THE GIFT OF 
 
 FLORENCE V. V. DICKEY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE DONALD R. DICKEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 OF VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY
 
 THE BARREN GROUND 
 
 OF 
 
 NORTHERN CANADA
 
 THE 
 
 BARREN GROUND 
 
 OF 
 
 NORTHERN CANADA 
 
 WARBURTON PIKE 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1893
 
 HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IN many of the outlying districts of Canada an idea 
 is prevalent, fostered by former travellers, that some- 
 where in London there exists a benevolent society 
 whose object is to send men incapable of making any 
 useful scientific observations to the uttermost parts of 
 the earth, in order to indulge their taste for sport or 
 travel. Several times before I had fairly started for 
 the North, and again on my return, I was asked if I 
 had been sent out under the auspices of this society, 
 and, I am afraid, rather fell in the estimation of the 
 interviewers when I was obliged to confess that my 
 journey was only an ordinary shooting expedition, such 
 as one might make to the Rocky Mountains or the 
 interior of Africa, and that no great political reforma- 
 tion depended upon my report as to what I had seen. 
 
 In talking with officers of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany, many of whom had been stationed for long 
 periods in the Athabasca and Mackenzie River districts, 
 I had often heard of a strange animal, a relic of an 
 earlier age, that was still to be found roaming the 
 Barren Ground, the vast desert that lies between 
 Hudson's Bay, the eastern ends of the three great 
 lakes of the North, and the Arctic Sea. This animal
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 was the Musk-ox, but my informants could tell me 
 nothing from personal experience, and all that was 
 known on the subject had been gathered from Indian 
 report. Once or twice some enthusiastic sportsman 
 had made the attempt to reach the land of the Musk- 
 ox, but had never succeeded in carrying out his object ; 
 specimens had been secured by the officers of the 
 various Arctic expeditions, but no one had ever seen 
 much of these animals or of the methods of hunting 
 them employed by the Northern Indians. 
 
 This, then, was the sole object of my journey ; to 
 try and penetrate this unknown land, to see the Musk- 
 ox, and find out as much as I could about their habits, 
 and the habits of the Indians who go in pursuit of 
 them every year. But the only white men who had 
 succeeded in getting far out into the Barren Ground 
 were the early explorers, Hearne, Sir John Franklin, 
 Sir George Back, and Dr. Richardson, while long after- 
 wards Dr. Rae, and Stewart and Anderson went in 
 search of the missing Franklin expedition. With the 
 exception of Hearne, who threw in his lot with the 
 Indians, these leaders were all accompanied by the 
 most capable men that could be procured, and no 
 expense was spared in order to make success as certain 
 as possible ; yet in spite of every precaution the story 
 of Sir John Franklin's first overland journey and the 
 death of Hood are among the saddest episodes in the 
 history of Arctic exploration. 
 
 My best chance seemed to be to follow Hearne's
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 example, and trust to the local knowledge of Indians 
 to help me ; and I think, as the sequel showed, that I 
 was right in not taking a crew from Winnipeg. The 
 Indians and half-breeds of the Great Slave Lake, 
 although very hard to manage, are certainly well up 
 in Barren Ground travel ; they are possessed of a 
 thorough knowledge of the movements of the various 
 animals at different seasons, and thus run less danger 
 of starvation than strangers, however proficient the 
 latter may be in driving dogs and handling canoes. 
 
 In following out this plan I naturally passed through 
 a great deal of new country, and discovered, as we 
 white men say when we are pointed out some geo- 
 graphical feature by an Indian who has been familiar 
 with it since childhood, many lakes and small streams 
 never before visited except by the red man. I have 
 attempted in a rough map to mark the chains of lakes 
 by which we reached the Barren Ground, but their 
 position is only approximate, and perhaps not even 
 that, as I had no instruments with which to make 
 correct observations, and in any case should have had 
 little time to use them. Let no eminent geographer 
 waste his time in pointing out the inaccuracies in this 
 map ; I admit all the errors before he discovers them. 
 All that I wish to show is that these chains of lakes do 
 exist and can be used as convenient routes, doing 
 away with the often-tried method of forcing canoes up 
 the swift and dangerous streams that fall into the 
 Great Slave Lake from the northern tableland.
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 The success of my expedition is to be attributed 
 entirely to the assistance which was given me by the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, and I take this opportunity 
 of thanking them for all the hospitality that was shown 
 to me throughout my journey ; I was never refused a 
 single request that I made, and, although a total 
 stranger, was treated with the greatest kindness by 
 everybody, from the Commissioner at Winnipeg to the 
 engaged servant in the Far North. My thanks are 
 especially due to Lord Anson, one of the directors in 
 London, to Messrs. Wrigley and William Clark at 
 Winnipeg, Mr. Roderick MacFarlane, lately of Stuart's 
 Lake, British Columbia, a well-known northern ex- 
 plorer who put me in the way of making a fair start, 
 Dr. Mackay of Athabasca, Mr. Camsell of Mackenzie 
 River, Mr. Ewen Macdonald of Peace River, and 
 most of all to Mr. Mackinlay of Fort Resolution on 
 the Great Slave Lake, who was my companion during 
 a long summer journey in the Barren Ground. 
 
 My only excuse for publishing this account of my 
 travels is that the subject is a reasonably new one, 
 and deals with a branch of sport that has never been 
 described. I have spared the reader statistics, and 
 I have kept my story as short as possible. I hope that 
 in return anyone who may be interested in these pages 
 will spare his comments on faulty style, and the various 
 errors into which a man who has spent much time 
 among the big game is sure to fall when he is rash 
 enough to lay down his rifle and take up the pen.
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 I have also cut out the chapter with which these 
 books usually begin, a description of the monotonous 
 voyage by Atlantic steamer and Canadian Pacific 
 Railway, and start at once from Calgary, a thriving 
 cattle-town close under the eastern foothills of the 
 Rocky Mountains. 
 
 I am sorry that I have no reliable means of illustra- 
 tion, as I had no camera with me, and a few very 
 rough sketches that I made were lost. I believe that 
 a book can be illustrated effectively enough in London, 
 thousands of miles away from the scenes which the 
 pictures are supposed to represent ; but these illustra- 
 tions must always lack the charm of reality, and 
 a record of travel should aim at being truthful if it 
 cannot be interesting. Another thing that I regret 
 still more is the loss of a small collection of geological 
 specimens which were abandoned during the vicissi- 
 tudes of travel.
 
 CORRIGENDUM. 
 
 Page 1 49, line 8, for and Montaignais as interpreter read and 
 as Montaignais interpreter
 
 THE 
 
 BARREN GROUND 
 
 OF 
 
 NORTHERN CANADA 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN the middle of June, 1889, I left Calgary for a 
 drive of two hundred miles to Edmonton, the real start- 
 ing-point for the great northern country controlled by 
 the Hudson's Bay Company, and, with the exception 
 of their scattered trading-posts, and an occasional 
 Protestant or Roman Catholic Mission, entirely given 
 up to what it was evidently intended for, a hunting- 
 ground for the Indian. 
 
 My conveyance was a light buckboard, containing 
 my whole outfit, which was as small as possible, con- 
 sisting almost entirely of ammunition for a 12-bore 
 Paradox and a 50-95 Winchester Express, besides a 
 pair of large blankets and a little necessary clothing. 
 
 Forest fires were raging in the Rocky Mountains 
 close at hand, and the thick smoke obscuring the sun, 
 the heat was not nearly so fierce as usual at this time 
 of the year ; the road was good for a prairie road, 
 and comfortable stopping-places each night made the 
 
 B
 
 2 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. i. 
 
 journey quite easy. About sixty miles out the 
 country loses the appearance of what is known among 
 cattlemen as the bald-headed prairie, and is dotted 
 with clumps of poplar, and occasionally pines ; half 
 way to Edmonton the road crosses the broad stream 
 of the Red Deer, and passes through the most at- 
 tractive country that I have seen in the north-west 
 territories. It is being rapidly settled, and, with the 
 convenience of a railway now building between Calgary 
 and Edmonton, cannot fail to be an important farming 
 and stock-raising district within a few years. 
 
 On the morning of the fifth day I reached Edmon- 
 ton, a pleasant little town scattered along the far bank 
 of the North Saskatchewan, and historical in the annals 
 of the Hudson's Bay Company, by whom it was estab- 
 lished as a fur trading-post many years ago ; it is fated 
 shortly to lose its individuality in the stream of ad- 
 vancing civilization, and will probably develop into an 
 ordinary prairie-town of some importance. 
 
 Finding that I had no time to spare if I wished to 
 catch the steamer down the Athabasca river, I left 
 again the same evening, after buying a small supply of 
 flour and bacon. I changed the buckboard for a 
 wagon, having for driver a French half-breed who had 
 spent his early life on the prairie in buffalo-hunting, 
 but, on the extinction of the game, had been earning 
 a living by freighting for the Hudson's Bay Company, 
 and farming on a small scale. He was a much pleas- 
 anter companion than the smartly dressed young man, 
 ' come of good folks in the East,' who had been my 
 driver from Calgary, and many an interesting tale he
 
 CHAP. i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 3 
 
 told me on our three-days' journey to the banks of the 
 Athabasca ; tales of the good old times when the 
 buffalo were thick, and the Crees waged perpetual war 
 against the Blackfeet, and whisky formed the staple 
 article of trade for the Indian's fur. At the present 
 day the Prohibition Act orders that even the white 
 men of the north-west territories must be temperate, 
 thereby causing whisky to be dear and bad, but 
 plentiful withal, and it is surprising how such a law 
 exists in a country where nine men out of ten not only 
 want to drink, but do drink in open defiance of the 
 commands of a motherly Government. 
 
 A fair road some hundred miles in length has been 
 made by the Hudson's Bay Company through a rolling 
 sandy country, crossing several large streams and 
 passing through a good deal of thick pine timber 
 where some heavy chopping must have been neces- 
 sary. The flies bothered us greatly ; the large bull- 
 dogs, looking like a cross between a bee and a blue- 
 bottle, drove the horses almost to madness, and after 
 our midday halt it was no easy matter to put the 
 harness on; fortunately we had netting, or the poor 
 beasts would have fared much worse : as it was the 
 blood was streaming from their flanks during the heat 
 of the day. The mosquitos appeared towards evening, 
 but as the nights were usually chilly they only annoyed 
 us for a few hours. There were no houses along the 
 road, but plenty of firewood and feed for the horses ; 
 we had a good camp every night, sleeping in the open 
 air, starting very early and resting long in the middle 
 of the day. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. i. 
 
 Two days took us over the divide between the Sas- 
 katchewan and Athabasca rivers, and now the water in 
 the little streams that we crossed eventually reached 
 the sea far away in the frozen Arctic Ocean at the 
 mouth of the great Mackenzie. Early on the fourth 
 day we came in sight of the Athabasca running 
 between high pine-clad banks, and, dropping down 
 a steep hill, found the Company's steamer loading up 
 with freight for the far north. This spot is known as 
 the Athabasca landing, and consists of a large depot 
 for goods, trading-store, and several workmen's houses, 
 while the house of the officer in charge stands on the 
 hillside a little way back from the river. From the 
 landing there is water communication down stream, 
 broken of course by portages, to the Arctic sea, while 
 the Lesser Slave Lake lies within a few days' travel up 
 stream, from the north end of which a road seventy-five 
 miles in length has been cut to the bank of Peace River. 
 I spent a pleasant enough day loafing about, Mr. Wood, 
 who was in charge, showing me great kindness and 
 giving me much useful information about my route, 
 and at twelve o'clock the following day we started 
 down stream. The only other passengers were a Mr. 
 Flett and his wife and daughter, who were on their 
 way to take charge of Fort Smith during the coming 
 winter. Mr. Flett was just returning from a visit to 
 his native country, the Orkney Islands, after an ab- 
 sence of forty-four years in the service of the Company, 
 all of which time was spent in the wildest part of the 
 North. He was full of the wonderful changes that 
 had taken place since he was a boy, but finding him-
 
 CHAP. i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 5 
 
 self completely lost in civilization, had hurried back to 
 the land of snow. Unfortunately Mrs. Flett had been 
 unable to stand the climate of the old country, and was 
 quite broken down in her health. I was sorry to hear 
 during the winter that she died a few days after we left 
 her at Fort Chipeweyan. 
 
