Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/369

Rh any, from having imprudently wasted their ammunition during the passage of the lake, whilst they yet had provisions in abundance.

The ice on the Mackenzie had made its first move at Fort Norman on the 6th, but stopped again; and they crossed it on the morning of the 13th, a few hours before its final liberation. After a halt of four or five days, while the ice continued driving, they commenced their return, had to carry everything on their backs to Great Bear Lake, and to cross the various streams, as before, on rafts. Arrived at the lake, they found the ice covered with water, and the journey consequently very bad, as far as "the Bay of the Deer Pass;" where they re-entered the realm of winter, and from whence they travelled very rapidly, with their dogs, over the hard dry surface of the snow. Thus, while at Fort Norman—scarcely two hundred and fifty miles to the south-west—Mackenzie River was broken up, vegetation had made some progress, and Mr. M'Beath was dressing his garden, perfect winter still reigned at Fort Confidence; a very striking proof of the great disparity in climate between a woody and a barren country.

With June came a change, sudden, delightful, and complete. The frosts almost entirely ceased; the temperature at mid-day attained from 40° Z 2