They Pointed Out Another Lake To The Southward Of The River, About Three
Days' Journey Distant From It, On Which The Chief Proposed The Next
Winter's Establishment Should Be Formed As The Reindeer Would Pass There
In The Autumn And Spring.
Its waters contained fish and there was a
sufficiency of wood for building as well as for the winter's consumption.
These were important considerations and determined me in pursuing the
route they now proposed.
They could not inform us what time we should
take in reaching the lake until they saw our manner of travelling in the
large canoes, but they supposed we might be about twenty days, in which
case I entertained the hope that, if we could then procure provision, we
should have time to descend the Copper-Mine River for a considerable
distance, if not to the sea itself, and return to the lake before the
winter set in.
It may here be proper to mention that it had been my original plan to
descend the Mackenzie's River and to cross the Great Bear Lake, from the
eastern side of which, Boileau informed me, there is a communication with
the Copper-Mine River by four small lakes and portages; but under our
present circumstances this course could not be followed because it would
remove us too far from the establishments at the Great Slave Lake to
receive the supplies of ammunition and some other stores in the winter
which were absolutely necessary for the prosecution of our journey, or to
get the Esquimaux interpreter whom we expected.
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