"I started out on this expedition with great notions of making such a trip as no man had ever before attempted, passing up a branch of the Saskatchewan, making a portage with the assistance of the Crees or Chippewas to some convenient branch of the Athabasca River, and voyage on to the lake of that name by fall, winter there perhaps at the Hudson Bay Post, and in the spring by means of the chain of lakes and rivers that I understand connect the Athabasca Lake with Hudson Bay, arrive at that vast sheet of water in time to be picked up by some whaler and carried home a winner.
