Part 9 (1/2)

18 36.2 NE, strong, clear _} 148 deg. 52 min. W.

19 36.4 NE, strong, foggy } Foggy 20 36.4 NE, fresh, foggy _} Island.

21 35.7 NNE, North, moderate, clear } 22 37.6 North, NE, light, clear } Between Foggy Island & 23 41.0 Calm, clear } the Mouth of the 24 39.4 Calm, clear, foggy in the night } Mackenzie, lat. 70 25 41.2 Calm, fog, NE, light, ESE, strong} deg. 16 min. and 68 26 39.6 WNW, NW, heavy gale, snow, sleet } deg. 53 min. N. lon.

27 39.8 Calm, ESE, light, clear } 147 deg. 38 min. and 28 43.0 SW, strong, clear } 136 deg. 19 min. W.

29 52.5 SSW, heavy gale _} 30 45.6 NW, Heavy gale, rain } Mackenzie 31 42.4 Calm, SW, gloomy } River.

----- Mean 40.85 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sept.

1 38.3 NW, gale, snow } 2 38.6 NW, strong, clear } 3 41.1 Calm, moderate, SE, clear } 4 41.3 SE, NW, moderate, clear } 5 45.9 SE, light, clear } 6 51.0 Variable, light, clear } 7 44.8 SE, light, NW, strong } 8 41.0 NW, strong, snow } 9 39.3 East, moderate, clear } 10 45.8 SE, light, clear } Mackenzie 11 45.8 NW, moderate rain } River.

12 37.3 NW, moderate, gloomy } 13 37.2 Calm, SE, light, clear } 14 37.9 ESE, moderate, clear } 15 42.7 Calm, moderate, fresh, gloomy } 16 44.5 Variable, light, gloomy } 17 36.9 Variable, moderate, rain } 18 29.4 NW, fresh, gloomy } 19 24.6 NW, moderate, gloomy } 20 29.2 ESE, fresh, clear } 21 31.1 ENE, fresh, clear Fort Franklin.

----- Mean 39.22 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE.--The thermometer used in this register, was compared with those in use at Fort Franklin during ten days after our return, and found to coincide with them.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] I have recently learned, by letter from Captain Beechey, that the barge turned back on the 25th of August, having been several days beset by the ice. He likewise informs me, that the summer of 1827 was so unfavourable for the navigation of the northern coast of America, that the Blossom did not reach so high a lat.i.tude as in the preceding year; nor could his boat get so far to the east of Icy Cape, by one hundred miles. The natives, he says, were numerous, and, in some instances, ill-disposed.

DR. RICHARDSON'S NARRATIVE OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE EASTERN DETACHMENT OF THE EXPEDITION.

CHAPTER I.

Leave Point Separation and descend the Eastern Channel of the Mackenzie--Arrive at Sacred Island--Esquimaux Graves--Interview with the Natives; their thievish disposition--Attempt to gain possession of the Union--Heavy Gale--Find Shelter in Refuge Cove--Low Coast--Mirage--Stopped by Ice at Point Toker--Reach the Sea.

[Sidenote: July 4th.] The two parties of which the Expedition was composed, having spent the evening of the 3rd of July in cheerful conversation about their future prospects, prepared to separate on the morning of the 4th. By six o'clock all the boats were stowed; and Captain Franklin, Lieutenant Back, and their party, had committed themselves to the stream in the Lion and Reliance; while the Eastern Detachment, drawn up on the beach, cheered them on their departure with three hearty huzzas. The voices of our friends were heard in reply until the current had carried their boats round a projecting point of land, when we also embarked to proceed on our voyage. Our detachment was composed of twelve individuals, distributed in two boats, named the Dolphin and Union.

IN THE DOLPHIN. IN THE UNION.

Dr. Richardson. Mr. Kendall.

Thomas Gillet, _c.o.xswain_. John M'Leay, _c.o.xswain_.

John M'Lellan, _Bowman_. George Munroe, _Bowman_.

Shadrach Tysoe, _Marine_. William Money, _Marine_.

Thomas Fuller, _Carpenter_. John M'Duffey.

Ooligbuck, _Esquimaux_. George Harkness.

The instructions we received were, to trace the coast between the Mackenzie and Coppermine Rivers, and to return from the latter overland to Great Bear Lake. Ice was the only impediment we dreaded as likely to prove an obstacle to the execution of these orders. We knew that the direct distance between the two rivers did not amount to five hundred miles; and, having provisions for upwards of eighty days stowed in the boats, we were determined not to abandon the enterprize on light grounds, especially after we had seen the friends that had just parted from us embark with so much cheerfulness in their more arduous undertaking.

On leaving Point Separation we pulled, for two hours, against the current, to regain the entrance of the ”Middle Channel,” which was first explored by Mackenzie, on his way to the sea, in 1798, and more perfectly surveyed by Captain Franklin, on his voyage to Garry's Island, last autumn. It has a breadth of nearly a mile, and a depth of from three to five fathoms; though in one place, where there was a ripple, the sounding lead struck against a flat bed of stone in nine feet water.

Having proceeded about ten miles in this channel, we entered a branch flowing to the eastward, with the view of tracing the course of the main land. Mackenzie, on his return from the sea by this route, observed many trees having their upper branches lopped off by the Esquimaux, and we saw several such trees in the course of the day. The lands are low and marshy, and inclose small lakes which are skirted by willows. The summits of the banks are loaded with drift-timber, showing that they are all inundated by the spring floods, except a few sandy ridges which bound the princ.i.p.al channels, and which are clothed with well-grown white spruce trees. Our voyage amongst these uninteresting flats was greatly enlivened by the busy flight and cheerful twittering of the sand-martins, which had scooped out thousands of nests in the banks of the river, and we witnessed with pleasure their activity in thinning the ranks of our most tormenting foes the musquitoes. When our precursor, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, pa.s.sed through these channels on the 10th of July, 1789, they were bounded by walls of ice veined with black earth, but the present season was so much milder, that the surface of the banks was every where thawed.

