Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/66

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I took charge of our own supplies, and checked each piece as it was brought ashore. Our chest of tea was the only article that had suffered from the effects of frequent transhipment. It had been broken open and a few pounds lost, but the balance—about sixty pounds—had been gathered up and put in a flour bag. Before noon everything was safely landed on the shore, and it formed a miscellaneous pile of no small extent. Following is a list of the articles: "Bacon, axes, flour, matches, oatmeal, alcohol, tin kettles, evaporated apples, apricots, salt, sugar, frying-pans, dutch oven, rice, pepper, mustard, files, jam, tobacco, hard tack, candles, geological hammers, baking powder, pain killer, knives, forks, canned beef—fresh and corned—tin dishes, tarpaulins and waterproof sacks. Besides the above, there were our tents, bags of dunnage, mathematical instruments, rifles and a box of ammunition. The total weight of all this outfit amounted at the time to about four thousand pounds.

A sail-boat which my brother had used in 1892, and which was in good condition, rode at anchor before the Fort, and for a time it was thought we would have to make use of this as far as the east end of the lake to carry all our stuff. Moberly, the guide, particularly urged the necessity of taking the big boat, for his home was at the east end of the lake, and he had a lot of stuff for which he wished to arrange a transport, but as we were not on a freighting tour for Moberly, and as we found by trial that everything could be carried nicely in the canoes, we decided to take them only. At this the guide became sulky, and thought he would not go. His wife and two daughters, who were to accom-