On The 27th We Discovered The Remains Of A Deer On Which We Feasted.

The night was unusually cold and ice formed in a pint-pot within two feet of the fire.

The coruscations of the Aurora Borealis were beautifully brilliant; they served to show us eight wolves which we had some trouble to frighten away from our collection of deer's bones and, between their howling and the constant cracking of the ice, we did not get much rest.

Having collected with great care and by self-denial two small packets of dried meat or sinews sufficient (for men who knew what it was to fast) to last for eight days at the rate of one indifferent meal per day, we prepared to set out on the 30th. I calculated that we should be about fourteen days in reaching Fort Providence and, allowing that we neither killed deer nor found Indians, we could but be unprovided with food six days and this we heeded not whilst the prospect of obtaining full relief was before us. Accordingly we set out against a keen north-east wind in order to gain the known route to Fort Providence. We saw a number of wolves and some crows on the middle of the lake and, supposing such an assemblage was not met idly, we made for them and came in for a share of a deer which they had killed a short time before, and thus added a couple of meals to our stock. By four P.M. we gained the head of the lake or the direct road to Fort Providence and, some dry wood being at hand, we encamped; by accident it was the same place where the Commander's party had slept on the 19th, the day on which I supposed they had left Fort Enterprise, but the encampment was so small that we feared great mortality had taken place amongst them, and I am sorry to say the stubborn resolution of my men not to go to the house prevented me from determining this most anxious point, so that I now almost dreaded passing their encampments lest I should see some of our unfortunate friends dead at each spot. Our fire was hardly kindled when a fine herd of deer passed close to us. St. Germain pursued them a short distance but with his usual want of success so that we made a meal off the muscles and sinews we had dried, though they were so tough that we could scarcely cut them. My hands were benumbed throughout the march and we were all stiff and fatigued. The marching of two days weakened us all very much and the more so on account of our exertion to follow the tracks of our Commander's party, but we lost them and concluded that they were not before us. Though the weather was not cold I was frozen in the face and was so reduced and affected by these constant calamities, as well in mind as in body, that I found much difficulty in proceeding even with the advantages I had enjoyed.

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