We
Were Highly Pleased To Find His Sentiments So Favourable To Our Views
And, After Making Some Minor Arrangements, We Parted Mutually Content.
He
left us on the morning of the 31st, accompanied by Augustus who, at his
request, went to reside for a few days at his lodge.
On the 4th of April our men arrived with the last supply of goods from
Fort Providence, the fruits of Mr. Back's arduous journey to the
Athabasca Lake, and on the 17th Belanger le gros and Belanger le rouge,
for so our men discriminated them, set out for Slave Lake with a box
containing the journals of the officers, charts, drawings, observations,
and letters addressed to the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs.
They also conveyed a letter for Governor Williams in which I requested
that he would if possible send a schooner to Wager Bay with provisions
and clothing to meet the exigencies of the party should they succeed in
reaching that part of the coast.
Connoyer, who was much tormented with biliary calculi and had done little
or no duty all the winter, was discharged at the same time and sent down
in company with an Indian named the Belly.
The commencement of April was fine and for several days a considerable
thaw took place in the heat of the sun which, laying bare some of the
lichens on the sides of the hills, produced a consequent movement of the
reindeer to the northward and induced the Indians to believe that the
spring was already commencing. Many of them therefore quitted the woods
and set their snares on the barren grounds near Fort Enterprise. Two or
three days of cold weather however towards the middle of the month damped
their hopes, and they began to say that another moon must elapse before
the arrival of the wished-for season. In the meantime their premature
departure from the woods caused them to suffer from want of food and we
were in some degree involved in their distress. We received no supplies
from the hunters, our nets produced but very few fish, and the pounded
meat which we had intended to keep for summer use was nearly expended.
Our meals at this period were always scanty and we were occasionally
restricted to one in the day.
The Indian families about the house, consisting principally of women and
children, suffered most. I had often requested them to move to Akaitcho's
lodge where they were more certain of receiving supplies but, as most of
them were sick or infirm, they did not like to quit the house, where they
daily received medicines from Dr. Richardson, to encounter the fatigue of
following the movements of a hunting camp. They cleared away the snow on
the site of the autumn encampments to look for bones, deer's feet, bits
of hide, and other offal. When we beheld them gnawing the pieces of hide
and pounding the bones for the purpose of extracting some nourishment
from them by boiling we regretted our inability to relieve them, but
little thought that we should ourselves be afterwards driven to the
necessity of eagerly collecting these same bones a second time from the
dunghill.
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