Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/245

Rh known western coast, contrary to the expectation of our most sanguine friends, since even the canoes from Canada had been stopped twenty days by ice. Had we failed in our first attempt, and come to winter at Fort Confidence, the whole frozen extent of Great Bear Lake (which seldom breaks up before the 1st of August) would have interposed between us and the navigable waters of the Mackenzie.

Fishing Island, opposite to Fort Confidence, is for the most part tolerably wooded. The land swells into a diminutive hill, having an elevation of two degrees, due south. Over this little hill the sun, as I had previously calculated, did not rise for forty-three days, from 30th November to 12th January. The very children clapped their hands for joy when the bright orb first flashed above the trees; and though we did not, like the ancient Scandinavians of the Polar Circle, hold a festival for his resurrection, our feelings were perhaps no less joyful. To cheer us during this long dark interval, the loveliest of planets, Venus, appeared above our horizon in December, and continued to shine upon our solitary dwelling with daily increasing altitude and lustre. I afterwards repeatedly discovered both her and Jupiter, with the naked eye, in presence of the sun. The intense cold was of extraordinary