Adam, our interpreter, being desirous of uniting himself with the Copper
Indians, applied to me for his discharge which I granted, and gave him a
bill on the Hudson's Bay Company for the amount of his wages. These
arrangements being completed we prepared to cross the lake.
Mr. Weeks provided Dr. Richardson and I with a cariole each and we set
out at eleven A.M. on the 15th for Moose-Deer Island. Our party consisted
of Belanger who had charge of a sledge laden with the bedding and drawn
by two dogs, our two cariole men, Benoit and Augustus. Previous to our
departure we had another conference with Akaitcho who, as well as the
rest of his party, bade us farewell with a warmth of manner rare among
the Indians.
The badness of Belanger's dogs and the roughness of the ice impeded our
progress very much and obliged us to encamp early. We had a good fire
made of the driftwood which lines the shores of this lake in great
quantities. The next day was very cold. We began the journey at nine A.M.
and encamped at the Big Cape, having made another short march in
consequence of the roughness of the ice.
On the 17th we encamped on the most southerly of the Reindeer Islands.
This night was very stormy but, the wind abating in the morning, we
proceeded and by sunset reached the fishing-huts of the Company at Stony
Point. Here we found Mr. Andrews, a clerk of the Hudson's Bay Company,
who regaled us with a supper of excellent white-fish for which this part
of Slave Lake is particularly celebrated. Two men with sledges arrived
soon afterwards, sent by Mr. McVicar, who expected us about this time. We
set off in the morning before daybreak with several companions and
arrived at Moose-Deer Island about one P.M. Here we were received with
the utmost hospitality by Mr. McVicar, the chief trader of the Hudson's
Bay Company in this district, as well as by his assistant Mr. McAuley. We
had also the happiness of joining our friend Mr. Back; our feelings on
this occasion can be well imagined and we were deeply impressed with
gratitude to him for his exertions in sending the supply of food to Fort
Enterprise, to which under Divine Providence we felt the preservation of
our lives to be owing. He gave us an affecting detail of the proceedings
of his party since our separation, the substance of which I shall convey
to the reader by the following extracts from his Journal.
