Beyond This Spot The River Is Diminished In Breadth And A Succession Of
Rapids Are Formed But, As The Water Was Deep, We Passed Through Them
Without Discharging Any Part Of The Cargoes.
It still runs between high
ranges of mountains, though its actual boundaries are banks of mud mixed
with clay which are clothed with stunted pines.
We picked up a deer which
the hunters had shot and killed another from the canoe, and also received
an addition to our stock of provision of seven young geese which the
hunters had beaten down with their sticks. About six P.M. we perceived a
mark on the shore which on examination was found to have been recently
put up by some Indians: and on proceeding farther we discerned stronger
proofs of their vicinity; we therefore encamped and made a large fire as
a signal which they answered in a similar way. Mr. Wentzel was
immediately sent in expectation of getting provision from them. On his
return we learned that the party consisted of three old Copper Indians
with their families, who had supported themselves with the bow and arrow
since last autumn, not having visited Fort Providence for more than a
year, and so successful had they been that they were enabled to supply us
with upwards of seventy pounds of dried meat, and six moose skins fit for
making shoes, which were the more valuable as we were apprehensive of
being barefooted before the journey could be completed. The evening was
sultry and the mosquitoes appeared in great numbers. The distance made
today was twenty-five miles.
On the following morning we went down to these Indians and delivered to
them notes on the North-West Company for the meat and skins they had
furnished, and we had then the mortification of learning that, not having
people to carry a considerable quantity of pounded meat which they
intended for us, they had left it upon the Bear Lake Portage. They
promised however to get it conveyed to the banks of this river before we
could return and we rewarded them with a present of knives and files.
After reembarking we continued to descend the river which was now
contracted between lofty banks to about one hundred and twenty yards
wide; the current was very strong. At eleven we came to a rapid which had
been the theme of discourse with the Indians for many days, and which
they had described to us as impassable in canoes. The river here descends
for three-quarters of a mile in a deep but narrow and crooked channel
which it has cut through the foot of a hill of five hundred or six
hundred feet high. It is confined between perpendicular cliffs resembling
stone walls, varying in height from eighty to one hundred and fifty feet,
on which lies a mass of fine sand. The body of the river pent within this
narrow chasm dashed furiously round the projecting rocky columns and
discharged itself at the northern extremity in a sheet of foam.
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