The surrounding country consists almost entirely of coarse-grained granite, frequently enclosing large masses of reddish felspar.

These rocks form hills which attain an elevation of three hundred or four hundred feet about a mile behind the house; their surface is generally naked but in the valleys between them grow a few spruce, aspen, and birch trees, together with a variety of shrubs and berry-bearing plants.
On the afternoon of the 2nd of August we commenced our journey, having, in addition to our three canoes, a smaller one to convey the women; we were all in high spirits, being heartily glad that the time had at length arrived when our course was to be directed towards the Copper-Mine River and through a line of country which had not been previously visited by any European.

We proceeded to the northward along the eastern side of a deep bay of the lake, passing through various channels formed by an assemblage of rocky islands; and at sunset encamped on a projecting point of the north main shore eight miles from Fort Providence.

To the westward of this arm, or bay of the lake, there is another deep bay that receives the waters of a river which communicates with Great Marten Lake where the North-West Company had once a post established.

The eastern shores of the Great Slave Lake are very imperfectly known: none of the traders have visited them and the Indians give such loose and unsatisfactory accounts that no estimation can be formed of its extent in that direction.