During the night a torrent of rain washed us from our beds accompanied with the loudest thunder I ever heard.  This weather continued during the 29th and often compelled us to land and turn the canoes up to prevent them from filling.  We passed one portage and the confluence of a river said to afford by other rivers beyond a height of land a shorter but more difficult route to the Athabasca Lake than that which is generally pursued.

On the 28th we crossed the last portage and at ten A.M. entered the Isle a la Crosse Lake.  Its long succession of woody points, both banks stretching towards the south till their forms were lost in the haze of the horizon, was a grateful prospect to us after our bewildered and interrupted voyage in the Missinippi.  The gale wafted us with unusual speed and as the lake increased in breadth the waves swelled to a dangerous height.  A canoe running before the wind is very liable to burst asunder when on the top of a wave so that part of the bottom is out of the water, for there is nothing to support the weight of its heavy cargo but the bark and the slight gunwales attached to it.

On making known our exigencies to the gentlemen in charge of the Hudson’s Bay and North-West Companies’ forts they made up an assortment of stores amounting to five bales, for four of which we were indebted to Mr. McLeod of the North-West Company who shared with us the ammunition absolutely required for the support of his post, receiving in exchange an order for the same quantity upon the cargo which we expected to follow us from York Factory.  We had heard from Mr. Stuart that Fort Chipewyan was too much impoverished to supply the wants of the Expedition and we found Isle a la Crosse in the same condition; which indeed we might have foreseen from the exhausted state of Cumberland House but could not have provided against.  We never had heard before our departure from York that the posts in the interior only received annually the stores necessary for the consumption of a single year.  It was fortunate for us that Mr. Franklin had desired ten bags of pemmican to be sent from the Saskatchewan across the plains to Isle a la Crosse for our use.  This resource was untouched but we could not embark more than five pieces in our own canoes.  However Mr. McLeod agreed to send a canoe after us to the Methye Portage with the pemmican, and we calculated that the diminution of our provision would there enable us to receive it.

The Beaver River enters this lake on the South-East side, and another river which has not been named on the South-West.  Both these rivers are branches of the Missinippi as it is the only outlet from the lake.  The banks appeared to be rocky and the beach in many places sandy but its waters are yellow and muddy.  It produces a variety of fish among which its white-fish are esteemed the best in the country.  The only birds visible at this season are common to every part of the Missinippi; gulls, ducks, pigeons, goatsuckers, and the raven; and geese and swans pay a momentary visit in passing to the north and returning.