The Officers Ascended Several Of The Loftiest Hills In The Course Of The Day, Prompted By A Natural Anxiety To Examine The Spot Which Was To Be Their Residence For Many Months.

The prospect however was not then the most agreeable as the borders of the lake seemed to be scantily furnished with wood and that of a kind too small for the purposes of building.

We perceived the smoke of a distant fire which the Indians suppose had been made by some of the Dog-Ribbed tribe who occasionally visit this part of the country.

Embarking at seven next morning we paddled to the western extremity of the lake and there found a small river which flows out of it to the South-West. To avoid a strong rapid at its commencement we made a portage and then crossed to the north bank of the river where the Indians recommended that the winter establishment should be erected, and we soon found that the situation they had chosen possessed all the advantages we could desire. The trees were numerous and of a far greater size than we had supposed them to be in a distant view, some of the pines being thirty or forty feet high and two feet in diameter at the root. We determined on placing the house on the summit of the bank which commands a beautiful prospect of the surrounding country. The view in the front is bounded at the distance of three miles by round-backed hills; to the eastward and westward lie the Winter and Round-rock Lakes which are connected by the Winter River whose banks are well clothed with pines and ornamented with a profusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs.

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