At four in the morning of the 24th we continued the journey and crossed some creeks in the woods and another large swamp.  These swamps are covered with water in summer to the depth of several feet which arises from the melted snow from the higher grounds.  The tracks of foxes, wolves, wolverines and martens were very numerous.  The people employed in carrying meat set traps on their way out and take possession of their captures at their return, for which they receive a sum from the Company proportioned to the value of the fur.

In the evening we crossed the Goose Lake which is a little longer than Swan Lake and afterwards the river Sepanach, a branch of the Saskatchewan forming an island extending thirty miles above and forty below Cumberland House.  We turned to the westward on the Root River which enters the Sepanach and halted on its banks, having made in direct distance not more than twenty miles since the 23rd.

We passed the Shoal Lake on the 25th and then marched twelve miles through woods and swamps to a hunting tent of the Indians.  It was situated in a grove of large poplars and would have been no unpleasant residence if we could have avoided the smoke.  A heavy gale from the westward with snow confined us for several days to this tent.  On the 30th two Indians arrived, one of whom, named the Warrior, was well known at the House.  We endeavoured to prevail upon them to set out in quest of moose which they agreed to do on receiving some rum.  Promises were of no avail; the smallest present gratification is preferred to the certainty of ample reward at another period; an unfailing indication of strong animal passions and a weak understanding.  On our compliance with their demand they departed.

The next day I went to the Warrior’s tent distant about eleven miles.  The country was materially changed:  the pine had disappeared and gentle slopes with clumps of large poplars formed some pleasing groups:  willows were scattered over the swamps.  When I entered the tent the Indians spread a buffalo robe before the fire and desired me to sit down.  Some were eating, others sleeping, many of them without any covering except the breechcloth and a blanket over the shoulders, a state in which they love to indulge themselves till hunger drives them forth to the chase.  Besides the Warrior’s family there was that of another hunter named Long-legs whose bad success in hunting had reduced him to the necessity of feeding on moose leather for three weeks when he was compassionately relieved by the Warrior.  I was an unwilling witness of the preparation of my dinner by the Indian women.  They cut into pieces a portion of fat meat, using for that purpose a knife and their teeth.  It was boiled in a kettle and served in a platter made of birch bark from which, being dirty, they had peeled the surface.  However the flavour of good moose meat will survive any process that it undergoes in their hands except smoking.