CHAPTER IV.
Leave Cumberland House--Mode of Travelling in Winter--Arrival at Carlton House--Stone Indians--Visit to a Buffalo Pound--Goitres--Departure from Carlton House--Isle a la Crosse--Arrival at Fort Chipewyan.
1820.

January 18.
This day we set out from Cumberland House for Carlton House; but previously to detailing the events of the journey, it may be proper to describe the necessary equipments of a winter traveller in this region, which I cannot do better than by extracting the following brief, but accurate, account of it from Mr.Hood's journal:-- "A snow-shoe is made of two light bars of wood, fastened together at their extremities, and projected into curves by transverse bars.

The side bars have been so shaped by a frame, and dried before a fire, that the front part of the shoe turns up, like the prow of a boat, and the part behind terminates in an acute angle; the spaces between the bars are filled up with a fine netting of leathern thongs, except that part behind the main bar, which is occupied by the feet; the netting is there close and strong, and the foot is attached to the main bar by straps passing round the heel but only fixing the toes, so that the heel rises after each step, and the tail of the shoe is dragged on the snow.
Between the main bar and another in front of it, a small space is left, permitting the toes to descend a little in the act of raising the heel to make the step forward, which prevents their extremities from chafing.
The length of a snow-shoe is from four to six feet and the breadth one foot and a half, or one foot and three quarters, being adapted to the size of the wearer.

The motion of walking in them is perfectly natural, for one shoe is level with the snow, when the edge of the other is passing over it.

It is not easy to use them among bushes, without frequent overthrows, nor to rise afterwards without help.