 Owing to the very light snowfall in the mountains in 
 the winter of 1888-89, the water in the river was un- 
 usually low, and, as we expected, on the third day the 
 steamer, a large light-draught stern-wheeler, after 
 striking several times on shallow bars, had to abandon 
 the attempt to reach the Grand Rapids. We accord- 
 ingly tied up to the bank, and, sending a skiff down to 
 take the news, awaited the arrival of boats from below 
 to take our cargo. For ten days we lay at the junction 
 of Pelican River, a small stream coming in on the 
 north side of the Athabasca. There was absolutely 
 nothing to do ; the low gravelly banks on each side 
 were fringed with thick willows backed by a narrow 
 belt of poplars, and behind these the gloomy pine 
 woods, with here and there a solitary birch, stretched 
 away in an unbroken mass as far as the eye could see. 
 The forest was alive with mosquitos, although owing 
 to the low water in the river they were said to be 
 much less numerous than usual ; they were sufficiently 
 thick however to make any exploration in the woods a 
 misery. Fishing we tried without much result, and 
 everybody was pleased when at last Mr. Scott Simp- 
 son, who was in charge of the river transport that 
 summer, arrived with two boats. The steamer's cargo 
 was unloaded, partly into the boats and partly on to
 
 6 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. i. 
 
 the bank, and early in the morning she started back 
 for the landing while we proceeded on our journey 
 down stream. 
 
 These inland boats, as they are termed, are extra- 
 ordinary specimens of marine architecture, long open 
 craft, classified according to shape as York boats, 
 sturgeon-heads, and scows, capable of carrying a load 
 of ten tons, manned by a crew of eight oars and a 
 steersman, rowed down stream and tracked up, running 
 rapids and bumping on rocks. Planks, nails, and pitch 
 are always kept ready to effect repairs, and are in 
 frequent demand. The crews are generally half- 
 breeds . from the Lesser Slave Lake and Lake La 
 Biche, both of which pour their waters into the Atha- 
 basca ; but there are also volunteers from all parts of 
 the North, as the wages are good and the work is 
 suited to the half-breed's character, besides the cer- 
 tainty of receiving rations every day, which is a great 
 attraction in a land of scarcity. Sometimes crews of 
 Locheaux Indians are sent up from the Mackenzie, 
 and have the reputation of being the best workers ; 
 they certainly seemed to me to be less given to rebel- 
 lion and more easily managed than the half-breeds. 
 The boats are steered with a huge sweep passed 
 through a ring in the stern post, and great responsi- 
 bility rests on the steersman, who at times requires all 
 his skill and strength to throw the heavily-laden boat 
 clear of a rock in a boiling rapid. 
 
 In three days, without accident, we reached the 
 island at the head of the Grand Rapids, just in time to 
 rescue a Company's clerk named Mackay from a very
 
 CHAP. i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 7 
 
 unenviable position. He had come up with the boat- 
 brigade from Fort MacMurray, and, provisions running 
 short, had travelled over-land accompanied by a half- 
 breed to meet the steamer from which they expected 
 to get supplies to take down to the crews. On reach- 
 ing the island they were unable to attract the attention 
 of the man left in charge of the freight lying there, so 
 they walked a couple of miles up the north bank and 
 built a raft on which to cross the river. They thought 
 they would be able to pole the raft, but the water 
 proved too deep, and being unable to get steerage way 
 on her, they soon broke their unmanageable vessel to 
 pieces against a rock. It was now a case of swimming 
 in a strong current that was forcing them over, the big 
 rapid where certain death awaited them ; the half-breed 
 succeeded in fetching the island, but Mackay, seeing 
 he was being swept over the fall, swam to a rock and 
 managed to climb on to it. The half-breed found the 
 sole inhabitant of the island in his cabin, but there was 
 no boat in which to go to the rescue, and if there had 
 been it was no easy matter for two men to lower it 
 down, without all going over the rapid. They were 
 engaged in building a raft to make the attempt when 
 they saw our brigade coming down the river. By the 
 aid of a long line and plenty of hands the smallest 
 boat was lowered down to the rocks, and what might 
 have been a very serious accident was luckily averted. 
 Mackay was much chilled by sitting on the rocks for 
 several hours in wet clothes after two days without 
 eating ; but, when he had had a good meal he was 
 none the worse for his rough experience, and, as
 
 8 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. i. 
 
 is always the case when the danger is past, had plenty 
 of chaff to put up with. 
 
 The channel on the south side of the island can be 
 used for dropping a light boat down with a line, but 
 all cargo has to be portaged ; the north channel is 
 quite impracticable for navigation, having a heavy 
 overfall with an immense body of broken water. The 
 whole river-bed above the island is covered with round 
 boulders of soft sandstone, many above water, which 
 make the approach to the landing difficult. The north 
 bank is a sand-bluff with many similar boulders pro- 
 truding from the steep cliff, the south bank lower and 
 timbered close to the water's edge. Many perfect 
 specimens of petrifaction are to be seen on the island 
 and along the river-banks. 
 
 The portage is the whole length of the island, about 
 one thousand yards, and a rough tramway has been 
 built to save the labour of carrying cargoes such a 
 distance on men's backs ; this tramway is a splendid 
 plaything for the crews, and they spend hours in 
 running the trolley down the hill and poling it up on 
 the principle of a canoe ascending a rapid. Here we 
 passed two weeks in waiting for the boats from below 
 to take the whole of the steamer's load, which during 
 this time was brought down by the same boats that we 
 had used. The time slipped away quickly, though we 
 did nothing but smoke and yarn, and towards the end 
 of July the brigade turned up, bringing the first con- 
 signment of furs and the news from the North. We 
 were soon off on our hundred-and-fifty-miles' run to 
 Fort MacMurray, and the travelling was now exciting
 
 CHAP. i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 9 
 
 enough, a succession of rapids making hard work for 
 the men, as several had to be run with half loads and 
 the boats tracked up for the other half, and at a small 
 cascade everything had to be portaged while the boats 
 were dropped over with a line. 
 
 The worst rapid goes by the name of the Boiler 
 Rapid, from the fact of the boiler for the steamer 
 Wrigley which plies on Mackenzie River having been 
 lost here through the breaking of a boat. Here the 
 channel has a bad turn in the strong water, and neat 
 steering is required to clear two reefs of rocks which 
 lie in an awkward position in the middle of the stream. 
 Sometimes there were long stretches of quiet water 
 between the rapids, and the boats drifted with the 
 current while the men smoked or slept ; occasionally 
 some one would strike up a snatch from one of the old 
 French-Canadian chansons, which seem to be dropping 
 out of fashion entirely since the steamers have to such 
 a large extent done away with the old style of boating. 
 Four, five, and on long days sometimes six times we 
 put ashore to eat ; a wonderful amount of flour, bacon, 
 and tea being consumed by the fifty men composing 
 the brigade. Considering the distance from which the 
 provisions are brought, the inability of this part of the 
 country to supply any of the necessaries of life, and the 
 importance of forwarding trading-goods to the northern 
 districts before the short summer closes, it is not 
 surprising that there should be at times a scarcity. 
 On the present occasion, however, there was no stint, 
 and fine weather made the trip delightful. At night 
 the boats were run ashore, and each crew lighting their
 
 ,o THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. i. 
 
 own fire, the encampment presented a most picturesque 
 appearance, the gaudy belts and head-gear of the 
 swarthy crews as they moved in the firelight showing 
 in strong contrast to the dark background of tall pine 
 trees. We generally chose as exposed a place as 
 possible for the camp, to get the benefit of any wind 
 there might be to blow away the mosquitos, which 
 were bad in this part of the river. I had the post of 
 honour in the leading boat steered by the guide of the 
 brigade, a Swampy Indian from the Red- River country 
 who had spent many years in voyaging for the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company. In former days the guide was 
 absolute dictator and had full control over all the boats, 
 but nowadays discipline is slack and he seems to have 
 little authority. 
 
 It was a pretty sight to see the long string of boats 
 leaping the rapids behind us, the bowsman standing up 
 and pointing the course to the steersman, while the 
 rowers plied their utmost and broke out into the wild 
 shouts that can never be suppressed in moments of 
 excitement. The Cree language forms the medium 
 of conversation, although many of the half-breeds talk 
 fluently in Red-River French ; English is little spoken 
 in any part of the North that I visited. 
 
 On the afternoon of the fourth day we arrived at 
 Fort MacMurray, a small post of little importance, 
 standing at the junction of the Athabasca and the 
 Clearwater River, a large stream coming in from 
 the southward, and until the completion of the Cana- 
 dian Pacific Railway to Calgary the main route to the 
 North. The outfits sent from Winnipeg used to reach
 
 CHAP. i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 1 1 
 
 the waters falling into the Arctic Sea far up the Clear- 
 water at the northern end of what was known as the 
 Long" Portage, but the present route is much simpler, 
 as there is no up-stream work with loaded boats. 
 After leaving Fort MacMurray the old course is 
 maintained, following down stream the main artery of 
 the northern watershed. 
 
 The stern-wheel steamer Grahame was waiting 
 for us in the mouth of the Clearwater, with Dr. Mackay, 
 the Hudson's Bay Company's officer in charge of the 
 Athabasca district of which MacMurray is the most 
 southerly post. It extends to the north as far as Fort 
 Resolution on the Great Slave Lake, and also takes in 
 Fort Chipeweyan, the head-post of the district, situated 
 at the west end of the Athabasca Lake, Fond du Lac 
 at the east end of the same sheet of water, Vermilion 
 and Little Red River on the Lower Peace River, and 
 Fort Smith at the foot of the rapids on the Slave 
 River. It is no sinecure for the man that has to keep 
 this vast extent of country supplied with everything 
 necessary for the existence of the Indians, making the 
 best bargain he can for the products of their hunts, and 
 endeavouring to please the Chipeweyans in the woods 
 and the shareholders of the Company in England at 
 the same time. 
 
 The cargo was put on board the steamer in the 
 evening, and in the early morning we started once 
 more for the North. The water was still exceedingly 
 low, but not so much so as to be an impediment to 
 navigation, as the stream increases in size after the 
 junction of the Clearwater, and beyond scraping once
 
 i a THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. i. 
 
 or twice on sandbars, our progress was uninterrupted. 
 About twenty miles below MacMurray we stopped to 
 take on wood and pitch from the natural tar deposits 
 which are just beginning to attract a little attention in 
 Eastern Canada, and the geologists, about to be sent 
 from Ottawa to examine into the resources of this 
 part of the country, will doubtless make a thorough 
 investigation of the amount and quality of the deposit. 
 
 The whole of that day we steamed through a wilder- 
 ness of pine timber presenting exactly the same 
 appearance as in the upper reaches of the river, but on 
 the following morning the banks became low and 
 swampy, the stream sluggish and divided into various 
 branches, and a few miles of intricate navigation 
 brought us out on to the Athabasca Lake. Across on 
 the north shore we could make out the white houses 
 and church of Fort Chipeweyan, and after a couple of 
 hours' steaming, with smooth water, we were alongside 
 the rather rough apology for a landing-place. 
 
 Fort Chipeweyan was established in the early days 
 of fur-trading, and a hundred years ago was the 
 starting-point of Sir Alexander Mackenzie's voyage 
 of discovery that resulted in the exploration and 
 naming of the immense stream discharging from the 
 Great Slave Lake. It was the scene of many stirring 
 events during the rivalry of the North-West and the 
 Hudson's Bay Companies, and since their amalgama- 
 tion has always been an important trading-post. At 
 the present day it consists of a long row of white 
 painted log-houses occupied chiefly by the Company's 
 servants ; at the southern end are the officers' quarters
 
 CHAP. i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 13 
 
 in close proximity to the large trading and provision 
 stores ; at the north end stand the Protestant church 
 and Mission buildings, and farther along the lake is 
 the Roman Catholic establishment. The numerous 
 houses form quite an imposing sight in contrast to the 
 surrounding desolation. The settlement is almost at 
 the west end of the Athabasca Lake which stretches 
 away some two hundred and fifty miles to the east- 
 ward, with Fond du Lac, a small outpost, at the far 
 end. 
 
