Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/291

Rh The bar of ice between us and the Bloody Fall having broken up, two men were despatched to the coast on the 27th to examine the state of the ice. On their return, in the evening, they reported the river to be still blocked up; and that the sea-ice adhered firmly to the beach, without the least appearance of decay, or indication of water in any direction. They brought us a fine salmon-trout, which they had rescued from a bevy of gulls, engaged in the act of dragging it alive out of the river. The waters were still too high for setting our nets, but on the final liberation of the river, two days afterwards, they subsided rapidly. A gunshot below our encampment, the face of a hill, undermined by the stream, kept falling down in large heaps with a tremendous noise, and obliged us to remove the boats higher up, in shelter of the grounded ice. The remaining days of June were fine, but cool. Our hunters killed several deer: these, with some geese, which we shot, kept our stock of pemican almost untouched. My observations placed our encampment in lat. 67° 42′ 52″ N., long, (by lunar distances) 115° 49′ 30″ W.; variation 54° 17′ 30″ E.

July 1st.—After a halt of five days we descended to the fall. The portage occupied six or seven hours, the boats having to be carried