None of his tribe had been more than three days' march along the sea-coast to the eastward of the river's mouth.
As the water was unusually high this season the Indian guides recommended our going by a shorter route to the Copper-Mine River than that they had first proposed to Mr.Wentzel, and they assigned as a reason for the change that the reindeer would be sooner found upon this track.

They then drew a chart of the proposed route on the floor with charcoal, exhibiting a chain of twenty-five small lakes extending towards the north, about one-half of them connected by a river which flows into Slave Lake near Fort Providence.

One of the guides named Keskarrah drew the Copper-Mine River running through the Upper Lake in a westerly direction towards the Great Bear Lake and then northerly to the sea.

The other guide drew the river in a straight line to the sea from the above-mentioned place but, after some dispute, admitted the correctness of the first delineation.
The latter was elder brother to Akaitcho and he said that he had accompanied Mr.Hearne on his journey and, though very young at the time, still remembered many of the circumstances and particularly the massacre committed by the Indians on the Esquimaux.
They pointed out another lake to the southward of the river, about three days' journey distant from it, on which the chief proposed the next winter's establishment should be formed as the reindeer would pass there in the autumn and spring.

Its waters contained fish and there was a sufficiency of wood for building as well as for the winter's consumption.
These were important considerations and determined me in pursuing the route they now proposed.