 Since the steamers have been running Chipeweyan 
 has been partly supplied with the provisions of civiliza- 
 tion, but is still chiefly dependent on its fisheries for 
 food, and great pains are taken in the autumn to store 
 as many whitefish as possible. At the commence- 
 ment of cold weather every available net is working 
 and the fish are hung on stages to freeze ; a large 
 number are spoilt for eating if the weather turns 
 warm during hanging-time, but they are always avail- 
 able for the dogs. Trout-lines are worked all the 
 winter, and if the supply seems to be running short, 
 nets are also set under the ice, but usually without 
 such good results as at the Fall fishery. Caribou 
 from the Barren Ground sometimes wander near Fond 
 du Lac, and whenever this occurs the fort is kept 
 well supplied by the Indians, but an occasional moose 
 affords as a rule the only chance of fresh meat. 
 Many geese and ducks are killed and salted during 
 the spring and autumn migration of wild-fowl, which 
 come to the Athabasca Lake at these periods in 
 vast numbers. Chipeweyan has a large population
 
 i 4 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP. i. 
 
 for the part of the world in which it is situated, 
 and as there is a proportionate consumption of food 
 no chance of laying in a stock is missed. The lake 
 still affords an excellent field for exploration, as 
 beyond the main route to the east end and some 
 of the nearer fisheries very little is known to the 
 Whites, and the country in every direction from Fond 
 du Lac is mapped chiefly on information derived from 
 Indians. It is unlikely that there are any startling 
 discoveries to be made, as the general character of 
 the country seems to be the same as that of the 
 district lying to the north and east of the Great Slave 
 Lake, developing gradually into the Barren Ground ; 
 but there must be many geographical features in the 
 form of streams and lakes to be noticed, which might 
 amply repay the trouble of a summer's exploration. 
 All supplies can easily be taken by water-carriage as 
 far as the east end of the lake, though of course the 
 well-known difficulty of transporting provisions into 
 the Barren Ground would commence as soon as the 
 main lake was left.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 AFTER a stay of a few hours at the Fort, we started 
 again in the Grahame on our voyage to the head 
 of the rapids at Fort Smith, a distance of perhaps 
 a hundred miles, and almost immediately passed into 
 the main stream leaving the lake, and until the junc- 
 tion of the Peace bearing the name of the Rocky 
 River. During the high water in summer part of the 
 water of the Peace finds its way into the Athabasca 
 Lake by a passage known as the Quatres Fourches, 
 but as the floods subside a slight current sets in the 
 opposite direction ; the lake thus has another outlet 
 into the Peace, which eventually joins the Rocky River 
 about thirty miles below ; the combined stream is then 
 called the Slave River till it debouches into the Great 
 Slave Lake, on leaving which it becomes the Mac- 
 kenzie. 
 
 A distinct alteration in the appearance of the country 
 is visible on leaving Fort Chipeweyan. The red 
 granite rock shows up and the pine timber is smaller 
 and more scattered, burnt in many places, and mixed 
 with a thick growth of willows and berry-producing 
 bushes ; the scenery from the river is monotonous and 
 without landmarks, although a wider view can be ob-
 
 ,6 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. 11. 
 
 tained than in running down the Athabasca, where the 
 big pine-trees prevent all chance of seeing far in any 
 direction. The current is of no great velocity with 
 the exception of two small rapids formed by the 
 contraction of the channel; both are navigable, 
 although at certain stages of water it is necessary 
 to put out a rope to assist the steamer in mounting 
 the more formidable of the two. We had a very 
 merry passage down, Dr. Mackay and several of the 
 officers of his district accompanying us, and in good 
 time on the second day we tied up to the bank on the 
 west side of the river, just at the head of the rapids. 
 
 I must take this opportunity of congratulating the 
 Hudson's Bay Company on the efficient manner in 
 which their steamers are managed. Considering the 
 utter incapacity of the Indian and half-breed crews 
 when they first come on board, great praise is due to 
 the captains and engineers for their success in over- 
 coming obstacles in navigation and carrying on the 
 Company's business in a country so remote from 
 civilization. Everything is done in a quiet and or- 
 derly way, and a very noticeable feature is the total 
 absence of the swearing and profanity so essential 
 to the well-being of a river-steamer in other parts of 
 the American continent. 
 
 The next day the work of portaging began, as the 
 whole cargo had to be transported sixteen miles to the 
 lower end of the rapids. In former days the goods 
 were taken down by water, necessitating many por- 
 tages and great delay ; but within the last few years 
 a road has been cut through the woods on the west
 
 CHAP. ii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 17 
 
 side of the river, and the portage is made with Red- 
 River carts drawn by oxen. Twenty carts are in use, 
 starting loaded and returning light, on alternate days. 
 The road is fair in a dry summer, but full of mud-holes 
 in bad weather, and celebrated as the worst place for 
 mosquitos in all the North. 
 
 While this was' going on we amused ourselves with 
 duck-shooting on some lakes and muskegs a few miles 
 back from the landing, and our bag was always a 
 welcome addition to the table, as no other kind of 
 fresh meat was to be had. Big game is very scarce 
 along the main route, and though there are still a few 
 moose and bear it is rarely that an animal is seen 
 close to the banks of the river. As soon as the cargo 
 was all over we went across to Fort Smith, standing 
 just below the rapids, to await the arrival of the 
 Mackenzie River steamboat which was expected at 
 any time. Dr. Mackay took me down the old boat- 
 route in a canoe, and I had a good opportunity of 
 seeing what labour and risk there must have been 
 with heavily-laden boats ; we made some fifteen 
 portages in all, which occupied a long afternoon, with 
 only a light canoe. A large colony of pelicans have 
 taken possession of some islands among the rapids, 
 and rear their young without fear of molestation. 
 
 Fort Smith, in spite of its fine situation on an open 
 flat high above the river, is the most disreputable 
 establishment I came across in the North, and the 
 contrast was more striking as most of the forts are 
 kept rather smartly. Several half-breeds have settled 
 close round, and a large band of Indians, known as 
 
 c
 
 1 8 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. n. 
 
 the Caribou- Eaters, whose hunting-ground lies between 
 the two big lakes, get their supplies from here. 
 Within a short distance is Salt River, which produces 
 all the salt consumed in the country, and saves the 
 expense of importing this necessary article. 
 
 On August 1 3th, after several days' waiting, the 
 steamer Wrigley arrived, bringing up the Mackenzie 
 River furs and several of the officers from that dis- 
 trict. Among her passengers was a French half- 
 breed, King Beaulieu, who afterwards became my 
 guide to the Barren Ground. He agreed to go in 
 this capacity at a consultation held in Dr. Mackay's 
 presence, swearing eternal fidelity and promising to do 
 everything in his power to ensure the success of the 
 expedition. Nobody could give him a very good 
 character, but as he was known as a pushing fellow 
 and first-rate traveller, besides having made a success- 
 ful musk-ox hunt in the previous year, I concluded 
 that my best chance lay in going with him. Certainly, 
 with all his faults, I must say that he was thoroughly 
 expert in all the arts of travel with canoes or dog- 
 sleighs, quick in emergencies, and far more courageous 
 than most of the half-breeds of the Great Slave Lake. 
 When I was alone with him I found him easy enough 
 to manage ; but his three sons, who accompanied us, 
 are the biggest scoundrels I ever had to travel with, 
 and as they seem to demoralize the old man when 
 they are together, the united family is a bad com- 
 bination. 
 
 Two more days were passed in loading the Wrig- 
 ley, and in discussion among the officers from the two
 
 CHAP. ii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 19 
 
 districts, who only meet on this occasion, and have to 
 make the most of the short stay to go over the news 
 of the last year and prospects for the next. Mr. 
 Camsell, who is in charge of Mackenzie River district, 
 was on board, and, although I never actually went 
 within his dominions, was exceedingly kind in giving 
 me supplies from his own outfit, and in doing every- 
 thing he could to help me during the year that I spent 
 in the neighbourhood of the Great Slave Lake. 
 
 The Wrigley, having the rough crossing of the 
 lake to make, is a very different style of boat to the 
 stern-wheelers above, which do all their work in 
 smooth water. She is a screw-boat, drawing seven 
 feet when loaded ; and it gives an idea of the great 
 size of the Mackenzie when I mention that a vessel 
 with this draught of water has a clear run of thirteen 
 hundred miles from Fort Smith to Peel's River, a tribu- 
 tary joining the main stream from the west a short 
 distance above its mouth. She has never, I believe, 
 steamed into the Arctic Sea, partly on account of the 
 channel being unknown, and partly owing to the 
 shortness of the season, which necessitates her being 
 constantly at work to supply the forts before the 
 closing of navigation. 
 
 After leaving Fort Smith and passing the mouth 
 of Salt River the Slave River widens considerably, 
 and, with a slight current running between low banks 
 and numerous islands, follows a more circuitous course 
 than in its upper reaches. The steamer's course 
 covers a distance of one hundred and eighty miles to 
 the Great Slave Lake, but, in travelling with canoes 
 
 C 3
 
 20 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. 11. 
 
 or clogs, a number of portages are made to cut off 
 bends of the river, and about one-third of the distance 
 is saved. 
 
 The granite formation is quickly lost sight of from 
 the water. The sandy banks are covered with a dense 
 growth of willows backed by the pine forest ; a gloomy 
 uninviting stretch of country, to which the tall dead 
 trees charred by former fires give a peculiar air of 
 desolation. The soft nature of the sand, and the fact 
 that much of the bank has fallen in through the action 
 of the ice breaking up in the spring, render tracking 
 difficult on this part of the river ; the fallen timber 
 leaning over it at all angles, and making it impossible 
 to pass the line. The sluggish nature of the current, 
 however, compensates for this, as its strength can 
 always be overcome by oars or paddles in the bad 
 places. Early on the second day we steamed through 
 the low delta lands at the mouth of the river, and, 
 passing cautiously among the sandy battures lying far 
 off shore, arrived in heavy rain and strong westerly 
 wind at Fort Resolution, situated about ten miles to 
 the westward of the river's mouth. Mr. Mackinlay, 
 who is in charge of the fort, was away; but, as the 
 steamer was delayed for a couple of days by the storm 
 that was blowing, Mr. Camsell gave me very valuable 
 assistance in making preparation for my voyage. 
 
 The resources of the fort were at the lowest; no 
 supplies had yet arrived from outside, and the people 
 were entirely dependent on their nets for food : as is 
 usually the case at this time of year, fish were scarce 
 and hard times prevalent. A boat had been fitted out
 
 CHAP. ii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 21 
 
 to be sent to the east end of the lake to trade for meat 
 with the Indians hunting there ; but after waiting a 
 long time for the steamer, to obtain the ammunition 
 necessary for trading, she was blown ashore and broken 
 up on the night of our arrival. I had intended to take 
 a passage by this boat ; but as a party of men had to 
 be sent to Fort Smith to bring down another one, and 
 I was anxious to get among the game with as little 
 delay as possible, I determined to make the journey as 
 well as I could with canoes. 
 
 It was now that I made the acquaintance of King 
 Beaulieu's sons, Franois, Jos, and Paul, each of them 
 married and father of such a big family that it makes 
 one tremble for the future of the Great Slave Lake 
 country when the next generation has grown up. The 
 original Beaulieu seems to have been a French half- 
 breed brought in by the Hudson's Bay Company 
 among the early voyagmrs from Red River. He 
 settled at Salt River, where buffalo were numerous at 
 the time, and by an indefinite number of wives raised 
 a large family which is threatening gradually to inun- 
 date the North. King's father appears to have been 
 a fighting man, and great stories of his bravery and 
 prowess are told by his sons and grandsons ; but his 
 name only appears in the Company's records in con- 
 nection with various deeds of violence not much to his 
 credit. 
 
 All King's family were hanging about the fort in 
 a state of semi-starvation, and I was glad when we 
 eventually started well on in the afternoon of August 
 iQth, with the hope of reaching first some good fishing-
 
 22 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. 11. 
 
 ground to supply them with food for immediate want, 
 and afterwards the country of the caribou in the woods 
 to the north of the lake, while beyond that again was 
 the prospect of finding the musk-ox far out in the 
 Barren Ground. 
 
 In character a Beaulieu is a mixture of a very simple 
 child and a German Jew; all the lack of reason of the 
 one combined with the greed of the other, and a sort 
 of low cunning more like that of an animal than a 
 human being. He is not a nice man to travel with, as 
 he always keeps a longing eye on his master's pos- 
 sessions, even though he is fully as well-equipped 
 himself, and is untrustworthy if you leave anything in 
 his charge. To your face he is fairspoken and humble 
 enough, and to hear him talk you would think he had 
 a certain amount of regard for you ; but out of sight 
 the promises are forgotten, and he is devising some 
 scheme to annoy you and get something out of you. 
 The only way to treat him is as you would treat a dog ; 
 if you are kind to him he takes it as a sign that you 
 are afraid of him, and acts accordingly. With the 
 exception of King there is no fear of violence ; but his 
 passion is at times so uncontrollable that he is capable 
 of anything. It is needless to relate all the bother 
 I had with these people, and I shall content myself 
 with saying that the whole time I was with them the 
 camp was the scene of one continuous wrangle ; some- 
 times they would quarrel with me and sometimes 
 among themselves, but we never did anything without 
 having a row. 
 
