The most extensive patrol of that year was the one undertaken by Inspector E. A. Pelletier, who, accompanied by Corporal Joyce, Constable Walker and Constable Conway and at a later stage by Sergeant McArthur, Corporal Reeves and Constables Travers, McMillan, Walker, McDiarmid and Special Constable Ford, left Fort Saskatchewan on the 1st of June for Athabasca Landing on the way to Hudson Bay via Great Slave Lake, which latter point they left on the 1st of July. They in due time reached Chesterfield Inlet on the Hudson Bay. They were met at that point by Superintendent J. D. Moodie with the Hudson's Bay steamer _MacTavish_ (called after a famous Hudson's Bay Company family). By this boat Pelletier and his men started for Churchill, but the _MacTavish_ in a storm was driven on a reef and totally wrecked. The men all escaped and went to Corporal Joyce's lonely post at Fullerton. Pelletier was anxious to go on to Churchill, but had difficulty in persuading even the natives to go, for they said, "No one travels in December and January--the days are too cold." But the Inspector was thinking of others and writes in his report: "I knew what a lot of anxiety the delay of this patrol would cause and we hurried preparations." The trip was fraught with constant danger from cold and privation, but they made Churchill on January 11. Pelletier modestly says they did not suffer and shows how well off they were when he can state that their dogs were never without food for more than four days at a time! The men ran out of sugar and coffee, but he makes light of that, though both are a great help on a cold journey. They met no natives from whom their stocks of deer and other skins could be replenished, and so when they were stormbound for a day here and there they darned and patched so as to prolong the life of their shoes. The Inspector lets in some light on the general situation when he writes: "The worst feature of a long journey like this in a country where no fuel is to be procured, is the absolute impossibility of drying clothing, bedding, etc. The moisture from the body accumulates and there are no means to dry clothing to get rid of it in any way, and every day sees it harder to put on in the morning and the beds harder to get into at night, until both clothing and bedding become as stiff as a board from the ice. It is a very uninviting task and disagreeable procedure getting into an icy bed at night and in the morning getting into icy clothes." When both clothes and food were frozen and even the prospect of getting an occasional piece of driftwood was dim, one can imagine the situation and wonder at the endurance as well as the daring of these men.