The Journey to the Polar Sea

by John Franklin

On the 22nd we crossed three small portages and encamped at the fourth. At one of them we passed some of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s canoes and our application to them was unsuccessful. We began to suspect that Isle à la Crosse was the nearest place at which we might hope for assistance. However on the morning of the 23rd, as we were about to embark, we encountered the last brigades of canoes belonging to both the Companies and obtained a guide and foreman from them. Thus completely equipped we entered the Black Bear Island Lake, the navigation of which requires a very experienced pilot. Its length is twenty-two miles and its breadth varies from three to five, yet it is so choked with islands that no channel is to be found through it exceeding a mile in breadth. At sunset we landed and encamped on an island, and at six A.M. on the 24th left the lake and crossed three portages into another which has probably several communications with the last, as that by which we passed is too narrow to convey the whole body of the Missinippi. At one of these portages called the Pin Portage is a rapid about ten yards in length with a descent of ten or twelve feet and beset with rocks. Light canoes sometimes venture down this fatal gulf to avoid the portage, unappalled by the warning crosses which overhang the brink, the mournful records of former failures.

The Hudson’s Bay Company’s people whom we passed on the 23rd going to the rock house with their furs were badly provided with food, of which we saw distressing proofs at every portage behind them. They had stripped the birch trees of their rind to procure the soft pulpy vessels in contact with the wood which are sweet but very insufficient to satisfy a craving appetite.

The lake to the westward of the Pin Portage is called Sandfly Lake; it is seven miles long and a wide channel connects it with the Serpent Lake, the extent of which to the southward we could not discern. There is nothing remarkable in this chain of lakes except their shapes, being rocky basins filled by the waters of the Missinippi, insulating the massy eminences and meandering with almost imperceptible current between them. From the Serpent to the Sandy Lake it is again confined in a narrow space by the approach of its winding banks, and on the 26th we were some hours employed in traversing a series of shallow rapids where it was necessary to lighten the canoes. Having missed the path through the woods we walked two miles in the water upon sharp stones, from which some of us were incessantly slipping into deep holes and floundering in vain for footing at the bottom, a scene highly diverting notwithstanding our fatigue. We were detained in Sandy Lake till one P.M. by a strong gale when, the wind becoming moderate, we crossed five miles to the mouth of the river and at four P.M. left the main branch of it and entered a little rivulet called the Grassy River, running through an extensive reedy swamp. It is the nest of innumerable ducks which rear their young among the long rushes in security from beasts of prey. At sunset we encamped on the banks of the main branch.

At three A.M. June 28th we embarked in a thick fog occasioned by a fall of the temperature of the air ten degrees below that of the water. Having crossed Knee Lake which is nine miles in length and a portage at its western extremity we entered Primeau Lake with a strong and favourable wind, by the aid of which we ran nineteen miles through it and encamped at the river’s mouth. It is shaped like the barb of an arrow with the point towards the north and its greatest breadth is about four miles.

During the night a torrent of rain washed us from our beds accompanied with the loudest thunder I ever heard. This weather continued during the 29th and often compelled us to land and turn the canoes up to prevent them from filling. We passed one portage and the confluence of a river said to afford by other rivers beyond a height of land a shorter but more difficult route to the Athabasca Lake than that which is generally pursued.

On the 28th we crossed the last portage and at ten A.M. entered the Isle à la Crosse Lake. Its long succession of woody points, both banks stretching towards the south till their forms were lost in the haze of the horizon, was a grateful prospect to us after our bewildered and interrupted voyage in the Missinippi. The gale wafted us with unusual speed and as the lake increased in breadth the waves swelled to a dangerous height. A canoe running before the wind is very liable to burst asunder when on the top of a wave so that part of the bottom is out of the water, for there is nothing to support the weight of its heavy cargo but the bark and the slight gunwales attached to it.

On making known our exigencies to the gentlemen in charge of the Hudson’s Bay and North-West Companies’ forts they made up an assortment of stores amounting to five bales, for four of which we were indebted to Mr. McLeod of the North-West Company who shared with us the ammunition absolutely required for the support of his post, receiving in exchange an order for the same quantity upon the cargo which we expected to follow us from York Factory. We had heard from Mr. Stuart that Fort Chipewyan was too much impoverished to supply the wants of the Expedition and we found Isle à la Crosse in the same condition; which indeed we might have foreseen from the exhausted state of Cumberland House but could not have provided against. We never had heard before our departure from York that the posts in the interior only received annually the stores necessary for the consumption of a single year. It was fortunate for us that Mr. Franklin had desired ten bags of pemmican to be sent from the Saskatchewan across the plains to Isle à la Crosse for our use. This resource was untouched but we could not embark more than five pieces in our own canoes. However Mr. McLeod agreed to send a canoe after us to the Methye Portage with the pemmican, and we calculated that the diminution of our provision would there enable us to receive it.

The Beaver River enters this lake on the South-East side, and another river which has not been named on the South-West. Both these rivers are branches of the Missinippi as it is the only outlet from the lake. The banks appeared to be rocky and the beach in many places sandy but its waters are yellow and muddy. It produces a variety of fish among which its white-fish are esteemed the best in the country. The only birds visible at this season are common to every part of the Missinippi; gulls, ducks, pigeons, goatsuckers, and the raven; and geese and swans pay a momentary visit in passing to the north and returning.

There was little in the forts differing from the establishments that we had before seen. The ground on which they are erected is sandy and favourable to cultivation. Curiosity however was satisfied by the first experiment and utility alone has been unable to extend it. Isle à la Crosse is frequented by the Crees and the Chipewyans. It is not the dread of the Indians but of one another that has brought the rival Companies so close together at every trading post, each party seeking to prevent the other from engaging the affections of the natives and monopolising the trade. Whenever a settlement is made by the one the other immediately follows, without considering the eligibility of the place, for it may injure its opponent though it cannot benefit itself, and that advantage, which is the first object of all other commercial bodies, becomes but the second with the fur traders.

On the evening of the 30th we embarked and entered a wide channel to the northward of the forts and extending towards the north-west. It gradually decreased in breadth till it became a river which is the third fork of the Missinippi and, its current being almost insensible, we entered the Clear Lake at ten A.M. on the 1st of July. Of this lake, which is very large, no part is known except the south border, but its extent would lead us to conclude that its evaporation must be supplied by another river to the northward, especially as the small channel that communicates with Buffalo Lake is motionless. The existence of such a river is asserted by the Indians, and a shorter passage might be found by it across the height of land to Clear Water River than the portage from the Methye Lake.