The North-West Company's post at the lake was managed by Dugald Cameron, and that of the Hudson's Bay Company by a Mr.MacFarlane, and, having been equipped at both posts with carioles, sledges and provisions, they left "under a fusillade from the half-breed women." From the end of the lake they followed for a short distance a small river, then "crossed the woods to Beaver River, and proceeding along it, passed the mouths of two rivers, the latter of which, they were told, was a channel by which the Indians go to Lesser Slave Lake." On the 11th of March they reached Methy Lake--so called from an unwholesome fish of the burbot species found there, only the liver of which is fit to eat--crossed the Methy portage on the 13th, and, amidst a chaos of vast ravines and the wildest of scenery, descended the next day to the Clearwater River.

Thence they followed the Indian trail on the north bank, passing a noted scene, "a romantic defile of limestone rocks like Gothic ruins," and, crossing a small stream, found pure sulphur deposited by springs and smelling very strongly.

On the 17th they got to the junction of the Clearwater with the Athabasca, where Port McMurray now stands, and next day reached the Pierre an Calumet post, in charge of a Mr.Stewart, who had twice crossed the mountains to the Pacific coast.

The place got its name from a soft stone found there, of which the Indians made their pipes.
Franklin notes the "sulphurous springs" and "bituminous salt" in this region, also the statement of Mr.Stewart, who had a good thermometer, "that the lowest temperature he had ever witnessed in many years, either at the Athabasca or Great Slave Lake, was 45 degrees below zero," a statement worth recording here.
On the 26th of March the party arrived at Fort Chipewyan, the distance travelled from Cumberland House being 857 miles.

He notes that at the time of his arrival the fort was very bare of both buffalo and moose meat, owing, it was said, to the trade rivalry, and that where some eight hundred packs of fur used to be shipped from that point, only one-half of that number was now sent.