Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/426

396 into unseemly humps and concretions of ice. Some, who lay down in this condition against the sides of the boats, got firmly frozen to the planks; and a wag remarked to his comrades, "It's all up with us, boys! don't you see we are fast already?" Our canine companions too were transformed into the most grotesque objects. In the body of the lake, betwixt Cape M'Donell and the Scented-grass Mountain, white partridges lay dead upon the waves, having been drowned in attempting to cross over in the stormy weather.

The bay of Fort Franklin was much encumbered with ice as we crossed it to the river-head on the evening of the 4th of October. It was, indeed, high time for us to escape from Great Bear Lake; for the temperature, which was —4° when we encamped, fell ten degrees lower in the course of the night, and the vast lake shut its portals behind us. We descended Bear Lake River amongst thick driving ice; but on reaching the Mackenzie, on the morning of the 6th, were rejoiced to find its majestic stream still clear, though lined with ice and snow. There was, in fact, a sensible diminution of the cold immediately on issuing from the northern tributary.

Nearly the whole of the following day was spent at Fort Norman in thawing the boats with