however, the only juncture at which the natives were met with in force sufficient to create danger; and though it was certainly a critical one, the object in view was one of those which justify a rush at the fence without a scrutiny into the possible ditch at the other side.
While the operations above described were in progress, a party, left behind at Fort Good Hope, had ascended the Bear Lake River, and established themselves on the lake of that name to prepare the winter residence of the expedition. The ascent of the stream, however, had been one of difficulty, conducted between impending walls of ice, in some instances forty feet high. Thirty miles of such navigation had cost a fortnight’s labor, and the passage of the lake itself was scarcely less difficult. It was not till the 17th of August, the day on which the coasting party reentered the Mackenzie River, that the building party reached the scene of its labors, named Fort Confidence. Mr. Simpson’s arrival here occurred on the 29th of September. They found their simple and diminutive log dwellings finished as well as the scanty materials of the country allowed, but miserably inadequate to the climate. An express soon after reached them, conveying, among other intelligence, that of Sir. G. Back’s intended expedition to Wager Inlet, and affording hopes of a meeting with that officer in the course of the summer, which were frustrated by the well-known failure of his gallant efforts. The incidents of the winter residence demand little comment. From the 11th of November to the end of January the temperature ranged from 32° to 33° below zero. Occasionally, however, it descended to 50° and when at 49° the author cast a bullet of quicksilver, which, fired from a pistol at ten paces, passed through an inch plank. The students of Liebig will not be surprised to hear that, when abundance permitted, the daily ration of an individual was from eight to twelve pounds of venison. On some occasions it appears that the allowance to the Company’s servants has been fourteen pounds of moose or buffalo. We apprehend that bone is included, but the amount is yet enormous, as compared with the consumption of man in temperate climates. The great chemist clearly explains why this large amount of solid and nitrogenized food should be not only innocent but salutary under an arctic temperature. How far, however, it be necessary, and how great the addition desirable for due enjoyment, or essential to the healthy condition of the frame, apart from the adventitious consequences of habit, may be doubted. We have at least reason to doubt that the officers of these expeditions, whose education and habits removed them from the influences of idleness and mere sensuality, have felt and had occasion to satisfy any inordinate cravings. Experience and theory alike condemn the use of spirituous liquors as aids to exertion in these climates.[1]
The 11th of March exhibited the greatest degree of cold observed. A spirit thermometer, more scrupulous than its fellows, stood at 60°, an older one at 66°.
Had Mr. Simpson’s ardent mind and powerful frame been totally unoccupied during his long and wearisome detention, he might have been driven to the remedy which our French neighbors accuse us of adopting for low spirits, and have committed an appropriate suicide with a quicksilver bullet. He was not, however, driven to this resource. His winter excursions, on Great Bear Lake and the neighboring barrens, exceeded a thousand miles. On the 27th of March he set out, with two men and four dogs, to explore the country between Bear Lake and the Coppermine, their intended pathway to the sea. Buried in the snowdrift of a north-easter, scarcely broken by the screen of a few dwarf spruces, the author naturally felt it difficult to comprehend how people could perish in an English snow-storm in the hot desert of Salisbury Plain, or the tropical regions of Shap Fell.
Indian education begins early. Lewis and Clarke describe equestrians of some two years old using both whip and bridle with vigor and effect. An unweaned member of an Indian family reached Fort Confidence on snow shoes two feet in length:—
“I must not,” says Mr. Simpson, “close this part of the narrative without bestowing a just encomium on the generally docile character of the natives of Great Bear Lake. They soon become attached to white men, and are fond of imitating their manners. In our little hall I have repeatedly seen the youngsters who were most about us get up from their chairs, and politely hand them to any of our people who happened to enter. Some of them even learned to take off their caps in the house, and to wash instead of greasing their faces. Their indulgent treatment of their women, who indeed possess the mastery, was noticed by Sir J. Franklin. I wish I could speak as favorably of their honesty and veracity.”—p. 243.
The next great object of Mr. Simpson’s instructions was, as we have stated, to trace the unexplored interval from Franklin’s point Turnagain to the Tlewocho estuary. For this object he was to reach the coast by the Coppermine River, with the choice, as far as his instructors could give it, of spending one or two seasons on the attempt, and of returning by whichever of the two rivers he might prefer. He started on the 6th of June, ascended the Dease River, crossed the Dismal Lakes on the still solid ice, partly with the assistance of sails, and launching on the Kendal River reached the confluence of that stream with the Coppermine on the 20th. The rapids of the Coppermine made of the descent and ascent of that river perhaps the two most critical operations of the expedition. Franklin had descended them in July, when at their summer level; they were now
