e
store. The want of ammunition prevented us from equipping and sending
them to the woods to hunt; and although they are accustomed to subsist
themselves for a considerable part of the year by fishing, or snaring
the deer, without having recourse to fire-arms, yet, on the present
occasion, they felt little inclined to do so, and gave scope to their
natural love of ease, as long as our store-house seemed to be well
stocked. Nevertheless, as they were conscious of impairing our future
resources, they did not fail, occasionally, to remind us that it was not
their fault, to express an ardent desire to go hunting, and to request a
supply of ammunition, although they knew that it was not in our power to
give it.

The summer birds by this time had entirely deserted us, leaving, for our
winter companions, the raven, cinereous crow, ptarmigan, and snow-bird.
The last of the water-fowl that quitted us was a species of diver, of
the same size with the _colymbus arcticus_, but differing from it in the
arrangement of the white spots on its plumage, and in having a yellowish
white bill. This bird was occasionally caught in our fishing nets.

The thermometer during the month of October, at Fort Enterprise, never
rose above 37 deg., or fell below 5 deg.; the mean temperature for the month
was 23 deg..

In the beginning of October a party had been sent to the westward to
search for birch to make snow-shoe frames, and the Indian women were
afterwards employed in netting the shoes and preparing leather for
winter-clothing to the men. Robes of rein-deer skins were also obtained
from the Indians, and issued to the men who were to travel, as they are
not only a great deal lighter than blankets, but also much warmer, and
altogether better adapted for a winter in this climate. They are,
however, unfit for summer use, as the least moisture causes the skin to
spoil, and lose its hair. It requires the skins of seven deer to make
one robe. The finest are made of the skins of young fawns.

The fishing, having failed as the weather became more severe, was given
up on the 5th. It had procured us about one thousand two hundred _white
fish_, from two to three pounds each. There are two other species of
_Coregoni_ in Winter Lake, _Back's grayling_ and the _round fish_; and a
few _trout_, _pike_, _methye_, and _red carp_, were also occasionally
obtained from the nets. It may be worthy of notice here, that the fish
froze as they were taken out of the