“Lake Lindeman is about five miles long and half a mile wide.  It is deep enough for all ordinary purposes.  Lake Bennet[3] is twenty-six and a quarter miles long, for the upper fourteen of which it is about half a mile wide.  About midway in its length an arm comes in from the west, which Schwatka appears to have mistaken for a river, and named Wheaton River.  This arm is wider than the other arm down to that point, and is reported by Indians to be longer and heading in a glacier which lies in the pass at the head of Chilkoot Inlet.  This arm is, as far as seen, surrounded by high mountains, apparently much higher than those on the arm we travelled down.  Below the junction of the two arms the lake is about one and a half miles wide, with deep water.  Above the forks the water of the east branch is muddy.  This is caused by the streams from the numerous glaciers on the head of the tributaries of Lake Lindeman.

[Footnote 3:  A small saw-mill has been erected at the head of Lake Bennet; lumber for boat building sells at $100 per M. Boats 25 feet long and 5 feet beam are $60 each.  Last year the ice broke up in the lake on the 12th June, but this season is earlier and the boats are expected to go down the lake about the 1st of June.]

“A stream which flows into Lake Bennet at the south-west corner is also very dirty, and has shoaled quite a large portion of the lake at its mouth.  The beach at the lower end of this lake is comparatively flat and the water shoal.  A deep, wide valley extends northwards from the north end of the lake, apparently reaching to the canon, or a short distance above it.  This may have been originally a course for the waters of the river.  The bottom of the valley is wide and sandy, and covered with scrubby timber, principally poplar and pitch-pine.  The waters of the lake empty at the extreme north-east angle through a channel not more than one hundred yards wide, which soon expands into what Schwatka called Lake Nares.[4] Through this narrow channel there is quite a current, and more than 7 feet of water, as a 6 foot paddle and a foot of arm added to its length did not reach the bottom.

[Footnote 4:  The connecting waters between Lake Bennet and Tagish Lake constitute what is now called Caribou Crossing.]

“The hills at the upper end of Lake Lindeman rise abruptly from the water’s edge.  At the lower end they are neither so steep nor so high.

“Lake Nares is only two and a half miles long, and its greatest width is about a mile; it is not deep, but is navigable for boats drawing 5 or 6 feet of water; it is separated from Lake Bennet by a shallow sandy point of not more than 200 yards in length.

“No streams of any consequence empty into either of these lakes.  A small river flows into Lake Bennet on the west side, a short distance north of the fork, and another at the extreme north-west angle, but neither of them is of any consequence in a navigable sense.