On the 18th at eight in the evening a beautiful halo appeared round the sun when it was about 8° high. The colours were prismatic, and very bright, the red next the sun.
On the 21st the ice in the river was measured and found to be five feet thick, and in setting the nets in Round Rock Lake, it was there ascertained to be six feet and a half thick, the water being six fathoms deep. The stomachs of some fish were at this time opened by Dr. Richardson, and found filled with insects which appear to exist in abundance under the ice during the winter.
On the 22nd a moose-deer was killed at the distance of forty-five miles; St. Germain went for it with a dog-sledge, and returned with unusual expedition on the morning of the third day. This supply was soon exhausted, and we passed the 27th without eating, with the prospect of fasting a day or two longer, when old Keskarrah entered with the unexpected intelligence of having killed a deer. It was divided betwixt our own family and the Indians, and during the night a seasonable supply arrived from Akaitcho. Augustus returned with the men who brought it, much pleased with the attention he had received from the Indians during his visit to Akaitcho.
Next day Mr. Wentzel set out with every man that we could spare from the fort, for the purpose of bringing meat from the Indians as fast as it could be procured. Dr. Richardson followed them two days afterwards, to collect specimens of the rocks in that part of the country. On the same day the two Belangers arrived from Fort Providence, having been only five days on the march from thence.
The highest temperature in April was +40°, the lowest -32°, the mean +4°.6. The temperature of the rapid, examined on the 30th by Messrs. Back and Hood, was 32° at the surface, 33° at the bottom.
On the 7th of May, Dr. Richardson returned. He informed me that the rein-deer were again advancing to the northward, but that the leader had been joined by several families of old people, and that the daily consumption of provision at the Indian tents was consequently great. This information excited apprehensions of being very scantily provided when the period of our departure should arrive.
The weather in the beginning of May was fine and warm. On the 2nd some patches of sandy ground near the house were cleared of snow. On the 7th the sides of the hills began to appear bare, and on the 8th a large house-fly was seen. This interesting event spread cheerfulness through our residence and formed a topic of conversation for the rest of the day.
On the 9th the approach of spring was still more agreeably confirmed by the appearance of a merganser and two gulls, and some loons, or arctic divers, at the rapid. This day, to reduce the labour of dragging meat to the house, the women and children and all the men, except four, were sent to live at the Indian tents.
The blue-berries, crow-berries, eye-berries, and cran-berries, which had been covered, and protected by the snow during the winter, might at this time be gathered in abundance, and proved indeed a valuable resource. The ground continued frozen, but the heat of the sun had a visible effect on vegetation; the sap thawed in the pine-trees, and Dr. Richardson informed me that the mosses were beginning to shoot, and the calyptræ of some of the jungermanniæ already visible.
On the 11th Mr. Wentzel returned from the Indian lodges, having made the necessary arrangements with Akaitcho for the drying of meat for summer use, the bringing fresh meat to the fort and the procuring a sufficient quantity of the resin of the spruce fir, or as it is termed by the voyagers gum, for repairing the canoes previous to starting, and during the voyage. By my desire, he had promised payment to the Indian women who should bring in any of the latter article, and had sent several of our own men to the woods to search for it. At this time I communicated to Mr. Wentzel the mode in which I meant to conduct the journey of the approaching summer. Upon our arrival at the sea, I proposed to reduce the party to what would be sufficient to man two canoes, in order to lessen the consumption of provisions during our voyage, or journey along the coast; and as Mr. Wentzel had expressed a desire of proceeding no farther than the mouth of the Copper-Mine River, which was seconded by the Indians, who wished him to return with them, I readily relieved his anxiety on this subject; the more so as I thought he might render greater service to us by making deposits of provision at certain points, than by accompanying us through a country which was unknown to him, and amongst a people with whom he was totally unacquainted. My intentions were explained to him in detail, but they were of course to be modified by circumstances.