learning that, not having
people to carry a considerable quantity of pounded meat which they
intended for us, they had left it upon the Bear Lake Portage. They
promised however to get it conveyed to the banks of this river before we
could return and we rewarded them with a present of knives and files.

After reembarking we continued to descend the river which was now
contracted between lofty banks to about one hundred and twenty yards
wide; the current was very strong. At eleven we came to a rapid which had
been the theme of discourse with the Indians for many days, and which
they had described to us as impassable in canoes. The river here descends
for three-quarters of a mile in a deep but narrow and crooked channel
which it has cut through the foot of a hill of five hundred or six
hundred feet high. It is confined between perpendicular cliffs resembling
stone walls, varying in height from eighty to one hundred and fifty feet,
on which lies a mass of fine sand. The body of the river pent within this
narrow chasm dashed furiously round the projecting rocky columns and
discharged itself at the northern extremity in a sheet of foam. The
canoes, after being lightened of part of their cargoes, ran through this
defile without sustaining any injury. Accurate sketches of this
interesting scene were taken by Messrs. Back and Hood. Soon after passing
this rapid we perceived the hunters running up the east side of the river
to prevent us from disturbing a herd of musk-oxen which they had observed
grazing on the opposite bank; we put them across and they succeeded in
killing six, upon which we encamped for the purpose of drying the meat.
The country below the Rocky Defile Rapid consists of sandy plains, broken
by small conical eminences also of sand, and bounded to the westward by a
continuation of the mountain chain which we had crossed at the Bear Lake
Portage, and to the eastward and northward at the distance of twelve
miles by the Copper Mountains, which Mr. Hearne visited. The plains are
crowned by several clumps of moderately large spruces about thirty feet
high.

This evening the Indians made a large fire as a signal to the Hook's
party that we had passed the TERRIFIC rapid in safety.

The position of our encampment was ascertained to be latitude 67 degrees
1 minute 10 seconds North, longitude 116 degrees 27 minutes 28 seconds
West, variation of the compass 44 degrees 11 minutes 43 seconds East, dip
of the needle 87 degre