“In the spring of 1888 they descended the latter river, heavily loaded, and through much rough water, to the mouth of Bell’s River, and up it to McDougall’s Pass.  They were then carried over the pass to Poplar River and were used in going down the latter to Peel River, and thence up Mackenzie River 1,400 miles; or, exclusive of railway and ship carriage, they were carried about 170 miles and did about 2,500 miles of work for the expedition, making in all about 1,700 landings in no easy manner and going through some very bad water.  I left them at Fort Chipewyan in fairly good condition, and, with a little painting, they would go through the same ordeal again.

“After getting all my outfit over to the foot of Lake Lindeman I set some of the party to pack it to the head of Lake Bennet.

“I employed the rest of the party in looking for timber to build a boat to carry my outfit of provisions and implements down the river to the vicinity of the international boundary, a distance of about 700 miles.  It took several days to find a tree large enough to make plank for the boat I wanted, as the timber around the upper end of the lake is small and scrubby.  My boat was finished on the evening of the 11th of July, and on the 12th I started a portion of the party to load it and go ahead with it and the outfit to the canon.  They had instructions to examine the canon and, if necessary, to carry a part of the outfit past it—­in any case, enough to support the party back to the coast should accident necessitate such procedure.  With the rest of the party I started to carry on the survey, which may now be said to have fairly started ahead on the lakes.  This proved tedious work, on account of the stormy weather.

“In the summer months there is nearly always a wind blowing in from the coast; it blows down the lakes and produces quite a heavy swell.  This would not prevent the canoes going with the decks on, but, as we had to land every mile or so, the rollers breaking on the generally flat beach proved very troublesome.  On this account I found I could not average more than ten miles per day on the lakes, little more than half of what could be done on the river.

“The survey was completed to the canon on the 20th of July.  There I found the party with the large boat had arrived on the 18th, having carried a part of the supplies past the canon, and were awaiting my arrival to run through it with the rest in the boat.  Before doing so, however, I made an examination of the canon.  The rapids below it, particularly the last rapid of the series (called the White Horse by the miners), I found would not be safe to run.  I sent two men through the canon in one of the canoes to await the arrival of the boat, and to be ready in case of an accident to pick us up.  Every man in the party was supplied with a life-preserver, so that should a casualty occur we would all have floated.  Those in the canoe got through all right; but they would not have liked to repeat the trip.  They said the canoe jumped about a great deal more than they thought it would, and I had the same experience when going through in the boat.