to be in a distant view, some of the pines being thirty or forty feet high and two feet in diameter at the root.  We determined on placing the house on the summit of the bank which commands a beautiful prospect of the surrounding country.  The view in the front is bounded at the distance of three miles by round-backed hills; to the eastward and westward lie the Winter and Round-rock Lakes which are connected by the Winter River whose banks are well clothed with pines and ornamented with a profusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs.

In the afternoon we read divine service and offered our thanksgiving to the Almighty for His goodness in having brought us thus far on our journey; a duty which we never neglected when stationary on the Sabbath.

The united length of the portages we had crossed since leaving Fort Providence is twenty-one statute miles and a half and, as our men had to traverse each portage four times, with a load of one hundred and eighty pounds, and return three times light, they walked in the whole upwards of one hundred and fifty miles.  The total length of our voyage from Chipewyan is five hundred and fifty-three miles.*

(Footnote. 
Stony and Slave Rivers:  260 statute miles. 
Slave Lake:  107 statute miles. 
Yellow-Knife River:  156.5 statute miles. 
Barren country between the source of the Yellow-Knife River and Fort
Enterprise:  29.5 statute miles. 
Total:  553 statute miles.)

A fire was made on the south side of the river to inform the chief of our arrival, which, spreading before a strong wind, caught the whole wood, and we were completely enveloped in a cloud of smoke for the three following days.

On the next morning our voyagers were divided into two parties, the one to cut the wood for the building of a storehouse and the other to fetch the meat as the hunters procured it.  An interpreter was sent with Keskarrah the guide to search for the Indians who had made the fire seen on Saturday, from whom we might obtain some supplies of provision.  An Indian was also despatched to Akaitcho with directions for him to come to this place directly and bring whatever provision he had as we were desirous of proceeding without delay to the Copper-Mine River.  In the evening our men brought in the carcasses of seven reindeer which two hunters had shot yesterday and the women commenced drying the meat for our journey.  We also obtained a good supply of fish from our nets today.

A heavy rain on the 23rd prevented the men from working either at the building or going for meat; but on the next day the weather was fine and they renewed their labours.  The thermometer that day did not rise higher than 42 degrees and it fell to 31 degrees before midnight.  On the morning of the 25th we were surprised by some early symptoms of the approach of winter; the small pools were frozen over and a flock of geese passed to the southward.  In the afternoon however a fog came on which afterwards changed into