to remain at is their usual hunting ground.  The uncommon anxiety these chiefs expressed for our safety appeared to us likely to prompt them to every care and attention, and I record their expressions with gratitude.  After representing the numerous hardships we should have to encounter in the strongest manner, though in language similar to what we had often heard from our friend Akaitcho, they earnestly entreated we would be constantly on our guard against the treachery of the Esquimaux, and no less forcibly desired we would not proceed far along the coast, as they dreaded the consequences of our being exposed to a tempestuous sea in canoes, and having to endure the cold of the autumn on a shore destitute of fuel.  The Hook having been an invalid for several years rejoiced at the opportunity of consulting Dr. Richardson, who immediately gave him advice and supplied him with medicine.

The pounded meat and fat were converted into pemmican preparatory to our voyage.

The result of our observations at the Hook’s encampment was latitude 66 degrees 45 minutes 11 seconds North, longitude 115 degrees 42 minutes 23 seconds West, variation of the compass 46 degrees 7 minutes 30 seconds East.

We embarked at eleven to proceed on our journey.  Akaitcho and his brother the guide being in the first canoe and old Keskarrah in the other.  We wished to dispense with the further attendance of two guides and made a proposition that either of them might remain here, but neither would relinquish the honour of escorting the Expedition to the sea.  One of our hunters however was less eager for this distinction and preferred remaining with Green-stockings, Keskarrah’s fascinating daughter.  The other four, with the Little Singer accompanied us, two of them conducting their small canoes in turns and the rest walking along the beach.

The river flows over a bed of sand and winds in an uninterrupted channel of from three-quarters to a mile broad between two ranges of hills, which are pretty even in their outline and round-backed, but having rather steep acclivities.  The immediate borders of the stream consist either of high banks of sand or steep gravel cliffs and sometimes, where the hills recede to a little distance, the intervening space is occupied by high sandy ridges.

At three P.M., after passing along the foot of a high range of hills, we arrived at the portage leading to the Bear Lake, to which we have previously alluded.  Its position is very remarkable, being at the most westerly part of the Copper-Mine River and at the point where it resumes a northern course and forces a passage through the lofty ridge of mountains to which it has run parallel for the last thirty miles.  As the Indians travel from hence with their families in three days to the point where they have proposed staying for us, the distance I think cannot exceed forty miles and, admitting the course to be due west, which is the direction the guide pointed, it would place the eastern part of Bear Lake in 118 1/4 degrees West longitude.