The
Course Of The River Is Very Winding, Making In One Place A Circuit Of
Seven Or Eight Miles Round A Peninsula Which Is Joined To The West Bank
By A Narrow Isthmus.
Near the foot of this elbow a long island occupies
the centre of the river which it divides into two channels.
The longitude
was obtained near to it 113 degrees 25 minutes 36 seconds and variation
27 degrees 25 minutes 14 seconds North, and the latitude 60 degrees 54
minutes 52 seconds North, about four miles farther down. We passed the
mouth of a broad channel leading to the north-east termed La Grande
Riviere de Jean, one of the two large branches by which the river pours
its waters into the Great Slave Lake; the flooded delta at the mouth of
the river is intersected by several smaller channels through one of
which, called the Channel of the Scaffold, we pursued our voyage on the
following morning and by eight A.M. reached the establishment of the
North-West Company on Moose-Deer Island. We found letters from Mr.
Wentzel, dated Fort Providence, a station on the north side of the lake,
which communicated to us that there was an Indian guide waiting for us at
that post; but that the chief and the hunters who were to accompany the
party had gone to a short distance to hunt, having become impatient at
our delay.
Soon after landing I visited the Hudson's Bay post on the same island and
engaged Pierre St. Germain, an interpreter for the Copper Indians.
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