This fuel enabled us to make a hearty supper from a small deer
killed this evening.
The shallows we passed this day were covered with shoals of capelin, the
angmaggoeuk of the Esquimaux. It was known to Augustus who informed us
that it frequents the coast of Hudson's Bay and is delicate eating. The
course and distance made was south by east-half-east, thirty-three miles.
After paddling twelve miles in the morning of the 5th we had the
mortification to find the inlet terminated by a river, the size of which
we could not ascertain as the entrance was blocked by shoals. Its mouth
lies in latitude 66 degrees 30 minutes North, longitude 107 degrees 53
minutes West. I have named this stream Back as a mark of my friendship
for my associate.* We were somewhat consoled for the loss of time in
exploring this inlet by the success of Junius in killing a musk-ox, the
first we had seen on the coast; and afterwards by the acquisition of the
flesh of a bear that was shot as we were returning up the eastern side in
the evening. The latter proved to be a female in very excellent
condition; and our Canadian voyagers whose appetite for fat meat is
insatiable were delighted.
(*Footnote. From subsequent conversation with the Copper Indians we were
inclined to suppose this may be the Thlueetessy described by Black Meat
mentioned in a former part of the narrative.)
We encamped on the shores of a sandy bay and set the nets and, finding a
quantity of dried willows on the beach, we were enabled to cook the
bear's flesh which was superior to any meat we tasted on the coast. The
water fell two feet at this place during the night. Our nets produced a
great variety of fish, namely a salmon trout, some round-fish, tittameg,
bleak, star-fish, several herrings and a flat fish resembling plaice, but
covered on the back with horny excrescences.
On the 6th we were detained in the encampment by stormy weather until
five P.M. when we embarked and paddled along the northern shore of the
inlet, the weather still continuing foggy but the wind moderate.
Observing on the beach a she-bear with three young ones we landed a party
to attack them but, being approached without due caution, they took the
alarm and scaled a precipitous rocky hill with a rapidity that baffled
all pursuit. At eight o'clock, the fog changing into rain, we encamped.
Many seals were seen this day but as they kept in deep water we did not
fire at them.
