While We Were Eating It I Perceived One Of The Women Busily Employed
Scraping An Old Skin, The Contents Of Which Her Husband Presented Us
With.
They consisted of pounded meat, fat, and a greater proportion of
Indians' and deers' hair than either; and though such a mixture may not
appear very alluring to an English stomach it was thought a great luxury
after three days' privation in these cheerless regions of America.
Indeed
had it not been for the precaution and generosity of the Indians we must
have gone without sustenance until we reached the fort.
On the 1st of November our men began to make a raft to enable us to cross
a river which was not even frozen at the edges. It was soon finished and
three of us embarked, being seated up to the ankles in water. We each
took a pine branch for a paddle and made an effort to gain the opposite
shore in which, after some time (and not without strong apprehensions of
drifting into the Slave Lake) we succeeded. In two hours the whole party
was over, with a comfortable addition to it in the shape of some fine
fish which the Indians had caught: of course we did not forget to take
these friends with us and, after passing several lakes, to one of which
we saw no termination, we halted within eight miles to the fort. The
Great Slave Lake was not frozen.
In crossing a narrow branch of the lake I fell through the ice but
received no injury; and at noon we arrived at Fort Providence and were
received by Mr. Weeks, a clerk of the North-West Company in charge of the
establishment.
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