Some of the hills attain an elevation of five or six hundred feet at the distance of a mile from the house; and from their summits a very picturesque view is commanded of the lake and of the surrounding country.  The land above the Great Point at the confluence of the main stream of the Elk River is six or seven hundred feet high and stretches in a southern direction behind Pierre au Calumet.  Opposite to that establishment, on the west side of the river, at some distance in the interior, the Bark Mountain rises and ranges to the North-West until it reaches Clear Lake, about thirty miles to the southward of these forts, and then goes to the south-westward.  The Cree Indians generally procure from this range their provision as well as the bark for making their canoes.  There is another range of hills on the south shore which runs towards the Peace River.

The residents of these establishments depend for subsistence almost entirely on the fish which this lake affords; they are usually caught in sufficient abundance throughout the winter though at the distance of eighteen miles from the houses; on the thawing of the ice the fish remove into some smaller lakes and the rivers to the south shore.  Though they are nearer to the forts than in winter it frequently happens that high winds prevent the canoes from transporting them thither and the residents are kept in consequence without a supply of food for two or three days together.  The fish caught in the net are the attihhawmegh, trout, carp, methye, and pike.*

(Footnote.  See above.)

The traders also get supplied by the hunters with buffalo and moose-deer meat (which animals are found at some distance from the forts) but the greater part of it is either in a dried state or pounded ready for making pemmican and is required for the men whom they keep travelling during the winter to collect the furs from the Indians, and for the crews of the canoes on their outward passage to the depots in spring.  There was a great want of provision this season, and both the Companies had much difficulty to provide a bare sufficiency for their different brigades of canoes.  Mr. Smith assured me that after the canoes had been despatched he had only five hundred pounds of meat remaining for the use of the men who might travel from the post during the summer and that, five years preceding, there had been thirty thousand pounds in store under similar circumstances.  He ascribed this amazing difference more to the indolent habits which the Indians had acquired since the commercial struggle commenced than to their recent sickness, mentioning in confirmation of his opinion that they could now, by the produce of little exertion, obtain whatever they demanded from either establishment.