From the 12th to the 16th we had fine and, for the season, warm weather; and the deer, which had not been seen since the 26th of October, reappeared in the neighbourhood of the house, to the surprise of the Indians who attributed their return to the barren grounds to the unusual mildness of the season.  On this occasion, by melting some of our pewter cups, we managed to furnish five balls to each of the hunters, but they were all expended unsuccessfully, except by Akaitcho who killed two deer.

By the middle of the month Winter River was firmly frozen over except the small rapid at its commencement which remained open all the winter.  The ice on the lake was now nearly two feet thick.  After the 16th we had a succession of cold, snowy, and windy weather.  We had become anxious to hear of the arrival of Mr. Back and his party at Fort Providence.  The Indians, who had calculated the period at which a messenger ought to have returned from thence to be already passed, became impatient when it had elapsed and, with their usual love of evil augury, tormented us by their melancholy forebodings.  At one time they conjectured that the whole party had fallen through the ice; at another that they had been waylaid and cut off by the Dog-Ribs.  In vain did we urge the improbability of the former accident, or the peaceable character of the Dog-Ribs, so little in conformity with the latter.  “The ice at this season was deceitful,” they said “and the Dog-Ribs, though unwarlike, were treacherous.”  These assertions, so often repeated, had some effect upon the spirits of our Canadian voyagers who seldom weigh any opinion they adopt, but we persisted in treating their fears as chimerical for, had we seemed to listen to them for a moment, it is more than probable that the whole of our Indians would have gone to Fort Providence in search of supplies, and we should have found it extremely difficult to have recovered them.

The matter was put to rest by the appearance of Belanger on the morning of the 23rd and the Indians, now running into the opposite extreme, were disposed to give us more credit for our judgment than we deserved.  They had had a tedious and fatiguing journey to Fort Providence and for some days were destitute of provisions.

Belanger arrived alone; he had walked constantly for the last six-and-thirty hours, leaving his Indian companions encamped at the last woods, they being unwilling to accompany him across the barren grounds during the storm that had prevailed for several days and blew with unusual violence on the morning of his arrival.  His locks were matted with snow and he was encrusted with ice from head to foot so that we scarcely recognised him when he burst in upon us.  We welcomed him with the usual shake of the hand but were unable to give him the glass of rum which every voyager receives on his arrival at a trading post.

As soon as his packet was thawed we eagerly opened it to obtain our English letters.  The latest were dated on the preceding April.  They came by way of Canada and were brought up in September to Slave Lake by North-West Company’s canoes.