th. 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 a 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. Mac Leod 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 a 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 Saskatchawan across the plains to Isle a la Crosse
for our use. This resource was untouched, but we could not embark more
than five pieces in our own canoes. However, Mr. Mac Leod agreed to send