Note 70 — {95} CHAP. V.

He reached the Coppermine River at Sandstone Rapids, having travelled one hundred and forty-five miles north-westward from Congecathawhachaga in thirteen days, making an average of eleven miles a day, or, omitting the two days on which the party did not travel, an average of thirteen miles a day. The distance stated in the text is one hundred and eighty-eight miles. Considering the very rough nature of the country over which he was travelling, this is not a very extravagant estimate nor a very unreasonable error. While his estimate of distance is not very bad, his direction should have been N. 58° W. instead of N. 23° W., as shown on his map. Mr. Frank Russell, who crossed the Coppermine River in the spring of 1894 while on a hunt for musk oxen, says that its present Chipewyan name is Tson Te ("Explorations in the Far North," p. 112).

In 1821 Sir John Franklin explored and surveyed this river from Point Lake to the Arctic Ocean, a distance of about two hundred and seventy-five miles. Its length above Point Lake is not known, but it is probably about two hundred miles. A short distance below Point Lake Franklin says that it "is about two hundred yards wide and ten feet deep, and flows very rapidly over a rocky bottom" ("First Journey," p. 327).

Sir John Richardson writes of the river farther north as follows: "The river contracting to a width of a hundred and twenty yards at length forces itself through the Rocky Defile, a narrow channel which it has cut during a lapse of ages in the shelving foot of a hill" ("First Journey," p. 527).