inland navigation too difficult, to admit of agricultural produce being carried down profitably in return. Hence most of the halfbreed settlers, encouraged by some of the colonial merchants and Roman Catholic priests, have made strenuous attempts to share the fur trade with the Hudson's Bay Company, who at present have the monopoly of that traffic; and the Company do not seem to possess a force adequate to prevent their eventually succeeding in their object.

Of late years, a communication has been formed between the colony and the United States by way of the plains and St. Peter's River. This furnishes a channel for the disposal of peltry without detection; and through the relationship existing between the half-breeds of the colony and the various tribes of Indians as far north as Methy Portage, no great difficulty is experienced by them in withdrawing a considerable quantity of the most valuable furs from the Company's trade.

In the winter of 1848 a half-breed was summoned before the Recorder of Osnaboya for a breach of the Company's regulations in this respect, and on the day of trial, five hundred of his class, armed to the teeth, surrounded the court-house. The Recorder was obliged to secrete himself, and the matter was finally compromised by the Company's agent purchasing the furs from the delinquent. Secretly or openly, this contravention of the right of exclusive trade in fur claimed by the Company is sure to proceed, and, emboldened by success, the young half-breeds are not likely to acknowledge any law that is contrary to their own will. They hold that the territorial right derived from their Indian ancestry is theirs, and not the Company's; and their claims have been supported by a philanthropic body in England, and advocated in parliament. Without entering into the question of the chartered rights of the Hudson's Bay Company, or the propriety of maintaining a monopoly of the fur trade, it is my firm conviction, founded on the wide-spread disorder I witnessed in times of competition, that the admission of rival companies or independent traders into these northern districts would accelerate the downfall of the native races. This has been rapid on the confines of the settled parts of the United States and of Canada, and has been stayed only by the extinction of the fur-bearing animals, by which the power of the Indians to purchase spirits has been cramped. Even the benevolence of the English government in making an

nual presents of clothing and blankets to the Indians of Canada is converted into an injury by a set of unscrupulous petty dealers, who hang about the encampments to purchase these articles as soon as they come into the possession of the Indians, by supplying them with the baneful liquid they so ardently covet. This is punishable by the colonial laws; but when crimes are committed beyond the pale of civilization, conviction is difficult. By the laws of the United States, also, it is penal to supply Indians with spirits; but according to general report this benevolent enactment is extensively violated by their fur traders; and it is greatly to be regretted that competition for the Indian trade in that quarter should induce the Hudson's Bay Company to follow so bad an example, after having abolished the use of spirits with so much advantage in the north, where they have no rivals.

I was informed that in 1848 the natives at the Red River colony of Osnaboya were paid a high money price for their furs by the Company's agent, and that they immediately crossed the boundary-line to purchase rum at the American post with their money; but it would be better to seek for the redress of such an abuse by a representation to the United States government, than resort to retaliatory measures of the same nature.

CHAPTER XV.

OCCURRENCES IN WINTER.

Fort Confidence.-Its Situation.-Silurian Limestone.-Lake Basin.-Trees.Dwelling-house.-Occupations.-Letters.-Galena Newspaper.-Oregon Spectator.-Extent of the Hudson's Bay Company's Territory.-Fisheries.-Venison.-Wolverenes.-Native Socialism.-Provisions collected at Fort Confidence.-Fêtes.-Winter Fishery.-Eskimo Sleds.-Reindeer.-Wolverene.Wolves.-Honesty of the Dog-ribs.-Their Indolence.-Provisions not individual Property.-Indians move off.-An Accouchement.-Calebs in Search of a Wife.-Might makes Right.-None but the Brave deserve the Fair.-Progress of the Seasons.-Temperature.-Arrival of Summer Birds.-At Fort Confidence. At Fort Franklin.-On the Yukon.

THE site selected for our winter residence was about three miles from the mouth of Dease River, on a peninsula having an undulating surface, which, at the distance of three or four miles from the lake, attained a height of about three hundred feet. In front, or to the south, and separated from the main by a strait five or six hundreds yards in width, lies Fishery Island, elevated toward its centre two hundred and forty-five feet above the water.*

The peninsula is composed of limestone, which forms low precipices at the edge of the water, as well as in various places of the interior; and the same rock appears in higher cliffs on the borders of the lake, about eight miles to the westward, at Limestone Point. Six or seven miles back, on the banks of Dease River, red sandstone is the prevailing rock. The soil generally is a mixture of gravel and loam; and boulders of granite and trap rocks are scattered over the surface of both hill and valley.

