During the night of the 10th, when near the north end of the lake, we experienced one of the severest snow storms I ever witnessed. As we were sleeping on shore we never thought of putting up any sort of shelter; the consequence was that in the morning we were covered with snow to the depth of a foot. Our boat, which had been hauled up on the beach, was blown away from her fastenings, and carried several hundred yards into the lake among some stones. Being the only one of the party provided on the spot with Macintosh boots, it fell to my lot to wade out to the boat, throw overboard the ballast, lift her bows over the stones, and take a line to the shore; which, from having miscalculated the depth of the water, I found a more disagreeable task than I had expected. Fortunately the boat sustained no injury. It was now about 6 o'clock in the morning of the 11th, and as the storm continued unabated we made a sort of tent of our sails. In doing this the men got so wet and cold, from the snow thawing on them, that they could not even light their pipes.
In the afternoon the weather improved, and we were able to scrape a little fuel together, with which we cooked some salmon and boiled a kettle of tea, which made us feel quite comfortable again. We thus combined breakfast, dinner, and supper in one meal.
The hares had already acquired their winter coat, and the golden plovers and sandpipers had all disappeared, but some Lapland and snow-buntings and the shore-lark were still to be seen.
A little after noon on the 13th the wind shifted to the S.W., and we got under weigh to return home. A couple of hours brought us to the Esquimaux, where we stopped to take on board our dogs. A young lad also came with us to carry some medicine for the patriarch of the tribe, who was labouring under various complaints peculiar to old age. We arrived at North Pole River at 6 P.M., having had a beautiful run all the way.
As we were not likely to require the boat on the lakes again this season, she was hauled up and placed in security for the winter. While at the lake we had not been able to procure much more food than was necessary for our own use, but this may in part have been attributable to the bad weather.