Our Hunters Went Forward To Marten Lake, Intending To Wait For Us At A Place Where Two Deer Were Deposited.

At nine P.M. the temperature of the air was 63 degrees.

We resumed our march at an early hour and crossed several lakes which lay in our course as the ice enabled the men to drag their burdens on trains formed of sticks and deers' horns with more ease than they could carry them on their backs. We were kept constantly wet by this operation as the ice had broken near the shores of the lakes but this was little regarded as the day was unusually warm, the temperature at two P.M. being at 82 1/2 degrees. At Marten Lake we joined the canoe party and encamped with them. We had the mortification of learning from our hunters that the meat they had put en cache here had been destroyed by the wolverines, and we had in consequence to furnish the supper from our scanty stock of dried meat. The wind changed from South-East to North-East in the evening and the weather became very cold, the thermometer being at 43 degrees at nine P.M. The few dwarf birches we could collect afforded fire insufficient to keep us warm and we retired under the covering of our blankets as soon as the supper was despatched. The North-East breeze rendered the night so extremely cold that we procured but little sleep, having neither fire nor shelter for, though we carried our tents, we had been forced to leave the tent-poles which we could not now replace; we therefore gladly recommenced the journey at five in the morning and travelled through the remaining part of the lake on the ice. Its surface being quite smooth the canoes were dragged along expeditiously by the dogs, and the rest of the party had to walk very quick to keep pace with them, which occasioned many severe falls. By the time we had reached the end of the lake the wind had increased to a perfect gale and the atmosphere was so cold that we could not proceed farther with the canoes without the risk of breaking the bark and seriously injuring them; we therefore crossed Winter River in them and put up in a well-sheltered place on a ridge of sandhills but, as the stock of provision was scanty, we determined on proceeding as quick as possible and leaving the canoe party under the charge of Mr. Wentzel. We parted from them in the afternoon, and first directed our course towards a range of hills where we expected to find Antonio Fontano, who had separated from us in the morning. In crossing towards these hills I fell through the ice into the lake with my bundle on my shoulders but was soon extricated without any injury, and Mr. Back, who left us to go in search of the straggler, met with a similar accident in the evening.

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