We embarked early next morning, and, after a tedious and laborious passage of seven days, arrived at Big Island fishery at the outlet of the Lake on the 8th of October, where I found a boat ready to start with a cargo of fish, in which I embarked; and landing finally at Fort Simpson on the 16th, my long trip of five months per mare et terram, was brought to a close; and high time it should, for the weather was become excessively cold, and the ice was forming along the beach.

I was much grieved to find Mr. Lewis confined to bed in consequence of a shocking accident he had lately met with, his right hand being blown off by the accidental discharge of his fowling-piece.

Having perused the governor’s official letter to Mr. Lewis, I found the following paragraph in it relating to myself:—­“On retiring from the district next season, you will be pleased to invest Mr. McLean with the management, handing to that gentleman all correspondence, papers, &c., connected with the public business.”  This paragraph, taken in conjunction with the instructions I had previously received, confirmed both Mr. L. and myself in the opinion that I was to succeed him in the charge; and we took our measures accordingly.

I was very agreeably surprised to find that the high latitude of this locality (61 deg. north) did not prevent agricultural operations from being carried on with success.  Although the season had been rather unfavourable, the farm yielded four hundred bushels of potatoes, and upwards of one hundred bushels of barley; the barnyard, with its stacks of barley and hay, and the number of horned cattle around it, had quite the air of a farm standing in the “old country.”  It is to be regretted that the gentlemen here should have paid so little attention to the cultivation of the soil in former times, as the produce would, ere now, not only have contributed to the support of the establishment, but have afforded assistance to the natives in years of scarcity.

For these three years past the distress of the natives in this quarter has been without parallel; several hundreds having perished of want—­in some instances, even at the gates of the trading post, whose inmates, far from having it in their power to relieve others, required relief themselves.  Here, as in most other parts of the wooded country, rabbits form the principal subsistence of the natives, and when they fail, starvation is the sure and inevitable result; but no former period has been so productive of distress, to so fearful an extent, as the present.  With the produce of the farm, Mr. L. was enabled to save the lives of all those who resorted to his own post; but at Forts Good Hope, Norman, and De Liard, no assistance could be given; as those posts, like most others in the Indian country, depend entirely on the means the country affords in fish, flesh, and fowl, for their subsistence.

CHAPTER XV.