SLAVE LAKE AND FORT PROVIDENCE.

July 24.

We made more progress notwithstanding the continuance of the wind.  The course of the river is very winding, making in one place a circuit of seven or eight miles round a peninsula which is joined to the west bank by a narrow isthmus.  Near the foot of this elbow a long island occupies the centre of the river which it divides into two channels.  The longitude was obtained near to it 113 degrees 25 minutes 36 seconds and variation 27 degrees 25 minutes 14 seconds North, and the latitude 60 degrees 54 minutes 52 seconds North, about four miles farther down.  We passed the mouth of a broad channel leading to the north-east termed La Grande Riviere de Jean, one of the two large branches by which the river pours its waters into the Great Slave Lake; the flooded delta at the mouth of the river is intersected by several smaller channels through one of which, called the Channel of the Scaffold, we pursued our voyage on the following morning and by eight A.M. reached the establishment of the North-West Company on Moose-Deer Island.  We found letters from Mr. Wentzel, dated Fort Providence, a station on the north side of the lake, which communicated to us that there was an Indian guide waiting for us at that post; but that the chief and the hunters who were to accompany the party had gone to a short distance to hunt, having become impatient at our delay.

Soon after landing I visited the Hudson’s Bay post on the same island and engaged Pierre St. Germain, an interpreter for the Copper Indians.  We regretted to find the posts of both the Companies extremely bare of provision but, as the gentlemen in charge had despatched men on the preceding evening to a band of Indians in search of meat and they promised to furnish us with whatever should be brought, it was deemed advisable to wait for their return as the smallest supply was now of importance to us.  Advantage was taken of the delay to repair effectually the canoe which had been broken in the Dog Rapid.  On the next evening the men arrived with the meat and enabled Mr. McLeod of the North-West Company to furnish us with four hundred pounds of dried provisions.  Mr. McVicar of the Hudson’s Bay Company also supplied one hundred and fifty pounds.  This quantity we considered would be sufficient until we could join the hunters.  We also obtained three fishing-nets, a gun, and a pair of pistols, which were all the stores these posts could furnish, although the gentlemen in charge were much disposed to assist us.

Moose-Deer Island is about a mile in diameter and rises towards the centre about three hundred feet above the lake.  Its soil is in general sandy, in some parts swampy.  The varieties of the northern berries grow abundantly on it.  The North-West Company’s fort is in latitude 61 degrees 11 minutes 8 seconds North, longitude 113 degrees 51 minutes 37 seconds West, being two hundred and sixty statute miles distant from Fort Chipewyan by the river course.