 As far as Fort Resolution the travelling had been
 
 CHAP. ii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 23 
 
 almost as easy, although there were many delays, as in 
 civilization ; but directly you branch from the Com- 
 pany's main route you are thrown entirely on your own 
 resources, and, owing to the impossibility of carrying 
 enough provision for a prolonged journey in the Barren 
 Ground, the rifle and net are the only means of obtain- 
 ing food. This is a point to be well considered before 
 undertaking a trip to the country of the musk-ox, 
 as, however well you may be supplied at starting, you 
 are sure to experience some hard times before your 
 object is accomplished. 
 
 My only provisions consisted of a couple of sacks of 
 flour and about fifty pounds of bacon, and I might as 
 well have started with none at all. My companions 
 had all the improvidence of the Indian nature, and 
 hated the idea of keeping anything for hard times. 
 There was such a constant begging, not without a 
 certain excuse from hunger, to be allowed to eat flour 
 and bacon, that I was really rather glad when it was 
 all gone, which was actually the case before we left the 
 Great Slave Lake. We had a good supply of tea and 
 tobacco, though it proved after all insufficient, plenty 
 of ammunition for the three Winchester rifles, and 
 powder, shot, and ball for the muzzle-loading weapons 
 of the party ; we had also nets and a few hooks and 
 lines, matches, needles, and awls to be used in the 
 manufacture of moccasins and the deer-skin clothes so 
 essential for winter travel ; knives of various shapes 
 and sizes, scrapers for dressing skins, and a small stock 
 of the duffel imported by the Company for lining 
 mittens and wrapping up the feet during the intense
 
 , 4 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. n. 
 
 cold that we were sure to experience during the 
 trip. 
 
 Our fleet numbered three large birch-bark canoes, 
 crowded with men, women, and children, amounting in 
 all to over twenty souls, or, to be more practical, 
 mouths. Besides these there were fifteen gaunt and 
 hungry dogs, which had been spending their short 
 summer's rest in starving as a preparation for the hard 
 work and harder blows which were in store for them in 
 the coming winter. 
 
 I was of course the only white man in the party, and 
 whatever conversation I held with the three or four 
 half-breeds that I could understand was carried on in 
 the French patois of the North. Among themselves 
 they used the Montaignais dialect of the Chipeweyan 
 language, which is spoken with variations to the north- 
 ward of the Cree-speaking belt, till its place is taken 
 by the Slavi and Locheaux language of the Mackenzie 
 River ; in a couple of months I had picked up enough 
 Montaignais to be able to mix it with French and make 
 myself fairly well understood. 
 
 Four deerskin lodges made our encampment. I lived 
 with King, as his camp was always the quietest ; in the 
 other lodges there was a continual screaming of chil- 
 dren, or yelping of hungry dogs as they felt the cruel 
 blow of axe or paddle, which was the sure result of 
 approaching the savoury-smelling kettle too close. We 
 camped the first night in the delta of the Slave, or, as 
 it is more usually called, the Big River. I distributed 
 a little ammunition, and we killed enough ducks to 
 provide the whole party with a night's provision. The
 
 CHAP. ii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 25 
 
 next day a gale of wind was blowing from the lake, 
 and, after following winding muddy channels all the 
 morning, we were obliged to camp again on a point of 
 willows beyond which we should have been exposed to 
 the full violence of the storm, and our overloaded 
 canoes would have had no chance of living in the 
 heavy sea. Here we remained two days, still within 
 twenty miles of the fort. Wild-fowl were numerous, 
 but the great autumn migration had not yet set in, and 
 all the birds that we found had been bred in the 
 muskegs that surrounded us on all sides ; they were 
 mostly mallard, widgeon, teal, shoveller, and pintail, 
 the latter being particularly plentiful. Musk-rats swam 
 in all the little creeks and lakes, and, as they are 
 esteemed as an article of food, and their skins are of 
 a trifling value, we killed a great many. 
 
 On the third day we paddled along the shore of the 
 lake against a strong head-wind, passing the Isle de 
 Pierre, one of the best fisheries in the neighbourhood, 
 and camped at the Point of Rocks, the first spot on the 
 south side of the lake where the red granite again 
 shows up, and the end of the muskeg country that 
 extends far on each side of the Big River. Here we 
 caught enough whitefish with the nets to enable even 
 the dogs to have a small feed, and, as we killed forty 
 ducks while waiting for the wind to moderate, every- 
 body was satisfied. In the afternoon we put out in 
 a calm to paddle across the open traverse to the first 
 of a group of islands about fifteen miles to the north. 
 This traverse is the terror of the lake for canoes, both 
 in summer on account of the heavy sea which gets up
 
 ,6 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. 11. 
 
 suddenly, and in winter when the drifting snow in 
 stormy weather obscures everything and makes it 
 a difficult matter to keep the course over the ice. On 
 this occasion we got over just in time, and, camping on 
 the nearest island of the group, were delayed for two 
 days by strong north-west winds accompanied by 
 showers of driving rain. 
 
 These islands, marked on the map as Simpson's 
 Group, extend for a hundred miles in a north-easterly 
 direction to Fond du Lac, and, if ever explored, will 
 be found to be in immense numbers, varying in size, 
 but all of the same red-granite formation, covered 
 with a scanty growth of pine, birch, and willows. 
 Many of them rise to a considerable height, with the 
 ridges generally running south-west and north-east. 
 A few moose still inhabit the larger islands ; but the 
 big herds of caribou from the Barren Ground that 
 used formerly to come here in their wanderings seem 
 to have deserted them of late years. An occasional 
 small pond gives harbourage for a few wild-fowl, while 
 wood-grouse, and in winter ptarmigan, are plentiful. 
 The bare outlying rocks between the islands are the 
 breeding-ground of gulls and terns : divers and a few 
 cormorants give additional life to the lake in summer ; 
 but at the first sign of cold weather the water-birds 
 all leave for a more temperate land, and a deathlike 
 silence settles over the frozen channels during the 
 eight months of winter. 
 
 The island on which we were encamped, being the 
 most westerly of the group, was exposed to the full 
 force of the gale. The heavy fresh-water seas broke
 
 CHAP. ii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 27 
 
 with great violence on the weather shore and on the 
 numerous rocks, some above water and others sub- 
 merged, that make the navigation of this part of the 
 lake dangerous for anything larger than a canoe. It 
 was no easy matter to get out our nets, even to 
 leeward of the island, and the supply of fish was very 
 scanty ; dissatisfaction was prevalent in the camp, 
 and heavy inroads were made on the flour and bacon 
 that would have proved so useful later on. When 
 the weather moderated we started against a strong 
 head-wind, and a hard day's paddling brought us to 
 a spot known as the Inconnu Fishery, situated on an 
 island halfway to Fond du Lac. The Inconnu, or 
 Unknown Fish, is, I believe, entirely restricted to the 
 Mackenzie River country, and its southernmost limits 
 seem to be the rapids at Fort Smith ; it was thus 
 named by the early voyageurs of the Company, who 
 were unable to classify it, and even to this day there 
 is a great variety of opinion as to what family it. is a 
 member of: a long thin fish, not unlike a misshapen 
 salmon, running up to fifteen pounds in weight, with 
 flabby and unpalatable flesh, it is held in very low 
 estimation in comparison with whitefish or trout, and 
 is only appreciated in hard times. At this particular 
 island it will take a bait readily, but I never heard of 
 its doing so in any other part of the lake, although 
 large numbers are caught in the nets. There is some 
 peculiarity in the water w T hich may account for this, as, 
 even in the dead of winter, there is generally an open 
 hole in the ice; and, in passing the Inconnu Fishery, 
 one must keep right ashore to avoid the treacherous
 
 a g THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. 11. 
 
 spot. Here we were wind-bound again, and indeed 
 for several days made very little headway against the 
 northerly gales that seem almost incessant at this time 
 of year. We had a pleasant spot to camp in every 
 nivjht, but not always enough to eat, and it was the 
 first of September before we sighted the high land 
 on the north side of the lake. This was the first 
 really fine day we had had since leaving the fort, 
 and, taking advantage of it, we left the shelter of the 
 islands, made a bold crossing of the wide stretch of 
 open water, and camped among the scattering pines 
 on the northern mainland. Exactly opposite to us 
 was the narrow entrance to Christie's Bay of the maps, 
 extending some hundred miles to the east and south- 
 east, offering another tempting field for exploration. 
 On the west side of the entrance is a remarkable 
 many-coloured bluff, composed of the soft rock used 
 by the Indians for the manufacture of their stone 
 pipes, which are still in common use. 
 
 The range of hills along the north shore, which we 
 now had to coast, average perhaps five hundred feet 
 in height, occasionally reaching a much higher eleva- 
 tion, but without any conspicuous peaks ; the land 
 begins to rise at once from the lake, in many places 
 taking the form of a steep cliff. The vegetation is 
 the same as that on the south side of the lake, but 
 more stunted, the pine trees especially showing the 
 increased rigour of the climate ; small birch trees are 
 still numerous, and the growth of the hardy willows 
 is almost as strong as at Fort Resolution. Fruit- 
 bearing plants are common. The small muskegs
 
 CHAP. ii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 
 
 29 
 
 between the ridges of rock are full of a much-prized 
 yellow berry, while blueberry bushes flourish in the 
 dry spots, and a few raspberries are still to be seen ; 
 but strawberries, which used to be plentiful on the 
 south shore and among the islands, have disappeared. 
 I noticed here the low trailing plant bearing a woolly 
 red berry, known as Cannicannick by the Indians to 
 the west of the Rocky Mountains, and used by them 
 as tobacco ; the Slave Lake Indians sometimes smoke 
 it, but prefer the inner bark of the red willow ; the 
 Hudson's Bay negrohead tobacco is in my opinion 
 much improved, as well as economized, by a mixture 
 with either of these substances. Countless streams, 
 the outlet of lakes on the elevated tableland to the 
 north, foam down the deep gulches in the hillside, and 
 confused masses of fallen timber and rocks give 
 evidence of the frequent land-slides that take place 
 during the spring thaws. 
 
 Again the north wind howled dismally down the 
 lake, and several more days were occupied in reaching 
 Fond du Lac. The enforced delay had a depressing 
 effect upon the whole party, as fish were scarce, and 
 paddling against continual head-winds is always hard 
 work. At last, on September 5th, passing through 
 a narrow arm of the lake with a perceptible current 
 formed by the prevailing winds, we came in sight of 
 Fond du Lac. A single house at the head of a snug 
 little bay is all that is left standing, but the ruins 
 of others, and a number of rough graves, show that 
 at one time it was a more populous place. It was 
 formerly an outpost of Fort Resolution, used as a
 
 30 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP. n. 
 
 depot for collecting meat, and presided over in a 
 haphazard manner by King Beaulieu, who is still 
 rather sore about the abandonment of the post and 
 his own discharge from the Company's service. The 
 weather now became worse than ever, snow and hail 
 taking the place of rain and throwing the first white 
 mantle on the hill-tops. It was evident that such a 
 large party, crippled as we were with women and 
 children, would never be able to reach the caribou, 
 in the event of these animals being far back from 
 the Great Slave Lake. We had met no Indians, and 
 so had no means of hearing the news of the caribou, 
 which forms the one topic of interest among the Dog- 
 Rib and Yellow Knife tribes who hunt in this part 
 of the country. Luckily trout and whitefish were 
 fairly abundant, some of the former reaching such an 
 enormous size that I am afraid to hazard a guess at 
 their weight, though I afterwards saw one at the fort 
 that turned the scale at fifty-eight pounds.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WE held a big council as to ways and means, and, 
 after much discussion, finally came to the decision that 
 our best chance was to leave the main body of women 
 and children with sufficient men to attend to the nets 
 for them, while the rest of us pushed on to the north 
 with our two biggest canoes, in the hope of falling in 
 with the caribou, and afterwards the musk-ox. We 
 were to leave all the dogs at Fond du Lac, as we 
 expected to send back before the setting in of winter ; 
 only two women, King's wife and daughter, were to 
 come with us to dry meat, dress deerskins, and make 
 moccasins. Besides them our crew consisted of King 
 Beaulieu, his sons Francois, Jose, Paul, and Baptiste (a 
 boy of twelve), Michel (King's son-in-law), and a small 
 Indian boy who had thrown in his lot with us as the 
 best visible means of getting anything to keep him 
 alive during the autumn. All the provisions that I had 
 brought with me were exhausted, and we had nothing 
 but a do'zen small dried whitefish when we left Fond 
 du Lac on September yth to paddle another thirty 
 miles along the north shore before leaving the lake. 
 Our loads were cut down to the smallest weight 
 possible in order to save time on the portages. I left
 
 3 a THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. in. 
 
 my Paradox behind as the ammunition was heavy, and 
 trusted entirely to a Winchester rifle ; a pair of glasses 
 and a blanket about completed my share of the cargo. 
 I had no instruments for taking observations, no 
 compass, and no watch ; and, take it all round, it was 
 a very poorly-equipped expedition. We made a bad 
 start, as, after an hour's travel across a deep bay, we 
 found ourselves storm-bound on a small island, the 
 canoes hauled up on the beach, and such a heavy sea 
 on all sides that we could not get out a net. We 
 spent an uncomfortable night on the island, but the 
 wind moderated a little in the morning and we put 
 out again. After being once driven back to our refuge 
 we managed to reach the mainland, with the canoes 
 half full of water and our blankets and clothes soaked. 
 However, a good fire soon mended matters, and, as 
 we caught enough whitefish to stave off present 
 hunger, contentment reigned in the camp. 
 
