overwhelmed a large encampment of Yellow Knives who were hunting here during one of those epidemics of scarlet fever that have from time

to time ravaged the North. Most of the hunters were too ill to walk, and, as game was scarce, the horrors of starvation, combined with disease, almost exterminated the band.

The next two days were occupied in the same manner of travelling towards the north with numerous portages. We could not catch any fish, though we set a net every night, but killed enough ducks to keep us alive without satisfying our ravenous hunger. The weather was still cold, with strong head-winds and frequent snowstorms.

On the third day we caught a big trout and killed a loon and a wolverine, the latter after a most exciting chase on a long point. In the next portage accordingly we made a big feast, although wolverines are only eaten in starving times, as they are looked upon in the light of scavengers and grave-robbers, and 'carcajoueater' is a favourite term of contempt. On the present occasion nobody made any objection, and in the circumstances the despised meat tasted remarkably well. Our joy was soon cut short by finding the next lake, which was more sheltered from the wind than the others we had passed through, covered with a sheet of ice sufficiently thick to prevent the passage of a birchbark canoe, while a heavy snowstorm came on at the same time, making matters look more gloomy than ever. King's sons at once expressed their intention of returning to Fond du Lac while the lakes behind them were still open. King, however, here showed great determination, and declared, with an unnecessary amount of strong language, that he had the heart of