information respecting the country to the north of the Great Slave Lake, and was furnished by Mr. Chirk, the superintendant, with a list of stores he supposed the expedition would require. At the neighbouring post, some letters were found which Lieutenant Franklin had addressed to the partners of the N.W. Company, in the Athabasca district, shortly after his arrival at Cumberland House – a circumstance which proved the necessity of his proceeding to Fort Chipewyan, where, on the 26th March, he terminated a journey of 857 statute miles, performed in the depth of winter, with a weight of between two and three pounds almost constantly attached to his feet and ancles.
“We had the pleasure,” continues Lieutenant Franklin, ”of being received by Messrs. Keith and Black, the partners of the N.W. Company in charge of Fort Chipewyan, in the most kind and hospitable manner. Our first object was to obtain some certain information respecting our future route, and we received from one of their interpreters, named Beaulieu, a half-breed, who had been brought up amongst the Dog-ribbed and Copper Indians, some satisfactory intelligence, which we afterwards found tolerably correct, respecting the mode of reaching the Copper-mine River, which he had descended a considerable way; as well as of the course of that river to its mouth. The Copper Indians, however, he said, would be able to give us more accurate information as to the latter part of its course, as they occasionally pursue it to the sea. He sketched on the door a representation of the river, and a line of coast according to his idea of it. Just as he had finished, an old Chipewyan Indian, named Black Meat, unexpectedly came in, and instantly recognized the plan. He then took the charcoal from Beaulieu, and inserted a track along the sea-coast, which he had followed in returning from a war excursion, made by his tribe against the Esquimaux. He detailed several particulars of the coast and the sea, which he represented as studded, with well wooded islands, and free from ice close to the shore, but not to a great distance, in the month of July. He likewise described two other rivers to the eastward of the Copper-mine, which also fall into the Northern Ocean; but he represented them both as being shallow, and too much interrupted by barriers for being navigated in any other than small Indian canoes.
“Having received this intelligence, I wrote immediately to the gentlemen in charge of the posts at the Great Slave Lake, to communicate the object of the expedition, and our proposed route; and to solicit any information they possessed, or could collect from the Indians, relative to the countries we had to pass through, and the best manner of proceeding. As the Copper Indians frequent the establishment on the north side of the