 The next evening, after another long struggle 
 against the wind, we camped in the small bay at 
 which we intended to make our first portage, and 
 our long journey on the Great Slave Lake was 
 finished. Three ducks, our whole bag for the day, 
 and a kettle of black tea gave us a scanty supper, 
 and, as there was still a little daylight, we each carried 
 a small load to the top of the hill, a distance of two 
 miles, but were disappointed in not seeing any caribou 
 tracks. We thought we had a chance of finding them 
 close to the lake, but as a matter of fact we had 
 several days' journey yet before we fell in with them. 
 It now seemed pretty certain that we were in for a
 
 CHAP. in. OF NORTHERN CANADA 33 
 
 spell of what my companions alluded to as les miseres 
 till we reached the meat-country, the joys of which 
 formed the chief subject of talk round the camp-fires. 
 
 With the first streak of light we began the portage 
 in a driving snowstorm, and long before midday the 
 rest of the cargo and the biggest canoe were landed 
 at the top of the steep climb ; the other canoe we 
 abandoned, thinking one was ample for our work in 
 the Barren Ground. We sat down for a smoke at the 
 top of the hill, and took our last view of the Great 
 Slave Lake. Looking southward we could see the far 
 shore and the unknown land beyond rising in terraces to 
 a considerable height, and very similar in appearance 
 to the range we were on. Ahead of us, to the north, 
 lay a broken rocky country sparsely timbered and 
 dotted with lakes, the nearest of which, a couple of 
 miles away, was the end of our portage ; a bleak and 
 desolate country, already white with snow and with a 
 film of ice over the smaller ponds. Three hundred 
 miles in the heart of this wilderness, far beyond the 
 line where timber ceases, lies the land of the musk-ox, 
 to which we were about to force our way, depending 
 entirely on our guns for food and for clothing to with- 
 stand the intense cold that would soon be upon us. 
 A pair of hawks hovering overhead furnished the only 
 signs of life, and the outlook was by no means cheerful. 
 As I was sitting on a rock meditating upon these 
 things old King came up and said : ' Let us finish the 
 portage quickly ; it is dinner-time.' I quite agreed 
 with him, but put his remark down as a rather unsea- 
 sonable joke, as I did not think there was a bite to eat 
 
 D
 
 34 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. HI. 
 
 among us ; but on reaching the lake I was pleasantly 
 surprised to see King fish out a lump of bacon, which 
 he had stowed away some time ago after one of my 
 lectures on improvidence. It was really the last piece, 
 and, although there was no bread (and for the matter 
 of that there was none for the next three months) we 
 all made a good enough meal. The lake was of course 
 named Lac du Lard to commemorate this event. 
 
 I think no white man had ever passed through this 
 chain of lakes before, as Sir John Franklin went up 
 by a more westerly route, following the course of the 
 Yellow Knife River, while Hearne and Back both left 
 from the east end of the Great Slave Lake; Stewart 
 and Anderson, when they were searching for survivors 
 of Franklin's last ill-fated expedition, reached the head 
 waters of the Great Fish River by a chain of lakes 
 about eighty miles to the eastward of my present route. 
 If the lakes were known among the Indians by any 
 particular names I enquired their meaning and pre- 
 served them ; the others I named from incidents in the 
 voyage or from the Company's officers of Athabasca 
 and Mackenzie River districts. 
 
 During the afternoon we made four more 'short 
 portages, passing through the same number of lakes, 
 some of them of a considerable size. We kept a good 
 look-out for the caribou but saw no signs of them, and 
 at dark, after a hard day's work, camped on the east 
 shore of the Lac de Mort. It acquired this name from 
 a disaster that overwhelmed a large encampment of 
 Yellow Knives who were hunting here during one of 
 those epidemics of scarlet fever that have from time
 
 CHAP. HI. OF NORTHERN CANADA 35 
 
 to time ravaged the North. Most of the hunters were 
 too ill to walk, and, as game was scarce, the horrors 
 of starvation, combined with disease, almost extermi- 
 nated the band. 
 
 The next two days were occupied in the same 
 manner of travelling towards the north with numerous 
 portages. We could not catch any fish, though we set 
 a net every night, but killed enough ducks to keep us 
 alive without satisfying our ravenous hunger. The 
 weather was still cold, with strong head-winds and 
 frequent snowstorms. 
 
 On the third day we caught a big trout and killed a 
 loon and a wolverine, the latter after a most exciting 
 chase on a long point. In the next portage accordingly 
 we made a big feast, although wolverines are only 
 eaten in starving times, as they are looked upon in the . 
 light of scavengers and grave-robbers, and ' carcajou- 
 eater ' is a favourite term of contempt. On the present 
 occasion nobody made any objection, and in the cir- 
 cumstances the despised meat tasted remarkably well. 
 Our joy was soon cut short by finding the next lake, 
 which was more sheltered from the wind than the 
 others we had passed through, covered with a sheet of 
 ice sufficiently thick to prevent the passage of a birch- 
 bark canoe, while a heavy snowstorm came on at the 
 same time, making matters look more gloomy than 
 ever. King's sons at once expressed their intention 
 of returning to Fond du Lac while the lakes behind 
 them were still open. King, however, here showed 
 great determination, and declared, with an unnecessary 
 amount of strong language, that he had the heart of 
 
 D 2
 
 3 6 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. HI. 
 
 Beaulieu (the worst sort of heart, by the way), and, 
 when once he had started, would not turn back without 
 seeing the musk-ox. Eventually we persuaded them 
 to come on, and, canning the canoe, reduced our load 
 to the very smallest amount of necessaries. We then 
 started on foot for an expedition that would have most 
 certainly ended in disaster if we had gone on with it. 
 I noticed that the two women had the heaviest loads 
 to carry, but having myself as much as I cared about 
 for a long distance I made no remarks on the subject. 
 Luckily, after spending a night without eating under 
 the shelter of a bunch of dwarf pines, we discovered 
 the next lake to be almost clear of ice ; and carrying 
 our canoe over the four-mile portage we continued 
 our journey as before, pushing on as quickly as 
 possible to reach the Lac du Rocher, where the half- 
 breeds were confident of meeting the caribou, or, at 
 the worst, to camp at a spot well known to them 
 where we might catch fish enough for a temporary 
 support. We had now been in a half-starving con- 
 dition for several days, and were beginning to lose the 
 strength that we required for portaging and paddling 
 against the continual north wind. 
 
 On September 1 3th we reached the Lac du Rocher, 
 a large irregular sheet of water, so broken up with 
 bays and promontories that it is hard to estimate its 
 size. Camp was made on the south side of the lake, 
 and we set our nets and lines, baited with carefully 
 preserved pieces of whitefish, while others explored 
 the surrounding hills for caribou tracks, but without 
 success. The half-breeds were all much put out by this
 
 CHAP. in. OF NORTHERN CANADA 37 
 
 failure, as they have always found the Lac du Rocher 
 a certainty for caribou at this time of year, and were 
 unable to account for it, except by the theory that the 
 animals had altered the usual course of their autumn 
 migration and were passing to the east of us. There 
 was not a fish in the net when we turned in ; but a 
 good trout was caught in the middle of the night, and 
 we all got up and finished the last mouthful. Again 
 we had no breakfast, and the early morning found us 
 discussing various plans in rather a serious manner. 
 The final decision was that Paul and Franois should 
 push ahead to try and find the caribou, while the rest 
 of us moved the camp to the north end of the lake 
 and worked the fishing till their return ; six days were 
 allowed them for their trip, after which each party was 
 to act independently, and we were all to get out of the 
 awkward situation in the best way we could. 
 
 Accordingly we took the canoes across the lake as 
 soon as our hunters had started, and put up our deer- 
 skin lodge in the shelter of a clump of well-grown 
 pine trees ; we tried the hand-lines for hours without 
 any better result than completely numbing our fingers, 
 and towards evening set the net, also without any luck. 
 I took my rifle and walked two or three miles back 
 from the lake, but beyond an Arctic fox, which I missed 
 at long range, saw nothing edible. 
 
 There is no better camp than a well-set-up lodge 
 with a good fire crackling in the middle, and in this 
 respect we were comfortable enough, but the shortness 
 of food was telling rapidly. We had made no pretence 
 at eating all day, and since leaving Fond du Lac had
 
 3 8 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. HI. 
 
 subsisted almost entirely on tea and tobacco, while 
 even on the Great Slave Lake provisions had been 
 none too plentiful. We passed the evening smoking, 
 and, as I have found usual in these cases, talking of 
 all the good things we had ever eaten, while eyes 
 shone in the firelight with the brilliancy peculiar to 
 the early stages of starvation. Outside the lodge the 
 wind was moderated ; the northern lights, though it 
 was still early in the year, were flashing brightly across 
 the sky, and far away in the distance we could hear 
 the ominous howling of wolves. Late in the night I 
 awoke, and, on lighting my pipe, was greeted by King 
 with the remark : ' Ah ! Monsieur, une fois j'ai goute 
 le pain avec le buerre ; le bon Dieu a fait ces deux 
 choses la expres pour manger ensemble.' 
 
 Long before daylight we put off in the canoe to visit 
 the net, and to our great joy found five fair-sized trout, 
 quite enough to relieve all anxiety for the day ; the 
 weather also had improved, turning much warmer, with 
 the snow rapidly thawing. The half-breeds, who are all 
 Catholics, held a short service, as it was Sunday morn- 
 ing and they are very particular in this respect. After- 
 wards we all went out hunting, but only two or three 
 ptarmigan, the first we had seen, were killed, and there 
 were still no signs of the caribou. The country here 
 is much less rugged than on first leaving the Great 
 Slave Lake, and the rolling hills are covered with a 
 small plant, halfway between heather and moss, bearing 
 a small black berry, and growing in thick bunches 
 wherever the soil is capable of producing it. This 
 plant, and a wiry black moss which grows in patches
 
 CHAP. in. OF NORTHERN CANADA 39 
 
 on the flat rocks, are much used as fuel in dry weather, 
 if no wood is available ; in wet weather they are of course 
 useless. The hollows between the ridges are generally 
 muskegs, thawed out to the depth of a foot, producing 
 a long coarse grass, and in many places a plentiful 
 growth of a dwarf variety of the Labrador tea, an 
 excellent substitute for the product of China. Huge 
 glacial boulders lie scattered in every direction, many 
 of them balanced in an extraordinary manner on the 
 points of smaller stones, which seem to have been of 
 softer substance and gradually worn away. In other 
 spots are patches of broken rocks, covering a large 
 extent of ground and very difficult to travel on, especi- 
 ally when a light coating of snow makes them slippery, 
 and conceals the deep holes in which a leg might easily 
 be snapped ; even the caribou, sure-footed as they are, 
 will often make a long detour in preference to taking 
 the risk of a fall among these rocks. Lakes of all sizes 
 and shapes abound on every side, connected by small 
 streams that find their way into the Slave Lake one 
 hundred miles to the southward. Pine timber is now 
 very scarce and mostly small, growing in sheltered 
 spots with long stretches where not a tree is visible. 
 A fairly thick stem starts from the ground and imme- 
 diately spreads out into a bush with the branches 
 growing downwards, and the top of the tree seldom 
 reaching a height of ten feet. Sometimes, however, 
 even as far out as this, a bunch of really well-grown 
 trees is to be found, probably having the advantages 
 of better soil to spring from. A very few birch sticks, 
 invaluable to the Indian for making snow-shoes, still
 
 40 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. in. 
 
 manage to exist, and patches of scrub willow are 
 frequent. The general appearance of the country 
 and the vegetation, with the exception of the timber, 
 reminded me strongly of the desert of Arnavatn in the 
 interior of Iceland. 
 
