The
other four, with the Little Singer accompanied us, two of them conducting
their small canoes in turns and the rest walking along the beach.
The river flows over a bed of sand and winds in an uninterrupted channel
of from three-quarters to a mile broad between two ranges of hills, which
are pretty even in their outline and round-backed, but having rather
steep acclivities. The immediate borders of the stream consist either of
high banks of sand or steep gravel cliffs and sometimes, where the hills
recede to a little distance, the intervening space is occupied by high
sandy ridges.
At three P.M., after passing along the foot of a high range of hills, we
arrived at the portage leading to the Bear Lake, to which we have
previously alluded. Its position is very remarkable, being at the most
westerly part of the Copper-Mine River and at the point where it resumes
a northern course and forces a passage through the lofty ridge of
mountains to which it has run parallel for the last thirty miles. As the
Indians travel from hence with their families in three days to the point
where they have proposed staying for us, the distance I think cannot
exceed forty miles and, admitting the course to be due west, which is the
direction the guide pointed, it would place the eastern part of Bear Lake
in 118 1/4 degrees West longitude.
