We quitted Moose-Deer Island at five P.M. on the 26th, accompanied by Mr. McVicar and Mr. McAuley and nearly all the voyagers at the establishment, having resided there about five months, not a day of which had passed without our having cause of gratitude for the kind and unvaried attentions of Mr. McVicar and Mr. McAuley.  These gentlemen accompanied us as far as Fort Chipewyan where we arrived on the 2nd of June, here we met Mr. Wentzel and the four men who had been sent with him from the mouth of the Copper-Mine River, and I think it due to that gentleman to give his own explanation of the unfortunate circumstances which prevented him from fulfilling my instructions respecting the provisions to have been left for us at Fort Enterprise. (See below.)

In a subsequent conversation he stated to me that the two Indians who were actually with him at Fort Enterprise whilst he remained there altering his canoe were prevented from hunting, one by an accidental lameness, the other by the fear of meeting alone some of the Dog-Rib Indians.

We were here furnished with a canoe by Mr. Smith and a bowman to act as our guide and, having left Fort Chipewyan on the 5th, we arrived on the 4th of July at Norway House.  Finding at this place that canoes were about to go down to Montreal I gave all our Canadian voyagers their discharges and sent them by those vessels, furnishing them with orders on the Agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company for the amount of their wages.  We carried Augustus down to York Factory where we arrived on the 14th of July, and were received with every mark of attention and kindness by Mr. Simpson the Governor, Mr. McTavish, and indeed by all the officers of the United Companies.  And thus terminated our long, fatiguing, and disastrous travels in North America, having journeyed by water and by land (including our navigation of the Polar Sea) five thousand five hundred and fifty miles.

...

MR. WENTZEL’S EXPLANATION.

After you sent me back from the mouth of the Copper-Mine River and I had overtaken the Leader, Guides, and Hunters, on the fifth day, leaving the sea-coast, as well as our journey up the River, they always expressed the same desire of fulfilling their promises, although somewhat dissatisfied at being exposed to privation while on our return from a scarcity of animals for, as I have already stated in my first communication from Moose-Deer Island, we had been eleven days with no other food but tripe de roche.  In the course of this time an Indian with his wife and child, who were travelling in company with us, were left in the rear and are since supposed to have perished through want, as no intelligence had been received of them at Fort Providence in December last.  On the seventh day after I had joined the Leader, etc. etc., and journeying on together, all the Indians excepting Petit Pied and Bald-Head left me to seek their families and crossed Point Lake at the Crow’s Nest, where