 A great variety of mosses and lichens flourish here 
 and in the true Barren Ground outside the tree limit, 
 the tripe des roclies which has played such a conspicu- 
 ous part in the story of Arctic exploration being par- 
 ticularly abundant at this spot. The formation of the 
 rocks is still red granite, with a good deal of mica 
 showing in the boulders. 
 
 Late in the evening we heard a gun, and, on our 
 replying, four or five shots were fired in rapid 
 succession, the signal of good news ; soon afterwards 
 Paul and Fran9ois came in, each carrying a small load 
 of meat, which we finished promptly. They had fallen 
 in with the caribou about thirty miles on, and reported 
 them to be moving south in great numbers ; we had 
 now no hesitation in pushing on to meet them, and 
 were all jubilant at the thought of good times coming. 
 The next day was warm again with south-west wind, 
 and, after passing through the Lac du Corbeau (named 
 from our little Indian, who had acquired the title of 
 Chasseur du Corbeau from an unsuccessful hunt he had 
 made after, a raven at one of our hungry camps), we 
 portaged into Lake Camsell, a fine sheet of water over 
 twenty miles in length, running more to the east than 
 the other lakes we had passed, full of small islands, and 
 with rather more timber than usual on its shores. 
 
 For the first time we could put down our paddles,
 
 CHAP. in. OF NORTHERN CANADA 41 
 
 and, hoisting a large red blanket for a sail, ran in front 
 of the steady fair wind ; the water was blue, the sun 
 pleasantly warm, and the snow had almost disappeared. 
 In the afternoon there was a cry of Et-then, Et-then ! 
 (the caribou), and we saw a solitary bull standing 
 against the sky-line on the top of an island close to the 
 east shore of the lake. As soon as we were out of 
 sight we landed and quickly surrounded him ; he made 
 a break for the water, but one of the half-breeds, in 
 hiding behind a rock, dropped him before he put to 
 sea. It was a full-grown bull in prime condition, the 
 velvet not yet shed, but the horns quite hard under- 
 neath. 
 
 A scene of great activity now commenced. There 
 was no more thought of travelling that night, and, 
 while two men were skinning and cutting up the 
 caribou, the others unloaded and carried ashore the 
 canoe, lit a fire, and got ready the kettles for a feast 
 that was to make up for all the hard times* just gone 
 through. There was plenty of meat for everybody to 
 gorge themselves, and we certainly made a night of it, 
 boiling and roasting till we had very nearly finished 
 the whole animal. I could not quite keep up with the 
 others at this first trial of eating powers, but after a 
 couple of weeks among the caribou I was fully able to 
 hold my own. We seemed at length to have found the 
 land of plenty, as ptarmigan were very numerous, just 
 losing the last of their pretty brown plumage and 
 putting on their white dresses to match the snow, which 
 would soon drive them for food and shelter into the thick 
 pine woods round the shores of the Great Slave Lake.
 
 4 , THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. HI. 
 
 We had to sleep off the effects of over-eating, and it 
 was late in the day before we started down the lake. 
 After two or three hours' sailing at a slow pace we 
 spied a band of caribou, again on an island. With 
 unnecessary haste we made for the land, and, through 
 watching the deer instead of the water, ran the canoe 
 on a sharp submerged rock, tearing an ugly hole in the 
 birch-bark. We all stepped overboard up to the waist, 
 carried the cargo ashore, and, leaving the women to 
 stitch up the canoe with the bark and fibre that is 
 always kept handy when away from the birch woods, 
 started in pursuit of the caribou. The result was 
 that after a great deal of bad shooting we killed six- 
 teen on the island, while the canoe, hastily patched up, 
 with a kettle going steadily to bale out and the women 
 paddling and shouting lustily, succeeded in picking up 
 two more that tried to escape by swimming. 
 
 The evening was passed in skinning and cutting up 
 the meat, -which was stowed away in rough caches of 
 rocks to keep it safe from the wolves and wolverines. 
 These animals are always very plentiful in attendance 
 on the big herds of caribou, and are often the cause of 
 much annoyance to the hunter through stealing meat 
 that he is relying upon for subsistence ; in many places 
 where the rocks are small it is impossible to build a 
 cache strong enough to keep out the wolverines, which 
 are possessed of wonderful strength for their size. 
 
 The following day while Michel, Paul, and myself 
 were walking overland to join the canoe at the end of 
 the lake, we fell in with another band of caribou, and, 
 as the rest of the party landed at an opportune
 
 CHAP. in. OF NORTHERN CANADA 43 
 
 moment, we caught the animals on a long point and 
 made another big slaughter of seventeen, among them 
 some old bulls with very fine heads. A young bull, 
 nearly pure-white in colour, came my way, and I secured 
 him, but unfortunately the skin was afterwards stolen 
 by wolverines. We had now plenty of meat to estab- 
 lish a permanent camp, and set up our lodge at the 
 end of Lake Camsell with the intention of leaving the 
 women and boys to collect and dry the meat and dress 
 the skins, while the men were away on a short hunt 
 after musk-ox before the lakes set fast with ice. 
 
 We were now within a short distance of the last 
 woods, if a few bunches of dwarf pines, at intervals of 
 several miles, can be called woods, and were about to 
 push out into the Barren Ground, where, with the 
 exception of an occasional patch of small scrub willow, 
 all timber ceases.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IN the various records of Arctic exploration, and 
 especially in those dealing with the Barren Ground, 
 there is frequent mention of deer, reindeer, and caribou, 
 leaving the casual reader in doubt as to how many 
 species of deer inhabit the rocky wilderness between 
 the woods and the Arctic Sea. As a matter of fact, 
 the Barren Ground caribou (which name I prefer, 
 as distinguishing it from the woodland caribou, the 
 only other member of the reindeer tribe existing on 
 the American continent) is the sole representative of 
 the Cervidae found in this locality. 
 
 The chief distinction between this animal and its 
 cousin the woodland caribou, or caribou des bois fort 
 in the half-breed parlance, lies in the different size, the 
 latter having by far the advantage in height and 
 weight. I have had no opportunity of weighing 
 specimens of either kind, but should imagine that 
 the woodland must be fully a third the heavier of 
 the two. I cannot agree with some of the natural 
 history books which state that the smaller animals 
 carry the larger horns, as of all the Barren Ground 
 caribou that we killed I never saw any with horns 
 to compare with the giant antlers of the woodland
 
 CHAP. iv. NORTHERN CANADA 45 
 
 caribou of Newfoundland or British Columbia ; more 
 irregular, if possible, they may be, and perhaps have 
 a greater number of points, but they are far behind 
 in weight, spread, and size of beam. The perfect 
 double plough is more often seen in the smaller 
 specimen, the larger animal being usually provided 
 with only one, or with one plough and a spike. In 
 colour they closely resemble each other, but there 
 is rather more white noticeable in the representative 
 of the Barren Ground, especially in the females, while 
 the texture of the coat, as is to be expected, is finer 
 in the smaller variety. The hoofs have the same 
 curious ' snow-shoe ' formation in both cases. 
 
 The range of the Barren Ground caribou appears 
 to be from the islands in the Arctic Sea to the 
 southern part of Hudson's Bay, while the Mackenzie 
 River is the limit of their western wandering, although 
 not many years ago they are known to have crossed 
 the Slave River in the neighbourhood of Fort Smith. 
 In the summer time they keep to the true Barren 
 Ground, but in the autumn, when their feeding-grounds 
 are covered with snow, they seek the hanging moss 
 in the woods. From what I could gather from the 
 Yellow Knife Indians at the east end of the Great 
 Slave Lake, and from my own personal experience, 
 it was late in October, immediately after the rutting 
 season, that the great bands of caribou, commonly 
 known as La Foule, mass up on the edge of the woods, 
 and start for food and shelter afforded by the stronger 
 growth of pines farther southward. A month after- 
 wards the males and females separate, the latter
 
 4 6 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. iv. 
 
 beginning to work their way north again as early as 
 the end of February ; they reach the edge of the 
 woods in April, and drop their young far out towards 
 the sea-coast in June, by which time the snow is 
 melting rapidly and the ground showing in patches. 
 The males stay in the woods till May and never reach 
 the coast, but meet the females on their way inland 
 at the end of July; from this time they stay together 
 till the rutting season is over and it is time to seek 
 the woods once more. 
 
 The horns are mostly clear of velvet towards the 
 end of September, but some of the females carry it 
 later even than this ; the old bulls shed their antlers 
 early in December, and the young ones do the same 
 towards the end of that month, the females being 
 some weeks later. In June both sexes present a 
 very shabby appearance, as the old coats have grown 
 long and white and are falling off in patches ; by 
 the end of July the new hair has grown, and the -skins 
 are then in their best condition. 
 
 The caribou are extremely uncertain in their move- 
 ments, seldom taking the same course in two con- 
 secutive years, and thus affording ground for the 
 universal cry in the North that the caribou are being 
 killed off. I think there is really much truth in the 
 statement that they keep a more easterly route than 
 formerly, as they seldom come in large quantities to 
 the Mackenzie River, where they used to be par- 
 ticularly numerous in winter. This is in a great 
 measure accounted for by the fact that great stretches 
 of the country have been burnt, and so rendered
 
 CHAP. iv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 47 
 
 incapable of growing the lichen so dearly beloved 
 by these animals. The same thing applies at Fort 
 Resolution, where, within the last decade, the southern 
 shore of the Great Slave Lake has been burnt and 
 one of the best ranges totally destroyed. 
 
 One point that seems to bear out the theory of 
 a more easterly movement is that within the last 
 three years the caribou have appeared in their 
 thousands at York Factory on the west side of 
 Hudson's Bay, where they have not been seen for 
 over thirty years ; but I cannot believe, judging from 
 the vast herds that I myself saw, that there is any 
 danger of the caribou being exterminated. 
 
 It is absurd to say that the white man is killing 
 them off, as no white man ever fires a shot at them 
 unless they pass very close to a Company's establish- 
 ment, and the Indians are themselves surely dying 
 out year by year. Nor is it any argument to say that 
 the Indians sometimes starve to death from want 
 of success in hunting, as a glance at Hearne's Journey 
 to the Northern Ocean in 1771 will show that the 
 same state of affairs prevailed before the Company 
 had penetrated to the Great Slave Lake or Mackenzie 
 River. 'Starvation will always be one of the features 
 of a Northern Indian's life, owing to his own im- 
 providence ; his instinct is to camp close on the tracks 
 of the caribou and move as they move ; a permanent 
 house and a winter's supply of meat are an abomination 
 to him. 
 
