The travelling distance from Fort Enterprise to the North of the Copper-Mine River, is about three hundred and thirty-four miles. The canoes and baggage were dragged over snow and ice for one hundred and seventeen miles of this distance.
CHAPTER XI. [ToC]
[Navigation of the Polar Sea, in two Canoes, as far as Cape Turnagain, to the Eastward, a distance exceeding Five Hundred and Fifty Miles]—[Observations on the probability of a North-West Passage.]
1821.
July 20.
We intended to have embarked early this morning, and to have launched upon an element more congenial with our habits than the fresh-water navigations, with their numerous difficulties and impediments which we had hitherto encountered, but which was altogether new to our Canadian voyagers. We were detained, however, by a strong north-east gale, which continued the whole day, with constant thunder showers; the more provoking as our nets procured but few fish, and we had to draw upon our store of dried meat; which, with other provision for the journey, amounted only to fifteen days' consumption. Indeed, we should have preferred going dinnerless to bed rather than encroach on our small stock, had we not been desirous of satisfying the appetites, and cheering the spirits of our Canadian companions at the commencement of our voyage. These thoughtless people would, at any time incur the hazard of absolute starvation, at a future period, for the present gratification of their appetites; to indulge which they do not hesitate, as we more than once experienced, at helping themselves secretly; it [being,] in their opinion, no disgrace to be detected in pilfering food.
Our only luxury now was a little salt, which had long been our substitute both for bread and vegetables. Since our departure from Point Lake we had boiled the Indian tea plant, ledum palustre, which produced a beverage in smell much resembling rhubarb; notwithstanding which we found it refreshing, and were gratified to see this plant flourishing abundantly on the sea-shore, though of dwarfish growth.
July 21.—The wind, which had blown strong through the night became moderate in the morning, but a dense fog prevented us from embarking until noon, when we commenced our voyage on the Hyperborean Sea. Soon afterwards we landed on an island where the Esquimaux had erected a stage of drift timber, and stored up many of their fishing implements and winter sledges, together with a great many dressed seal, musk-ox, and deer skins. Their spears headed with bone, and many small articles of the same material, were worked with extreme neatness, as well as their wooden dishes, and cooking utensils of stone; and several articles, very elegantly formed of bone, were evidently intended for some game, but Augustus was unacquainted with their use. We took from this deposit four seal-skins to repair our shoes, and left in exchange a copper-kettle, some awls and beads.
We paddled all day along the coast to the eastward, on the inside of a crowded range of islands, and saw very little ice; the "blink" of it, however, was visible to the northward, and one small iceberg was seen at a distance. A tide was distinguishable among the islands by the foam floating on the water, but we could not ascertain its direction. In the afternoon St. Germain killed on an island a fat deer, which was a great acquisition to us; it was the first we had seen for some months in good condition.