Having deposited the canoe among a few dwarf birch bushes they commenced their march, carrying their tents, blankets, cooking utensils, and a part of the dried meat.

St.Germain however had previously delineated with charcoal a man and a house on a piece of bark which he placed over the canoe and the few things that were left to point out to the Dog-Ribs that they belonged to white people.
The party reached the shores of Point Lake through which the Copper-Mine River runs on the 1st of September.

The next day was too stormy for them to march but on the 3rd they proceeded along its shores to the westward round a mountainous promontory and, perceiving the course of the lake extending to the West-North-West, they encamped near some pines and then enjoyed the luxury of a good fire for the first time since their departure from us.

The temperature of the water in the lake was 35 degrees and of the air 32 degrees, but the latter fell to 20 degrees in the course of that night.

As their principal object was to ascertain whether any arm of the lake branched nearer to Fort Enterprise than the part they had fallen upon, to which the transport of our goods could be more easily made next spring, they returned on its borders to the eastward, being satisfied by the appearance of the mountains between south and west that no further examination was necessary in that direction; and they continued their march until the 6th at noon without finding any part of the lake inclining nearer the fort.