This great lading they annually carry between the depots and the posts, in the interior; and it rarely happens that any accidents occur, if they be managed by experienced bowmen and steersmen, on whose skill the safety of the canoe entirely depends in the rapids and difficult places.

When a total portage is made, these two men carry the canoe, and they often run with it, though its weight is estimated at about three hundred pounds, exclusive of the poles and oars, which are occasionally left in where the distance is short.
On the 5th, we made an excursion for the purpose of trying our canoe.

A heavy gale came on in the evening, which caused a great swell in the lake, and in crossing the waves we had the satisfaction to find that our birchen vessel proved an excellent sea-boat.
_July 7_ .-- This morning some men, and their families, who had been sent off to search for Indians with whom they intended to pass the summer, returned to the fort in consequence of a serious accident having befallen their canoe in the Red Deer River; when they were in the act of hauling up a strong rapid, the line broke, the canoe was overturned, and two of the party narrowly escaped drowning; fortunately the women and children happened to be on shore, or, in all probability, they would have perished in the confusion of the scene.

Nearly all their stores, their guns and fishing nets, were lost, and they could not procure any other food for the last four days than some unripe berries.
Some gentlemen arrived in the evening with a party of Chipewyan Indians, from Hay River, a post between the Peace River, and the Great Slave Lake.

These men gave distressing accounts of sickness among their relatives, and the Indians in general along the Peace River, and they said many of them have died.