They Also Occasionally Procure Moose And
Buffalo Meat, But These Animals Are Not Numerous On This Side Of The
Lake.
Few furs are collected.
Les poissons inconnus, trout, pike, carp,
and white-fish are very plentiful, and on these the residents principally
subsist. Their great supply of fish is procured in the latter part of
September and the beginning of October, but there are a few taken daily
in the nets during the winter. The surrounding country consists almost
entirely of coarse-grained granite, frequently enclosing large masses of
reddish felspar. These rocks form hills which attain an elevation of
three hundred or four hundred feet about a mile behind the house; their
surface is generally naked but in the valleys between them grow a few
spruce, aspen, and birch trees, together with a variety of shrubs and
berry-bearing plants.
On the afternoon of the 2nd of August we commenced our journey, having,
in addition to our three canoes, a smaller one to convey the women; we
were all in high spirits, being heartily glad that the time had at length
arrived when our course was to be directed towards the Copper-Mine River
and through a line of country which had not been previously visited by
any European. We proceeded to the northward along the eastern side of a
deep bay of the lake, passing through various channels formed by an
assemblage of rocky islands; and at sunset encamped on a projecting point
of the north main shore eight miles from Fort Providence. To the westward
of this arm, or bay of the lake, there is another deep bay that receives
the waters of a river which communicates with Great Marten Lake where the
North-West Company had once a post established. The eastern shores of the
Great Slave Lake are very imperfectly known: none of the traders have
visited them and the Indians give such loose and unsatisfactory accounts
that no estimation can be formed of its extent in that direction. These
men say there is a communication from its eastern extremity by a chain of
lakes with a shallow river which discharges its waters into the sea. This
stream they call the Thloueetessy, and report it to be navigable for
Indian canoes only. The forms of the south and western shores are better
known from the survey of Sir Alexander Mackenzie and in consequence of
the canoes having to pass and repass along these borders annually between
Moose-Deer Island and Mackenzie's River. Our observations made the
breadth of the lake between Stony Island and the north main shore sixty
miles less than it is laid down in Arrowsmith's map; and there is also a
considerable difference in the longitude of the eastern side of the bay,
which we entered.
This lake, owing to its great depth, is seldom completely frozen over
before the last week in November and the ice, which is generally seven
feet thick, breaks up about the middle of June, three weeks later than
that of the Slave River.
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