 Since the introduction of firearms the Indian has 
 lost much of his old hunting lore ; a snare is almost
 
 48 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. iv. 
 
 a thing of the past, but is still occasionally used when 
 ammunition is scarce. It is no hard matter to kill 
 caribou in the open country, for the rolling hills 
 usually give ample cover for a stalk, and even on 
 flat ground they are easily approached at a run, as 
 they will almost invariably circle head to wind and 
 give the hunter a chance to cut them off. But it is 
 with the spear that the vast slaughter in the summer 
 is annually made. The best swimming-places are 
 known and carefully watched, and woe betide a herd 
 of caribou if once surrounded in a lake by the small 
 hunting-canoes. One thrust of the spear, high up in 
 the loins and ranging forward, does the work. There 
 is no idea of sparing life, no matter what the age or 
 sex of the victim may be ; the lake is red with blood 
 and covered with sometimes several hundred carcasses, 
 of which fully one-half are thrown away as not fat 
 enough to be eaten by men who may be starving in 
 a month. Surely this should exterminate the game ; 
 but, if one remonstrates with the Indians at the waste, 
 the ready answer comes : ' Our fathers did this and 
 have taught us to do the same ; they did not kill off 
 the caribou, and after we are gone there will be plenty 
 for our children.' These animals are easily induced 
 to swim at any particular spot by putting up a line 
 of rocks at right angles to the water, and a line of 
 pine bush planted in the snow across a frozen lake 
 has the same effect; the caribou will not pass it, but 
 following it along fall an easy prey to the hunter lying 
 in ambush at the end of the line. In the winter they 
 are killed in great numbers on the small lakes in the
 
 CHAP. iv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 49 
 
 timber, as they seem disinclined to leave the open lake 
 and will often run close up to the gun rather than 
 take to the woods. I have heard this accounted for 
 by the suggestion that they take the report of the 
 gun for a falling tree and are afraid of being struck 
 if they venture off the lake ; but I fancy their natural 
 curiosity has a great deal to do with this extraordinary 
 behaviour. It frequently happens that they will run 
 backwards and forwards within range till the last of 
 the band is killed. 
 
 The caribou supplies the Indian with nearly all the 
 necessaries of life ; it gives him food, clothing, house, 
 and the equivalent of money to spend at the fort. He 
 leaves the trading-post, after one of his yearly visits, 
 with a supply of ammunition, tea, and tobacco, a blanket 
 or two, and, if he has made a good season's hunt, is 
 perhaps lucky enough to have taken one of the Com- 
 pany's duffel capotes (about the best form of greatcoat 
 that I have ever seen). He has a wife and family 
 waiting for him somewhere on the shore of the big 
 lake where fish are plentiful, expecting a gaudy dress, 
 a shawl, or a string of beads from the fort, but relying 
 entirely on the caribou for maintenance during the 
 awful cold of the coming winter. The journey up till 
 they fall in with the caribou is usually full of hardships, 
 but once they have reached the hunting-ground and 
 found game a great improvement in affairs takes 
 place ; the hunter is busy killing, while the women 
 dry meat and make grease, dress the skins for moc- 
 casins, mittens, and gun-covers, and cut babiche, 
 which takes the place of string for lacing snow-shoes 
 
 E
 
 50 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. iv. 
 
 and many other purposes. For the hair-coats, which 
 everybody, men, women, and children, wear during 
 the cold season, the best skins are those of the young 
 animals killed in July or August, as the hair is short 
 and does not fall off so readily as in coats made from 
 the skin of a full-grown caribou; while the strong 
 sinews lying along the back-bone of an old bull make 
 the very best thread for sewing. Anything that is left 
 over after supplying the whole family finds a ready 
 sale at the fort, where there is always a demand for 
 dried meat, tongue-grease, dressed skins, and babiche, 
 so that the Dog-Ribs and Yellow Knives, whose 
 country produces little fur, with the exception of musk- 
 ox robes, are thus enabled to afford some few of the 
 white man's luxuries, tea and tobacco being especially 
 dear to the Indian's heart. 
 
 A good hunter kills the caribou with discretion ac- 
 cording to their condition at various seasons of the 
 year. After the females leave the woods in the early 
 spring he has of course only the males to fall back on, 
 and these are usually poor till August, when the bones 
 are full of marrow and the back-fat commences to 
 grow. By the middle of September this back-fat, or 
 dcpouille as it is called in Northern patois, has reached 
 a length of a foot or more forward from the tail, and, 
 as it is sometimes a couple of inches thick and extends 
 right across the back, it is a great prize for the lucky 
 hunter. It is a point of etiquette that when two or 
 more Indians are hunting in company, the depouille 
 and tongue belong to the man who did the killing, 
 while the rest of the meat is shared in common.
 
 CHAP. iv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 51 
 
 Towards the end of October, when the rutting season 
 is over, the males are in very poor condition. The 
 females then come into demand, but it is not till the 
 end of the year that they show any back-fat at all, and 
 this is always small in comparison with that of a bull 
 killed in the Fall. The summer months are generally 
 spent by the Indians far out in the Barren Ground, 
 and then, as I have said, they slaughter everything 
 that comes within reach of their spear in the most 
 indiscriminate manner. 
 
 Excepting in times of plenty, when the utmost reck- 
 lessness with provisions is displayed, there are very 
 few parts of the caribou thrown away, and often the 
 actual stomach is the only thing left ; the blood is 
 carefully preserved, and some of the intestines are 
 prized as great luxuries. If one does not see the 
 actual preparations for cooking they are good enough, 
 but the favourite dish of all, the young unborn caribou 
 cut from its dead mother, I could never take kindly to, 
 although it is considered a delicacy among the Indians 
 throughout the northern part of Canada. Another 
 morsel held in high esteem is the udder of a milk- 
 giving doe, which is usually roasted on the spot where 
 the animal is killed. Of the external parts the ribs 
 and brisket rank highest, the haunches being generally 
 reserved for dog's food ; a roast head is not to be 
 despised, and a well-smoked tongue is beyond all 
 praise. It was the caribou of the Barren Ground that 
 provided the reindeers' tongues formerly exported in 
 such quantities by the Hudson's Bay Company. The 
 general method of cooking everything in the lodge is 
 
 E 2,
 
 5 a THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. iv. 
 
 by boiling, which takes most of the flavour out of the 
 meat, but has the advantage of being easy and eco- 
 nomical of firewood. 
 
 The marrow is usually eaten raw, and, as there is no 
 blood visible in the bones of a fat animal, it is not such 
 a disgusting habit as it seems to be at first sight, and 
 one readily accustoms oneself to the fashion. Every- 
 body who has travelled in the North has experienced 
 the same craving for grease as the cold becomes more 
 intense. In the case of a white man the enforced 
 absence of flour and all vegetable food may be an 
 additional cause for this feeling; but it is a fact that 
 you can cheerfully gnaw a solid block of grease or raw 
 fat that it would make you almost sick to look at in 
 a land of temperate climate and civilized methods of 
 living. 
 
 The Indian is by no means the only enemy of the 
 caribou. Along the shore of the Arctic Sea live 
 straggling bands of Esquimaux who kill great quan- 
 tities of these persecuted animals, although employing 
 more primitive methods than their southern neigh- 
 bours ; it is done, moreover, at the most fatal season of 
 the year, just as the females have arrived at the coast 
 and are dropping their young. Then there are the 
 ever-hungry wolves and wolverines that hang with such 
 pertinacity on the travelling herds and rely upon them 
 entirely for subsistence. It is rarely that a caribou 
 once singled out can escape. The wolves hunt in 
 bands and seldom leave the track they have selected ; 
 the chase lasts for many hours, till the victim, weaned 
 by the incessant running, leaves the band and his fate
 
 CHAP. iv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 53 
 
 is sealed ; he has a little the best of the pace at first 
 but not the staying power, and is soon pulled to the 
 ground. Many a time I witnessed these courses, and 
 once disturbed half a dozen wolves just as they com- 
 menced their feast on a caribou in which life was 
 hardly extinct, and I took the tongue and depouille for 
 my share of the hunt. 
 
 I only saw wolves of two colours, white and black, 
 during my stay in the North, although I heard much 
 talk of grey wolves. There was some sort of disease, 
 resembling mange, among them in the winter of 
 1889-90, which had the effect of taking off all their 
 hair, and, judging from the number of dead that were 
 lying about, must have considerably thinned their 
 numbers. They do not seem to be dangerous to 
 human beings except when starving ; but the Indians 
 have stories of crazy wolves that run into the lodges, 
 kill the children, and play general havoc. I know that 
 they do at times get bold under stress of hunger, as 
 my own hauling dogs were set upon and eaten by them 
 while harnessed to the sleigh close to the house at 
 Fond du Lac ; nothing remained but the sleigh, and a 
 string of bells that must have proved less tempting 
 than the rest of the harness. 
 
 I scarcely credit the statement I have often heard 
 made, that the wolverines will kill a full-grown caribou, 
 although it is possible that they may attack the young 
 ones. They follow the herds more for the pickings they 
 can get from the feasts of the wolves, and are content 
 with showing their fighting powers on hares and ptarmi- 
 gan ; if meat is not to be had they will eat berries freely,
 
 54 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. iv. 
 
 and their flesh is then not so bad as after they have had 
 a long course of meat. The carcajou possesses great 
 strength and cunning in removing rocks and breaking 
 into a cache \ it climbs with great agility, and has a 
 mean trick of throwing down a marten-trap from 
 behind and taking out the bait, and is generally 
 credited by the Indian with more wiles than the devil 
 himself. It is an animal common enough in many 
 parts of Canada, but is rarely seen in the woods on 
 account of its retiring habits. In the Barren Ground, 
 however, I had many opportunities of watching them 
 through the glasses as they worked at the carcass of a 
 caribou or musk-ox, and was much struck by the 
 enormous power exercised by so small an animal ; in 
 travelling it seems to use only one pace, the lope of the 
 Western prairies, which it is said to be able to keep up 
 for an indefinite time. 
 
 Another great source of annoyance to the caribou 
 are the two sorts of gadfly which use these animals as 
 a hatching-ground for their eggs. The biggest kind, 
 which seem the most numerous, deposit their eggs on 
 the back, and, as they hatch out the grubs, bore 
 through the skin and prey on the surrounding flesh. 
 They begin to show in October, and grow bigger 
 through the winter till the following spring, the 
 number of holes in many cases rendering the skin 
 absolutely useless for dressing. The other kind of 
 fly lays its eggs in the nostril, with the result that in 
 the months of May and June a nest of writhing grubs, 
 slimmer and more lively than the grubs under the 
 .skin, appears at the root of the tongue ; at this time
 
 CHAP. iv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 55 
 
 of year the caribou may be often seen to stop and 
 shake their heads violently, with their horns close to 
 the ground, evidently greatly troubled by these grubs. 
 Of the latter kind the Indians who travelled with me 
 in the summer have a great horror, warning me to be 
 very careful not to eat them, as they have an idea they 
 would surely grow in a man's throat ; and whenever 
 we killed an animal, the first operation was to cut off 
 its head and remove these unpleasant objects. By the 
 beginning of August all the grubs have dropped off 
 and the holes healed up, while the new coat has grown 
 and the skins are then in their best condition. 
 
 I could not hear of any attempt ever having been 
 made to domesticate the caribou, though there is no 
 good reason why they should not be trained to do the 
 same work as the reindeer of Northern Europe. If 
 this were brought about it would do away with the 
 greatest difficulty of winter travel, the trouble about 
 dog's food, which cripples any attempt to make a long 
 journey except where game is very plentiful ; wherever 
 there was green timber and hanging moss the caribou 
 might find its own supper, and would always come in 
 better for food than a thin dog in times of starvation. 
 
 The caribou afford a wide scope for the superstitions 
 so ingrained in the Indian nature, and the wildest tales 
 without the least foundation are firmly believed in. 
 One widely-spread fancy is that they will entirely 
 forsake a country if anyone throws a stick or stone at 
 them, and their disappearance from the neighbourhood 
 of Fort Resolution is accounted for by the fact of a 
 boy, who had no gun, joining in the chase when the
 
 5 6 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP. iv. 
 
 caribou were passing in big numbers, and clubbing 
 one to death with a stick ; this belief holds good also 
 down the Mackenzie River, as does the idea that these 
 animals on some occasions vanish either into the air 
 or under the ground. The Indians say that sometimes 
 when following close on a herd they arrive at a spot 
 where the tracks suddenly cease and the hunter is left 
 to wonder and starve. It is very unlucky to let the 
 dogs eat any part of the head, and the remaining bones 
 are always burnt or put up in a tree out of reach, the 
 dogs going hungry, unless there happens to be some 
 other kind of meat handy. Another rather more 
 sensible superstition, presumably invented by the men, 
 is that no woman must eat the gristle of the nose 
 (a much-esteemed delicacy), or she will infallibly grow a 
 beard. 
 
 Such are examples of the endless traditions told of 
 the caribou, which will always form the chief topic of 
 conversation in the scattered lodges of the Dog- Ribs 
 and Yellow Knives.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON the i yth of September we left our camp at the 
 north end of Lake Camsell for a short expedition in 
 search of musk-ox, which we expected to find within 
 fifty miles of the edge of the woods. By this time we 
 had all fattened up, and entirely recovered from the 
 effects of the short rations we had had to put up with 
 before we fell in with the caribou. 
 
