CHAPTER V.
Transactions at Fort Chipewyan—Arrival of Dr. Richardson and Mr. Hood—Preparations
for our journey to the Northward.
March°26. O N the day after our arrival at Fort Chipewyan we called
upon Mr. Mac Donald, the gentleman in charge of the Hudson’s Bay
Establishment called Fort Wedderburne, and delivered to him
Governor Williams’s circular Letter, which desired that every
assistance should be given to further our progress, and a statement
of the requisitions which we should have to make on his post.
Our first object was to obtain some certain information respecting
our future route; and accordingly we received from one of the North-
West Company’s interpreters, named Beaulieu, a half-breed, who had
been brought up amongst the Dog-ribbed and Copper Indians, some
satisfactory information which we afterwards found tolerably correct,
respecting the mode of reaching the Copper-mine River, which he
had descended a considerable way, as well as of the course of that
river to its mouth. The Copper Indians, however, he said, would
be able to give us more accurate information as to the latter part
of its course, as they occasionally pursue it to the sea. He sketched
on the floor a representation of the river, and a line of coast according
to his idea of it. Just as he had finished, an old Chipewyan Indian
named Black Meat, unexpectedly came in, and instantly recognised
the plan. He then took the charcoal from Beaulieu, and inserted a
track along the sea-coast, which he had followed in returning from a
war excursion, made by his tribe against the Esquimaux. He
detailed several particulars of the coast and the sea, which he represented
as studded with well-wooded islands, and free from ice, close
to the shore, in the month of July, but not to a great distance. He
described two other rivers to the eastward of the Copper-mine River,
which also fall into the Northern Ocean. The Anatessy, which
issues from the Contway-to or Rum Lake, and the Thloueea-tessy or
Fish River, which rises near the eastern boundary of the Great
Slave Lake; but he represented both of them as being shallow, and
too much interrupted by barriers for being navigated in any other
than small Indian canoes.
Having received this satisfactory intelligence, I wrote immediately
to Mr. Smith of the North-West Company, and Mr. M£Vicar, of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, the gentlemen in charge of the posts at
the Great Slave Lake, to communicate the object of the Expedition,
and our proposed route; and to solicit any information they possessed,
or could collect, from the Indians, relative to the countries
we had to pass through, and the best manner of proceeding. As
the Copper Indians frequent the establishment on the north side of
the lake, I particularly requested them to explain to that tribe the
object of our visit, and to endeavour to procure from them some
guides and hunters to accompany our party. Two Canadians were
sent by Mr. Keith with these letters.
The month of April commenced with fine and clear but extremely
cold weather; unfortunately we were still without a thermometer,
and could not ascertain the degrees of temperature. The coruscations
of the Aurora were very brilliant almost every evening of the
first week, and were generally of the most variable kind. On the
3d they were particularly changeable. The first appearance exhibited
three illuminated beams issuing from the horizon in the north