An hour before noon we put ash.o.r.e to cook our breakfast, near a clump of spruce trees, where several fires had recently been made by a party which had left many foot-prints on the sand; probably a horde of Esquimaux, on their return from trading with the Indians at the Narrows.

A thunder storm that obscured the sky, prevented Mr. Kendall from ascertaining the lat.i.tude at noon, which was the hour we chose for breakfast throughout the voyage, in order to economize time, as it was necessary to land to obtain the meridian observation of the sun. In the afternoon we continued to descend the same channel, which has a smooth and moderately rapid current, and a general depth of two or three fathoms. At four P.M. we obtained a view of a ridge of land to the eastward, which we have since learned is named by the natives the Rein-Deer Hills, and at seven encamped near two conical hills of limestone, about two hundred feet high, and clothed with trees to their tops. The length of the day's voyage was forty-two miles. We selected a sandy bank, covered with willows sixteen feet high, for our encamping place; and here again we found that a party of Esquimaux had lately occupied the same spot, the ashes of their fires being still fresh, and the leaves of the willow poles to which they had attached their nets, unwithered. Before we retired to bed, the arms were examined, and a watch was set; a practice which we kept up for the remainder of the voyage. Much rain fell in the night.

[Sidenote: Wednesday, 5th.] On the 5th we embarked at four in the morning, and soon afterwards, the channel conducting us to the base of the Rein-Deer Hills, Mr. Kendall and I ascended an eminence, which was about four hundred feet high. Its summit was thinly coated with gravel, and its sides were formed of sand and clay, inclosing some beds of brownish-red sandstone, and of gray-coloured slate-clay. Clumps of trees grew about half way up, but the top produced only a thin wiry gra.s.s. At eleven A.M. we landed to breakfast, and remained on sh.o.r.e until noon, in the hope of obtaining an observation for lat.i.tude, but the sun was obscured by clouds. In the afternoon I had an extensive view from the summit of a hill of flat alluvial lands, divided into islands by inosculations of the channels of the river, and bounded, at the distance of about forty miles to the westward, by the Rocky Mountains. As we advanced to the northward, we perceived the trees to diminish in size, becoming more scattered, and ascend a shorter way up the sides of the hills, and they altogether terminated in lat.i.tude 68 degrees 40 minutes, in an even line running across the islands; though one solitary spruce fir was seen in 68 degrees 53 minutes. Perhaps the lands to the northward of this abrupt line were too low and wet for the growth of the white spruce, the tree which attains the highest lat.i.tude on this continent.

We pitched our tents for the night on the site of another Esquimaux encampment, where a small bit of moose deer's meat was still attached to a piece of wood at the fire-place; and we saw, from the tracks of the people and dogs in the sand, that a party had left the river here to cross the Rein-Deer Hills. From information obtained through the Sharp-eyed, or Quarreller tribe of Indians, this appears to be one of the Esquimaux routes to a large piece of brackish water named Esquimaux Lake, and alluded to by Mackenzie in several parts of his narrative. The length of our voyage this day was forty-four miles, and our encampment was opposite to an island named by Captain Franklin after William Williams, Esq., late governor of Prince Rupert's land. We observed here an unusually large spruce tree, considering the high lat.i.tude in which it grew; it measured seven feet in circ.u.mference, at the height of four feet from the ground. A hole was dug at the foot of the hill, in sandy soil, to the depth of three feet without reaching frozen ground.

[Sidenote: Thursday, 6th.] On the 6th, heavy and continued rain delayed our embarkation until ten o'clock in the forenoon, and the weather, during the rest of the day, was hazy, with occasional showers of small rain. Before leaving the encampment, we lopped the branches from a tree, and suspended to it a small kettle, a hatchet, an ice-chisel, and a few strings of beads, together with a letter written in hieroglyphics, by Mr. Kendall, denoting that a party of white people presented these articles to the Esquimaux as a token of friends.h.i.+p.[4] As we advanced, we came to the union of several ramifications of the middle channel with the eastern branch of the river, and the breadth of the latter increased to two miles; its depth of water being rarely less than three fathoms.

In lat.i.tude 69 degrees, the eastern channel of the Mackenzie makes a turn round the end of the Rein-deer-hills which terminate there, having previously diminished in height to about two hundred feet. At the commencement of this turn, there is a small island nearly equal to the main land in height, and appearing when viewed from the southward, to be a continuation of it. Its position pointing it out to be the one described by Mackenzie as possessing ”a sacred character,” and being still a burial place of the Esquimaux, I named it Sacred Island. We saw here two recent, and several more ancient graves. The bodies were wrapped in skins closely covered with drift-wood, and laid with their heads to the west; so that the rule mentioned by Captain Lyon in his account of Melville peninsula, does not obtain on this part of the coast; for there none but the bodies of infants are placed in that direction. Various articles, such as canoes, sledges, and fis.h.i.+ng nets, were deposited near the graves.

Sacred Island is formed entirely of layers of fine sand of different colours, covered by a little vegetable mould. One of its sides being steeply escarped by the waves, showed its structure completely. Amongst the vegetable productions of this spot, we noticed the perennial lupine, the narrow-leaved epilobium, and some currant bushes in full flower, and growing with great luxuriance. From its summit we had a view of the river flowing in many channels, both to the eastward and westward. The islands lying in sight to the westward are low, and apparently inundated when the river is flooded; but to the eastward, there are many islands having hummocks as high as Sacred Island, and judging from those that were near, they are, like it, composed of sand. The channels surrounding the island appear to be shallow.