connected with the Salt River and is about fifty yards wide at its junction with the lake—­the water is brackish.  This route is usually taken in the winter as it cuts off a large angle in going to the Great Slave River.  In the afternoon we passed two empty fishing-huts and in the evening encamped amongst some high pines on the banks of the river having had several snow-showers during the day which considerably impeded the dogs so that we had not proceeded more than fifteen miles.

December 24 and 25.

We continued along the river, frequently making small portages to avoid going round to the points, and passed some small canoes which the Indians had left for the winter.  The snow was so deep that the dogs were obliged to stop every ten minutes to rest; and the cold so excessive that both the men were badly frozen on both sides of the face and chin.  At length, having come to a long meadow which the dogs could not cross that night, we halted in an adjoining wood and were presently joined by a Canadian who was on his return to the fort and who treated us with some fresh meat in exchange for pemmican.  During the latter part of the day we had seen numerous tracks of the moose, buffalo, and marten.

December 26.

The weather was so cold that we were compelled to run to prevent ourselves from freezing; our route lay across some large meadows which appeared to abound in animals, though the Indians around Slave Lake are in a state of great want.  About noon we passed a sulphur-stream which ran into the river; it appeared to come from a plain about fifty yards distant.  There were no rocks near it and the soil through which it took its course was composed of a reddish clay.  I was much galled by the strings of the snowshoes during the day and once got a severe fall occasioned by the dogs running over one of my feet and, dragging me some distance, my snowshoe having become entangled with the sledge.  In the evening we lost our way from the great similarity of appearance in the country and it was dark before we found it again when we halted in a thick wood after having come about sixteen miles from the last encampment.  Much snow fell during the night.

At an early hour on the 27th of December we continued our journey over the surface of a long but narrow lake and then through a wood which brought us to the grand detour on the Slave River.  The weather was extremely cloudy with occasional falls of snow which tended greatly to impede our progress from its gathering in lumps between the dogs’ toes; and though they did not go very fast yet my left knee pained me so much that I found it difficult to keep up with them.  At three P.M. we halted within nine miles of the Salt River and made a hearty meal of mouldy pemmican.

December 28 and 29.