And Thus Terminated Our Long, Fatiguing, And Disastrous
Travels In North America, Having Journeyed By Water And By Land
(Including Our Navigation Of The Polar Sea) Five Thousand Five Hundred
And Fifty Miles.
...
MR. WENTZEL'S EXPLANATION.
After you sent me back from the mouth of the Copper-Mine River and I had
overtaken the Leader, Guides, and Hunters, on the fifth day, leaving the
sea-coast, as well as our journey up the River, they always expressed the
same desire of fulfilling their promises, although somewhat dissatisfied
at being exposed to privation while on our return from a scarcity of
animals for, as I have already stated in my first communication from
Moose-Deer Island, we had been eleven days with no other food but tripe
de roche. In the course of this time an Indian with his wife and child,
who were travelling in company with us, were left in the rear and are
since supposed to have perished through want, as no intelligence had been
received of them at Fort Providence in December last. On the seventh day
after I had joined the Leader, etc. etc., and journeying on together, all
the Indians excepting Petit Pied and Bald-Head left me to seek their
families and crossed Point Lake at the Crow's Nest, where Humpy had
promised to meet his brother Ekehcho (Akaitcho the Leader) with the
families but did not fulfil, nor did any of my party of Indians know
where to find them, for we had frequently made fires to apprise them of
our approach yet none appeared in return as answers. This disappointment
as might be expected served to increase the ill-humour of the Leader and
party, the brooding of which (agreeably to Indian custom) was liberally
discharged on me, in bitter reproach for having led them from their
families and exposed them to dangers and hardships which, but for my
influence, they said they might have spared themselves. Nevertheless they
still continued to profess the sincerest desire of meeting your wishes in
making caches of provisions and remaining until a late season on the road
that leads from Fort Enterprise to Fort Providence, through which the
Expedition-men had travelled so often the year before, remarking however
at the same time that they had not the least hopes of ever seeing one
person return from the Expedition. These alarming fears I never could
persuade them to dismiss from their minds; they always sneered at what
they called my credulity. "If," said the Gros Pied (also Akaitcho) "the
Great Chief (meaning Captain Franklin) or any of his party should pass at
my tents, he or they shall be welcome to all my provisions or anything
else that I may have." And I am sincerely happy to understand by your
communication that in this he had kept his word, in sending you with such
promptitude and liberality the assistance your truly dreadful situation
required. But the party of Indians on whom I had placed the utmost
confidence and dependence was Humpy and the White Capot Guide with their
sons and several of the discharged hunters from the Expedition. This
party was well-disposed and readily promised to collect provisions for
the possible return of the Expedition, provided they could get a supply
of ammunition from Fort Providence, for when I came up with them they
were actually starving and converting old axes into ball, having no other
substitute; this was unlucky. Yet they were well inclined and I expected
to find means at Fort Providence to send them a supply, in which I was
however disappointed, for I found that establishment quite destitute of
necessaries, and then shortly after I had left them they had the
misfortune of losing three of their hunters who were drowned in Marten
Lake; this accident was of all others the most fatal that could have
happened, a truth which no one who has the least knowledge of the Indian
character will deny, and as they were nearly connected by relationship to
the Leader, Humpy, and White Capot Guide, the three leading men of this
part of the Copper Indian Tribe, it had the effect of unhinging (if I may
use the expression) the minds of all these families and finally
destroying all the fond hopes I had so sanguinely conceived of their
assisting the Expedition, should it come back by the Annadesse River of
which they were not certain.
As to my not leaving a letter at Fort Enterprise it was because by some
mischance you had forgot to give me paper when we parted.*
(*Footnote. I certainly offered Mr. Wentzel some paper when he quitted us
but he declined it, having then a notebook, and Mr. Back gave him a
pencil.)
I however wrote this news on a plank in pencil and placed it in the top
of your former bedstead where I left it. Since it has not been found
there some Indians must have gone to the house after my departure and
destroyed it. These details, Sir, I have been induced to enter into
(rather unexpectedly) in justification of myself and hope it will be
satisfactory.
End of The Journey to the Polar Sea, by John Franklin
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