Ten miles to the eastward, a range of primitive rocks rises gradually from the borders of the lake, to the height of, perhaps, six hundred or seven hundred feet, and separates Dease's Bay from the northern arm of M'Tavish's Bay. This rising ground is a continuation of the "intermediate primitive belt" mentioned in page 189, and many other parts of the preceding journal, and which will be described more fully in the Appendix. The nearest

* This altitude was ascertained by Mr. Rae, in the spring of 1848, by the aneroid barometer.

SILURIAN LIMESTONE.-TREES.

279

pyrogenous or metamorphic rocks to Fort Confidence that we observed are about four miles off, in a bay on the southeast side of Fishery Island.

The limestone is probably the remains of the silurian strata, which were removed when the basin of the lake was excavated. On the south side of the lake, about ninety miles distant in a direct line from Fort Confidence, stands the Scented Grass Hill, between Smith's and Keith's Bays. It consists of bituminous shale, and is one of the extreme points of that shaly formation, which constitutes so large a part of the banks of the Athabasca and Mackenzie Rivers, and which has been thought to be equiva lent to the Marcellus shale of the New York system of rocks.

The summits of the higher eminences are mostly naked, but on the edges of streams and small lakes a thin forest of spruce fir covers the ground. In wet places there is a tolerable growth of willows. Little underwood of any other kind exists. Birch is very scarce; neither the balsam spruce nor banksian pine were observed on the lake, and only a few young aspens. Except where the forest has been destroyed by fire, the spruce firs are from three to four hundred years old, as ascertained from their annual rings. One of the best-grown trees that I saw, measured fifty-seven inches in circumference, at the height of four feet from the ground. The tallest of them are between forty and fifty feet high. The observations of Mr. Simpson in 1837-8 place Fort Confidence in 66° 54′ of north latitude, and 118° 49′ of west longitude, which corresponds pretty closely with the position I assigned to the mouth of Dease River on the chart constructed in 1825. The mean of Mr. Rae's observations for latitude gave about a quarter of a mile more northing than Mr. Simpson's.

Our winter dwelling, though dignified, according to custom, by the title of " the fort," had no defensive works whatever, not even the stockade which usually surrounds a trading post. It was a simple log-house, built of trunks of trees laid over one another, and morticed into the upright posts of the corners, doorways, and windows. The roof had considerable slope: it was formed of slender trees laid closely side by side, resting at the top on a ridgepole, and covered with loam to the depth of six or eight inches. A man, standing on the outside, could touch the eaves with his hand. Well-tempered loam or clay was beat into the spaces left in the walls by the roundness of the logs, both on the outside

and inside, and as this cracked in drying, it was repeatedly coated over, for the space of two months, with a thin mixture of clay and water, until the walls became nearly impervious to the air. The rooms were floored and ceiled with deal. Massive structures of boulder stones and loam formed the chimney-stacks, and the capacious fire-places required three or four armfuls of firewood, cut into billets three feet long, to fill them.

The building was forty feet long by fourteen wide, having a dining-hall in the centre, measuring sixteen by fourteen, and the remaining space divided into a store-room and three sleeping apartments. A kitchen was added to the back of the house, and a small porch to the front. Mr. Rae's room and mine had glazed windows, glass for the purpose having been brought up from York Factory. The other windows were closed with deerskin parchment, which admitted a subdued light. Two houses for the men stood on the east, and a storehouse on the west, the whole forming three sides of a square which opened to the south. The tallest and straightest tree that could be discovered within a circuit of three miles was brought in, and, being properly dressed, was planted in the square for a flag-post; and near it a small observatory was built, for holding magnetic instruments.

Of the buildings which Dease and Simpson erected, Mr. Bell, on his arrival in the middle of August, found only part of the men's house and a stack of chimneys standing; the others having, through the carelessness of the Indians, been destroyed by fire. Our predecessors had cut down most of the timber within a mile of the house, and what we needed had consequently to be brought in from a wider circle. A part of Mr. Bell's people were constantly engaged with the fisheries, but the others had worked so diligently, that the buildings were all covered in on our arrival, and the flooring, ceiling, and partitions were shortly afterward completed. Two of the sappers and miners, Mackay and Brodie, carpenters by trade, were employed to make tables and chairs: and Bruce, the guide, acted as general architect, and was able and willing to execute any kind of joiner's work that was needed. Two men were constantly employed as sawyers; four as cutters of fire-wood, each of them having an allotted task of providing a cord of wood daily; others were occupied in drawing it home on sledges; and four men were continually engaged in fishing. On the Sunday no labor was performed, the fishing party came in,