By continuous urging of the dull and inefficient workmen to greater effort, Miles Macdonell had succeeded in securing four boats--none too well built--but commodious enough to carry his boat-crews, workmen, and Colonists.
Though Macdonell sought for the selection of the workmen who were to accompany him to Red River, he was not able to move the Hudson's Bay Company officials.

Two days, however, after arrival of the Company magnates from the interior his men were secured to him, and he was fully occupied in transporting his stores up the river as far as the "Rock"-- the rapids of the Hill River which here falls into Hayes River.
For a long distance up the river there is a broad stream, one-quarter of a mile wide, running at the rate of two miles an hour through low banks.
The boatmen have a good steady pull up the river for some sixty miles, and here where the Steel River enters the Hayes is seen a wide, deep, rapid stream running about three miles an hour.

The banks of this river are of clay and rising from fifty to one hundred feet, the clay of the banks is so smooth and white that a traveller has compared them in color to the white, chalk cliffs of Dover.

Thus far though it has required exertion on the part of the boatmen, a good stretch of a hundred miles from the Factory has been passed without any obstruction or delay.

Now the serious work of the journey begins.