That we desired the assistance
of the Indians in guiding us and providing us with food; finally that we
were most positively enjoined by the great chief to recommend that
hostilities should cease throughout this country, and especially between
the Indians and the Esquimaux, whom he considered his children in common
with other natives and, by way of enforcing the latter point more
strongly, I assured him that a forfeiture of all the advantages which
might be anticipated from the Expedition would be a certain consequence
if any quarrel arose between his party and the Esquimaux. I also
communicated to him that, owing to the distance we had travelled, we had
now few more stores than was necessary for the use of our own party, a
part of these, however, should be forthwith presented to him; on his
return he and his party should be remunerated with cloth, ammunition, and
tobacco, and some useful iron materials, besides having their debts to
the North-West Company discharged.
The chief whose name is Akaitcho or Big-foot replied by a renewal of his
assurances that he and his party would attend us to the end of our
journey, and that they would do their utmost to provide us with the means
of subsistence. He admitted that his tribe had made war upon the
Esquimaux but said they were now desirous of peace and unanimous in their
opinion as to the necessity of all who accompanied us abstaining from
every act of enmity against that nation. He added however that the
Esquimaux were very treacherous and therefore recommended that we should
advance towards them with caution.
The communications which the chief and the guides then gave respecting
the route to the Copper-Mine River and its course to the sea coincided in
every material point with the statements which were made by Boileau and
Black Meat at Chipewyan, but they differed in their descriptions of the
coast. The information however, collected from both sources, was very
vague and unsatisfactory. None of his tribe had been more than three
days' march along the sea-coast to the eastward of the river's mouth.
As the water was unusually high this season the Indian guides recommended
our going by a shorter route to the Copper-Mine River than that they had
first proposed to Mr. Wentzel, and they assigned as a reason for the
change that the reindeer would be sooner found upon this track. They then
drew a chart of the proposed route on the floor with charcoal, exhibiting
a chain of twenty-five small lakes extending towards the north, about
one-half of them connected by a river which flows into Slave Lake near
Fort Providence.
