March they reached Methy Lake—­so called from an unwholesome fish of the burbot species found there, only the liver of which is fit to eat—­crossed the Methy portage on the 13th, and, amidst a chaos of vast ravines and the wildest of scenery, descended the next day to the Clearwater River.  Thence they followed the Indian trail on the north bank, passing a noted scene, “a romantic defile of limestone rocks like Gothic ruins,” and, crossing a small stream, found pure sulphur deposited by springs and smelling very strongly.  On the 17th they got to the junction of the Clearwater with the Athabasca, where Port McMurray now stands, and next day reached the Pierre an Calumet post, in charge of a Mr. Stewart, who had twice crossed the mountains to the Pacific coast.  The place got its name from a soft stone found there, of which the Indians made their pipes.

Franklin notes the “sulphurous springs” and “bituminous salt” in this region, also the statement of Mr. Stewart, who had a good thermometer, “that the lowest temperature he had ever witnessed in many years, either at the Athabasca or Great Slave Lake, was 45 degrees below zero,” a statement worth recording here.

On the 26th of March the party arrived at Fort Chipewyan, the distance travelled from Cumberland House being 857 miles.  He notes that at the time of his arrival the fort was very bare of both buffalo and moose meat, owing, it was said, to the trade rivalry, and that where some eight hundred packs of fur used to be shipped from that point, only one-half of that number was now sent.  Liquor was largely used by both companies in trade, and scenes of riot and violence ensued upon the arrival of the Indians at the fort in spring, and whom he describes otherwise as “reserved and selfish, unhospitable and beggars, but honest and affectionate to children.”  They painted round the eyes, the cheek-bones and the forehead, and all the race, except the Dog Ribs and the Beavers, believed that their forefathers came from the East.  The Northern Indians, Franklin says, suppose that they originally sprang from a dog, and about A.D. 1815 they destroyed all their dogs, and compelled their women to take their place.  Their chiefs seemed to have no power save over their own families, and their conjurers were supported by voluntary contributions of provisions.  These are some of the chief characteristics Franklin notes of the Indians who frequented Fort Chipewyan, at which point he spent several months.  One extraordinary circumstance, however, remains to be mentioned.  It is that of a young Chipewyan who lost his wife in her first pregnancy.  He applied the child to his left breast, from which a flow of milk took place.  “The breast,” he adds, “became of an unusual size.”  Here he and Back, afterwards Admiral Back, were joined by Dr. Richardson and Mr. Hood, who had come from Cumberland House by the difficult Churchill River route, and on July 18th, at noon, the whole party left the fort on their tragic expedition, the party, aside