It is that of a young Chipewyan who lost his wife in her first pregnancy.

He applied the child to his left breast, from which a flow of milk took place.

"The breast," he adds, "became of an unusual size." Here he and Back, afterwards Admiral Back, were joined by Dr.Richardson and Mr.Hood, who had come from Cumberland House by the difficult Churchill River route, and on July 18th, at noon, the whole party left the fort on their tragic expedition, the party, aside from those named, consisting of John Hepburn, seaman, an interpreter and fifteen voyageurs, including, unfortunately, an Iroquois Indian, called Michel Teroahante.

At two p.m.they entered Great Slave River, here three-quarters of a mile wide, and, passing Red Deer Islands and Dog River, encountered the rapids, overcome by seven or eight portages, from the Casette to the Portage of the Drowned, all varying in length from seventy to eight hundred yards.
On the 21st they landed at the mouth of Salt River to lay in a supply of salt for their journey, the deposits lying twenty-two miles up by stream.

These natural pans, or salt plains, he describes--and the description answers for to-day--as "bounded on the north and west by a ridge between six and seven hundred feet high." Several salt springs issue at its foot, and spread over the plain, which is of tenacious clay, and, evaporating in summer, crystallize in the form of cubes.