It was truly a hard outlook for them, but no time must be lost if provisions were to be obtained.  Hastily a raft was constructed, the logs being bound together with spruce roots.  In this way, by alternately walking and rafting, the mouth of the river was reached Aug. 29.  On the way down the river five rafts had been made and abandoned.  The only weapon was a small pocket revolver, and with the products of this weapon, mostly red squirrels and a few fish, they lived until they reached the different caches.  Many a meal was made of one red squirrel divided between them, and upon such food they were compelled to make the best time possible.  On the way up the river the shoes of one of the party had given wholly out, and he was obliged to make a rude pair of slippers from the back of a leather pack.  With torn clothes and hungry bodies they presented a hard sight indeed when they joined their friends at Rigolet on the 1st of September.  The party composed of Messrs. Bryant and Kenaston was passed by Cary and Cole while on the way down, but was not seen.  Probably this occurred on Lake Waminikapon, the width of the lake preventing one party from seeing the other.  It seemed a waste of time and energy that two expeditions in the same summer should be sent upon the same object, but neither party knew of the intention of the other until it was too late to turn back.

Grand River has long been a highway for the dependents of the Hudson Bay Company.  The company formerly had a post on Lake Waminikapon, and another, called Height of Land, on the plateau.  Provisions were carried to these posts, and furs brought from them by way of Grand River, the parties proceeding as far as the lake, and then, leaving Grand River some distance below the canon, no longer being able to follow it on account of the swiftness of the water, they carried their canoes across the land to a chain of lakes connecting with the post.  This station has been given up many years, and the river is used now chiefly be Indians and hunters in the winter.

It has long been known that Hamilton Inlet was of glacial origin, the immense basin hollowed out by this erosive agent being 150 miles in length.  How much further this immense valley extended has never been known.  Mr. Cary says that the same basin which forms Hamilton Inlet and enters Lake Melville, the two being connected by twelve miles of narrows, extends up the Grand River Valley as far as Gull Island Lake, the whole forming one grand glacial record.  From Lake Melville to Gull Island the bed was being gradually filled in by the deposits of the river, but the contour of the basin is the same here as below.  The bed of the country here is Archaean rock, and many beautiful specimens of labradorite dot the shores.  In the distance the grim peaks of the Mealy Mountains stand out in bold relief against the sky.