At this time I was visited by a very grievous affliction, in the loss of my beloved wife, whose untimely death left me in a more wretched condition than words can express.  This was truly an eventful year for me;—­within that space I became a husband, a father, and a widower;—­I traversed the continent of America, performing a voyage of some 1,500 miles by sea, and a journey by land of fully 1,200 miles, on snow-shoes.

As soon as the navigation became practicable (June 18), Mr. Erlandson set off for the interior, with his outfit, in three small canoes, and after much toil reached his destination on the 10th of July.  On the return of the men who had assisted in the transport, I fitted out an expedition to explore the coast to the westward, with the view of ascertaining the capabilities of that quarter, for the extension of the business.  The party was absent about a month; and their report was entirely unfavourable to the project of carrying our “ameliorating system” so far.  The navigation of the coast is exceedingly dangerous, from the continual presence of ice, and the extraordinary force of the currents.  While the coast proved so inaccessible, the interior of the country wears a still more dreary and sterile aspect; not a tree, nor shrub, nor plant of any land, is to be seen, save the lichens that cover the rocks, and a few willows.  The native Esquimaux, whom our people had seen, evinced the same amicable disposition by which their whole race is distinguished.  They received our people with open arms, and some of the young damsels seemed disposed to cultivate a closer intimacy with them than their ideas of propriety, or at least their olfactory nerves, would sanction.  The effluvia that proceeds from their persons in the summer season is quite insufferable; it is as if you applied your nose to a cask of rancid oil.

In the course of the summer, several Esquimaux arrived from the westward, with a considerable quantity of fox-skins,—­the only fur this barren country yields.  Some of these poor creatures had passed nearly two years on their journey hither, being obliged to hunt or fish for their living as they travelled.  They set off on their return with a little tobacco, or a few strings of beads;—­very few having the means of procuring guns and ammunition.

Nothing worthy of notice occurred till the month of September, when I was gratified by the arrival of despatches from Canada, by a junior clerk appointed to the district.  By him we received the first intelligence of the stirring events that had taken place in the colonies during the preceding year.  The accounts of the triumphs of my countrymen’s arms over French treachery and Yankee hatred, diverted my thoughts, for the first time, from the melancholy subject of my late bereavement; the thoughts of which my solitude served rather to cherish than dispel.