Pierre au Calumet receives its name from the place where the stone is procured, of which many of the pipes used by the Canadians and Indians are made.  It is a clayey limestone, impregnated with various shells.  The house, which is built on the summit of a steep bank rising almost perpendicular to the height of one hundred and eighty feet, commands an extensive prospect along this fine river and over the plains which stretch out several miles at the back of it, bounded by hills of considerable height and apparently better furnished with wood than the neighbourhood of the fort where the trees grow very scantily.  There had been an establishment belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Company on the opposite bank of the river but it was abandoned in December last, the residents not being able to procure provision from their hunters having been disabled by the epidemic sickness which has carried off one-third of the Indians in these parts.  They belong to the Northern Crees, a name given them from their residing in the Athabasca department.  There are now but few families of these men who formerly by their numbers and predatory habits spread terror among the natives of this part of the country.

There are springs of bituminous matter on several of the islands near these houses; and the stones on the riverbank are much impregnated with this useful substance.  There is also another place remarkable for the production of a sulphureous salt which is deposited on the surface of a round-backed hill about half a mile from the beach and on the marshy ground underneath it.  We visited these places at a subsequent period of the journey and descriptions of them will appear in Dr. Richardson’s Mineralogical Notices.

The latitude of the North-West Company’s House is 57 degrees 24 minutes 06 seconds North, but this was the only observation we could obtain, the atmosphere being cloudy.  Mr. Stuart had an excellent thermometer which indicated the lowest state of temperature to be 43 degrees below zero.  He told me 45 degrees was the lowest temperature he had ever witnessed at the Athabasca or Great Slave Lake after many years’ residence.  On the 21st it rose above zero and at noon attained the height of 43 degrees; the atmosphere was sultry, snow fell constantly, and there was quite an appearance of a change in the season.  On the 22nd we parted from our hospitable friend and recommenced our journey, but under the expectation of seeing him again in May, at which time the partners of the Company usually assemble at Fort Chipewyan where we hoped the necessary arrangements for our future proceedings would be completed.  We encamped at sunset at the end of fourteen miles, having walked the whole way along the river which preserves nearly a true north course and is from four hundred to six hundred yards broad.  The banks are high and well clothed with the liard, spruce, fir, alder, birch-tree and willows.  Having come nineteen miles and a half on the 23rd we encamped among pines of a great height and girth.