On The 28th We Crossed The Last Portage And At Ten A.M. Entered The Isle
A La Crosse Lake.
Its long succession of woody points, both banks
stretching towards the south till their forms were lost in the haze of
the horizon, was a grateful prospect to us after our bewildered and
interrupted voyage in the Missinippi.
The gale wafted us with unusual
speed and as the lake increased in breadth the waves swelled to a
dangerous height. A canoe running before the wind is very liable to burst
asunder when on the top of a wave so that part of the bottom is out of
the water, for there is nothing to support the weight of its heavy cargo
but the bark and the slight gunwales attached to it.
On making known our exigencies to the gentlemen in charge of the Hudson's
Bay and North-West Companies' forts they made up an assortment of stores
amounting to five bales, for four of which we were indebted to Mr. McLeod
of the North-West Company who shared with us the ammunition absolutely
required for the support of his post, receiving in exchange an order for
the same quantity upon the cargo which we expected to follow us from York
Factory. We had heard from Mr. Stuart that Fort Chipewyan was too much
impoverished to supply the wants of the Expedition and we found Isle a la
Crosse in the same condition; which indeed we might have foreseen from
the exhausted state of Cumberland House but could not have provided
against.
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