Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/235

Rh Circle with a considerable party destitute of provisions, and the Indians upon whom we mainly depended for subsistence requiring our aid and support, was an alarming condition, which demanded the utmost exertion of our personal resources. More nets were set in the strait; and, while some of the people were employed in erecting the necessary buildings, others were engaged in converting all the twine last received into nets. The sudden change of food, from pemican and flour to white-fish, affected several of the men with dysentery. The fish, indifferent as we found them, soon diminished in number before the increasing cold.

On the 5th of October, just fifty days later than Ritch's deliverance from the ice of a former winter, the strait froze over, but broke up again the following day, and finally set fast on the 10th, when the thermometer first fell below zero. I took advantage of the interval to proceed with a boat round the island to another and still deeper strait near its southern extremity. There was a camp of natives then in the neighbourhood; and here we established our principal fishery, which, after a temporary failure, and removal towards the Narrakazzae Islands, continued during the greater part of the winter to support from two to four hands, but finally