Having received this satisfactory intelligence I wrote immediately to Mr. Smith of the North-West Company and Mr. McVicar of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the gentlemen in charge of the posts at the Great Slave Lake, to communicate the object of the Expedition and our proposed route, and to solicit any information they possessed or could collect from the Indians relative to the countries we had to pass through and the best manner of proceeding.  As the Copper Indians frequent the establishment on the north side of the lake I particularly requested them to explain to that tribe the object of our visit and to endeavour to procure from them some guides and hunters to accompany our party.  Two Canadians were sent by Mr. Keith with these letters.

The month of April commenced with fine and clear but extremely cold weather; unfortunately we were still without a thermometer and could not ascertain the degrees of temperature.  The coruscations of the Aurora Borealis were very brilliant almost every evening of the first week and were generally of the most variable kind.  On the 3rd they were particularly changeable.  The first appearance exhibited three illuminated beams issuing from the horizon in the north, east, and west points, and directed towards the zenith; in a few seconds these disappeared and a complete circle was displayed, bounding the horizon at an elevation of fifteen degrees.  There was a quick lateral motion in the attenuated beams of which this zone was composed.  Its colour was a pale yellow with an occasional tinge of red.

On the 8th of April the Indians saw some geese in the vicinity of this lake but none of the migratory birds appeared near the houses before the 15th when some swans flew over.  These are generally the first that arrive; the weather had been very stormy for the four preceding days and this in all probability kept the birds from venturing farther north than where the Indians had first seen them.

In the middle of the month the snow began to waste daily and by degrees it disappeared from the hills and the surface of the lake.  On the 17th and 19th the Aurora Borealis appeared very brilliant in patches of light bearing North-West.  An old Cree Indian having found a beaver-lodge near to the fort, Mr. Keith, Back, and I accompanied him to see the method of breaking into it and their mode of taking those interesting animals.  The lodge was constructed on the side of a rock in a small lake having the entrance into it beneath the ice.  The frames were formed of layers of sticks, the interstices being filled with mud, and the outside was plastered with earth and stones which the frost had so completely consolidated that to break through required great labour with the aid of the ice chisel and the other iron instruments which the beaver hunters use.  The chase however was unsuccessful as the beaver had previously vacated the lodge.

On the 21st we observed the first geese that flew near the fort and some were brought to the house on the 30th but they were very lean.  On the 25th flies were seen sporting in the sun and on the 26th the Athabasca River, having broken up, overflowed the lake along its channel; but except where this water spread there was no appearance of decay in the ice.