CHARTER: V
THE RETURN AND A FRESH START

4 ple hardest part of the journey had still

to be endured. The party was about
fifteen hundred miles from Fort Chipewyan,
and it was upstream all the way back. They
had taken fourteen days to descend the river
from Great Slave Lake; thirty-eight days of
the hardest labour were to pass before they
saw the Lake once more. They lingered for a
short time in the delta, travelling among the
islands in a fruitless search for Eskimos. The
fishing was poor, their pemmican had become
mouldy, and game was scarce. On leaving
the delta the supply of game improved; Mac-
kenzie notes on July 23: “We had not touched
any of our provision stores for six days, in
which time we had consumed two reindeer,
four swans, forty-five geese, and a consider-
able quantity of fish; but it is to be considered
that we were ten men and four women. I
63