the next
winter's establishment should be formed as the reindeer would pass there
in the autumn and spring. Its waters contained fish and there was a
sufficiency of wood for building as well as for the winter's consumption.
These were important considerations and determined me in pursuing the
route they now proposed. They could not inform us what time we should
take in reaching the lake until they saw our manner of travelling in the
large canoes, but they supposed we might be about twenty days, in which
case I entertained the hope that, if we could then procure provision, we
should have time to descend the Copper-Mine River for a considerable
distance, if not to the sea itself, and return to the lake before the
winter set in.

It may here be proper to mention that it had been my original plan to
descend the Mackenzie's River and to cross the Great Bear Lake, from the
eastern side of which, Boileau informed me, there is a communication with
the Copper-Mine River by four small lakes and portages; but under our
present circumstances this course could not be followed because it would
remove us too far from the establishments at the Great Slave Lake to
receive the supplies of ammunition and some other stores in the winter
which were absolutely necessary for the prosecution of our journey, or to
get the Esquimaux interpreter whom we expected. If I had not deemed these
circumstances paramount I should have preferred the route by Bear Lake.

Akaitcho and the guides having communicated all the information they
possessed on the different points to which our questions had been
directed I placed my medal round the neck of the chief, and the officers
presented theirs to an elder brother of his and the two guides,
communicating to them that these marks of distinction were given as
tokens of our friendship and as pledges of the sincerity of our
professions. Being conferred in the presence of all the hunters their
acquisition was highly gratifying to them, but they studiously avoided
any great expression of joy because such an exposure would have been
unbecoming the dignity which the senior Indians assume during a
conference. They assured us however of their being duly sensible of these
tokens of our regard and that they should be preserved during their lives
with the utmost care. The chief evinced much penetration and intelligence
during the whole of this conversation, which gave us a favourable opinion
of his intellectual powers. H