The following are the estimated distances in statute miles which Mr. Back and I had travelled since our departure from Cumberland: 

From Cumberland House to Carlton House:  263. 
From Carlton House to Isle a la Crosse:  230. 
From Isle a la Crosse to north side of the Methye Portage:  124. 
From the Methye Portage to Fort Chipewyan:  240.

Total:  857 miles.

CHAPTER 5.

TRANSACTIONS AT FORT CHIPEWYAN.  ARRIVAL OF DR. RICHARDSON AND MR. HOOD.  PREPARATIONS FOR OUR JOURNEY TO THE NORTHWARD.

TRANSACTIONS AT FORT CHIPEWYAN.

March 26, 1820.

On the day after our arrival at Fort Chipewyan we called upon Mr. MacDonald, the gentleman in charge of the Hudson’s Bay Establishment called Fort Wedderburne, and delivered to him Governor Williams’ circular letter which desired that every assistance should be given to further our progress, and a statement of the requisitions which we should have to make on his post.

Our first object was to obtain some certain information respecting our future route and accordingly we received from one of the North-West Company’s interpreters, named Beaulieu, a half-breed who had been brought up amongst the Dog-ribbed and Copper Indians, some satisfactory information which we afterwards found tolerably correct respecting the mode of reaching the Copper-Mine River which he had descended a considerable way, as well as of the course of that river to its mouth.  The Copper Indians however he said would be able to give us more accurate information as to the latter part of its course as they occasionally pursue it to the sea.  He sketched on the floor a representation of the river and a line of coast according to his idea of it.  Just as he had finished an old Chipewyan Indian named Black Meat unexpectedly came in and instantly recognised the plan.  He then took the charcoal from Beaulieu and inserted a track along the sea-coast which he had followed in returning from a war excursion made by his tribe against the Esquimaux.  He detailed several particulars of the coast and the sea which he represented as studded with well-wooded islands and free from ice close to the shore in the month of July, but not to a great distance.  He described two other rivers to the eastward of the Copper-Mine River which also fall into the Northern Ocean, the Anatessy, which issues from the Contwayto or Rum Lake, and the Thloueeatessy or Fish River, which rises near the eastern boundary of the Great Slave Lake; but he represented both of them as being shallow and too much interrupted by barriers for being navigated in any other than small Indian canoes.