Connoyer, who was much tormented with biliary calculi and had done little or no duty all the winter, was discharged at the same time and sent down in company with an Indian named the Belly.

The commencement of April was fine and for several days a considerable thaw took place in the heat of the sun which, laying bare some of the lichens on the sides of the hills, produced a consequent movement of the reindeer to the northward and induced the Indians to believe that the spring was already commencing.  Many of them therefore quitted the woods and set their snares on the barren grounds near Fort Enterprise.  Two or three days of cold weather however towards the middle of the month damped their hopes, and they began to say that another moon must elapse before the arrival of the wished-for season.  In the meantime their premature departure from the woods caused them to suffer from want of food and we were in some degree involved in their distress.  We received no supplies from the hunters, our nets produced but very few fish, and the pounded meat which we had intended to keep for summer use was nearly expended.  Our meals at this period were always scanty and we were occasionally restricted to one in the day.

The Indian families about the house, consisting principally of women and children, suffered most.  I had often requested them to move to Akaitcho’s lodge where they were more certain of receiving supplies but, as most of them were sick or infirm, they did not like to quit the house, where they daily received medicines from Dr. Richardson, to encounter the fatigue of following the movements of a hunting camp.  They cleared away the snow on the site of the autumn encampments to look for bones, deer’s feet, bits of hide, and other offal.  When we beheld them gnawing the pieces of hide and pounding the bones for the purpose of extracting some nourishment from them by boiling we regretted our inability to relieve them, but little thought that we should ourselves be afterwards driven to the necessity of eagerly collecting these same bones a second time from the dunghill.

At this time, to divert the attention of the men from their wants, we encouraged the practice of sliding down the steep bank of the river upon sledges.  These vehicles descended the snowy bank with much velocity and ran a great distance upon the ice.  The officers joined in the sport and the numerous overturns we experienced formed no small share of the amusement of the party, but on one occasion, when I had been thrown from my seat and almost buried in the snow, a fat Indian woman drove her sledge over me and sprained my knee severely.

On the 18th at eight in the evening a beautiful halo appeared round the sun when it was about 8 degrees high.  The colours were prismatic and very bright, the red next the sun.

On the 21st the ice in the river was measured and found to be five feet thick and, in setting the nets in Round Rock Lake, it was there ascertained to be six feet and a half thick, the water being six fathoms deep.  The stomachs of some fish were at this time opened by Dr. Richardson and found filled with insects which appear to exist in abundance under the ice during the winter.