This letter came in the monthly batch this morning. It
is from a woman. The company sends another commending the cause of the
woman and urging us to do all that is possible to meet her wishes. It
seems that her husband is a civil engineer of considerable fame. He had a
commission to explore the Coppermine region and a portion of the Barren
Grounds. He was to be gone six months. He has been gone a year. He left
Fort Good Hope, skirted Great Bear Lake, and reached the Coppermine
River. Then he sent back all of the Indians who accompanied him but two,
they bearing the message that he would make the Great Fish River and come
down by Great Slave Lake to Fort Providence. That was nine months ago. He
has not come here, nor to any other of the forts, so far as is known, nor
has any word been received from him. His wife, backed by the H.B.C.,
urges that a relief party be sent to look for him. They and she forget
that this is the arctic region, and that the task is a well-nigh hopeless
one. He ought to have been here six months ago. Now how can we do
anything? Our fort is small, and there is always danger of trouble with
the Indians.
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