 My crew consisted at starting of King, Paul, Fran- 
 9ois, Michel, and Jose ; but as the two latter speedily 
 showed signs of discontent I made no objection to 
 their turning back, and despatched them to Fond du 
 Lac to get ready the dog-sleighs, snow-shoes, and 
 everything necessary for winter travel. As a matter 
 of fact they did absolutely nothing except squander a 
 relay of provisions and ammunition that had been sent 
 on by the trading-boat from the fort to meet me 
 at Fond du Lac. I was not sorry to see the last 
 of them, as four of us were quite enough to work the 
 canoe, and a small party naturally stands in less 
 danger of starvation than a big one ; moreover, they 
 were certainly the most quarrelsome men in the camp, 
 which is saying a good deal, as we had all done our 
 fair share in that way since leaving the fort.
 
 5 8 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. v. 
 
 We started without any meat, expecting to find 
 caribou everywhere, and in this respect we had great 
 luck all the time we were out ; but we were not so well 
 off for shelter. We had brought only one lodge from 
 Fond du Lac, which was of course left for the women, 
 while we took the chance of what weather might come, 
 hunting the lee-side of a big rock towards evening, and 
 often finding ourselves covered with an extra blanket 
 of snow (le convert du bon Dieu, as King called it) in 
 the morning. 
 
 The plan of campaign was to reach the musk-ox by 
 canoe and bring back as many robes as we could carry 
 before the winter set in ; or, failing this, to kill and 
 cache caribou along our line of travel, so that we should 
 have meat to help us reach the musk-ox with dog- 
 sleighs after the heavy snow had fallen and all the 
 caribou had passed into the woods. 
 
 I named the first lake that we portaged into King- 
 Lake, a narrow sheet of water some five miles in 
 length, and here we were storm-bound all day by 
 a northerly gale, the force of the wind being so great 
 that we could not move the canoe to windward, 
 although the water was smooth enough. The weather 
 improving in the morning, we paddled down the lake 
 and passed into a small stream running out of its north 
 end. A couple of miles down stream, with a portage 
 over a small cascade (the thirty-fourth and last portage 
 that we made with the big canoe), brought us to 
 a huge lake running in a south-east and north-west 
 direction, said to be the longest of all the lakes in this 
 part of the country, and by the Indians' account four
 
 CHAP. v. OF NORTHERN CANADA 59 
 
 good days' travel, or over one hundred miles in length ; 
 the part that I saw is certainly over fifty miles, and is 
 said to be not half the total distance. The lake is 
 narrow in most places, and cut up by long points into 
 numerous bays ; there are a great many islands, par- 
 ticularly at the north-east end, similar in appearance to 
 the main shore, which is just like the country I have 
 described at the Lac du Rocher, except that at the end 
 of the big lake the hills reach a greater elevation, 
 and present more the aspect of a regular range, 
 than in any other part of the Barren Ground that I 
 saw. 
 
 The position of Mackay Lake, as I named it after 
 Dr. Mackay of the Athabasca district, is worthy of 
 remark, as it is the best starting-point from which 
 to work the most important streams of both watersheds. 
 It lies very nearly on the height of land between the 
 Great Slave Lake and the Arctic Ocean ; its west end 
 must be but a short portage from the Yellow Knife 
 River, while from its eastern extremity runs out the 
 large stream, named by Anderson the Outram, but 
 more generally known as Lockhart's River, from the 
 fact of its falling into the Great Slave Lake at Lock- 
 hart's house, which was established for the relief of 
 Stewart and Anderson when they went in search of the 
 missing Franklin Expedition. The Great Fish, or 
 Back's River, which they descended on that occasion, 
 heads within half a mile of the north bay of Aylmer 
 Lake, lying next below Mackay Lake, on Lockhart's 
 River. Fifteen miles to the north is another large 
 sheet of water known to my companions as the Lac de
 
 60 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. v. 
 
 Gras, through which the Coppermine River runs on 
 its course direct to the Arctic Sea. 
 
 The point at which we fell on Lake Mackay is about 
 the edge of the woods, and here we camped for the 
 last time with pine timber, finding a small hunting- 
 canoe which some of the Beaulieus had left during the 
 previous autumn. This we decided to take with us, 
 and it proved extremely useful later on in crossing the 
 Coppermine. 
 
 On Sunday, September 22nd, with a fresh fair wind 
 and our blanket pulling strong, we ran for several 
 hours in a north-east direction ; the little canoe which 
 we carried athwartship made the steering difficult, as 
 her bow and stern kept striking the tops of the big 
 waves that were running after us, but we met with no 
 accident except the carrying away of our mast 
 
 We were continually in sight of large bands of 
 caribou, but they seemed to take little notice of the 
 extraordinary apparition. Towards evening we saw 
 a herd on a long point projecting far out from the 
 south shore of the lake, and, thinking it would be 
 a good place to make a cache, landed inside them and 
 walked down the point in line. We had the animals 
 completely hemmed in, and, when they charged through 
 us, nine dropped to quick shooting at short range. 
 There was little fuel of any kind on the spot, and we 
 had to eat our meat almost raw, as is the fashion of 
 the Barren Ground on these occasions. In the 
 morning we ferried all the carcasses to a convenient 
 island close to the point, put them in cache among 
 the rocks, and proceeded down the lake, camping at
 
 CHAP. v. OF NORTHERN CANADA 61 
 
 sundown at the head of a small bay near its north- 
 east end. 
 
 The weather now changed, and once more the north 
 wind came howling across the open country straight 
 from the Arctic Sea, and a steady continuous frost set 
 in. We hauled up the big canoe and set out on foot, 
 taking with us only our rifles and ammunition, a 
 blanket apiece, and a couple of small kettles, besides 
 the little canoe, which proved an awkward load to 
 carry against the strong head-wind. We must have 
 walked about twenty miles, occasionally making use of 
 a lake for the canoe, when we reached the south shore 
 of the Lac de Gras, much disappointed in seeing no 
 musk-ox or caribou all day. 
 
 The Lac de Gras is much broader than Lake 
 Mackay, and rounder in shape, although at one spot it 
 is nearly cut in half by points stretching out from each 
 side. The Coppermine River runs in at the east and 
 out at the west end, and the distance is not great to 
 the site of Fort Enterprise, Sir John Franklin's win- 
 tering place in 1820, and the scene of the awful 
 disasters which befell his first overland expedition. 
 
 We were now hard up for provisions again, and the 
 first daylight found us hunting for something to eat. 
 Two of us walked along the shore, while the others 
 paddled the canoe, but we could find neither musk-ox 
 nor caribou ; at midday we met and changed places, 
 King and myself making rather a bold crossing in the 
 shaky little canoe, while Paul and Fra^ois walked 
 round. On approaching the north shore of the lake 
 we noticed a raven rise and throw himself on his back
 
 62 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. v. 
 
 in the air, uttering the curious gurgling note which 
 always seems to imply satisfaction. King exclaimed, 
 4 See the raven putting down his load ! there is some- 
 thing to eat there'; and true enough there was, for we 
 found the carcasses of eight musk-ox, killed, as we 
 afterwards heard, a month before by a party of Yellow 
 Knives, who had driven the animals into the water and 
 massacred the whole band. Half a dozen gulls flapped 
 away heavily, and we caught sight of a wolverine 
 sneaking off as we came near. Neither of us much 
 fancied the appearance of the feast that lay before us, 
 but we had eaten nothing for some time, and one is 
 not particular in such cases, especially as it is never 
 certain when the next meal will turn up. We robbed 
 from the wolverines and ravens, and, signalling to Paul 
 and Franois, made a meal of the half-putrid flesh in 
 a little patch of willow scrub that happened to be close 
 at hand. It is never pleasant to find the game you 
 are hunting killed by somebody else, but in this instance 
 it was a relief to know that we had a supply of meat, 
 such as it was, to fall back upon in case we came 
 to grief later on. 
 
 After supper we crossed the Coppermine, a big deep 
 stream even here, with a current of a mile and a half 
 an hour, running out of another lake which stretched 
 northward and eastward as far as we could see. Here 
 we left the small canoe to cross with on our return, 
 and walked on late into the night, hoping to find some 
 more willows, but eventually made a wretchedly cold 
 camp without fire on a long promontory, to which we 
 always after alluded as Le Point de Misere. A light
 
 CHAP. v. OF NORTHERN CANADA 63 
 
 snowstorm made us still more uncomfortable, and it 
 was well on in the next afternoon before we found 
 willows enough to make a fire, sighting almost imme- 
 diately afterwards a big band of caribou. We killed 
 eight, and, as all the small lakes were firmly frozen 
 over by this time, were able to make the safest form of 
 cache by breaking the ice and throwing the meat into 
 shoal water, which would at once begin to freeze and 
 defy all the efforts of the wolverines. Two months 
 afterwards we chopped out this meat, and found it 
 fresh and palatable, although the outside was dis- 
 coloured by its long soaking. When we had finished 
 our cache we lit a comparatively big fire in a bunch of 
 well-grown willows, and spent the rest of the day in 
 eating and mending our moccasins, which were all 
 badly worn out by the rough walking of the last few 
 days. We had left our main camp badly provided in 
 this respect, as the women had not had sufficient time 
 to dress any skins before we started, and in consequence 
 we were all troubled with sore feet during our wander- 
 ings in search of the musk-ox. 
 
 Curiously enough, now we did not want them, the 
 ptarmigan appeared again in great quantities, although 
 we had not seen any since leaving our big canoe. The 
 only other birds remaining were a few hawks, owls, 
 gulls, and ravens ; the wild-fowl had all left, and as 
 a matter of fact we had come across very few since 
 leaving the Great Slave Lake. About this time, too, 
 we killed the first Arctic hare, an animal by no means 
 to be despised, as it is fully as big as an English hare 
 and will at a pinch provide a meal for a small party;
 
 6 4 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. v. 
 
 at this time of year they are completely white, with the 
 exception of the tips of the ears which are black ; they 
 are usually tame, and, being very conspicuous before 
 the snow covers the ground, afford an excellent mark 
 for the rifle. 
 
 On this day we crossed a peculiar ridge composed of 
 fine gravel and sand, resembling at a distance a high 
 railway embankment. It is a well-known landmark for 
 the Indians, and is said by them to stretch, with few 
 interruptions from the east end of the Athabasca Lake 
 to the east end of Great Bear Lake. 
 
 September 27th was a red-letter day, marking the 
 death of the first musk-ox. Soon after leaving camp 
 we came to a rough piece of country, full of patches of 
 the broken rocks that I have already described, and, 
 mounting a small hill, saw a single old bull walking 
 directly towards us at a distance of three hundred 
 yards. We lay down in the snow, and I had a capital 
 chance of watching him through the glasses as he 
 picked his way quietly over the slippery rocks, a sight 
 which went far to repay all the trouble we had taken 
 in penetrating this land of desolation. In crossing an 
 occasional piece of level ground he walked with a 
 curious rolling motion, probably accounted for by the 
 waving of the long hair on the flanks ; this hair reaches 
 almost to the ground, and gives the legs such an 
 exaggerated appearance of shortness that, at first sight, 
 one would declare the animal to be incapable of any 
 rapid motion. The shaggy head was carried high, and 
 when he finally pulled up at sight of us, within forty 
 yards, with his neck slightly arched and a gleam of
 
 CHAP. v. OF NORTHERN CANADA 65 
 
 sunshine lighting up the huge white boss formed by the 
 junction of the horns, he presented a most formidable 
 appearance. His fate was not long in doubt, as my 
 first shot settled him, and the main object of my trip 
 was accomplished ; whatever might happen after this, 
 I could always congratulate myself on having killed 
 a musk-ox, and this made up for a great deal of the 
 misery that we afterwards had to undergo. 
 
 Although not absolutely prime, this animal was 
 a fine specimen of an old bull, with the yellow marking 
 on the back clearly defined, and as good a head as any 
 I saw during my stay in the musk-ox country. We 
 took the whole skin, with head, horns, and hoofs, and 
 cached it among the rocks, where I am sorry to say it 
 lies to this day ; I intended to pick it up in the course 
 of our winter hunt, but unfortunately we were caught 
 in a snowstorm on the Lac de Gras, and were unable 
 to find the cache. In the evening we scattered over 
 the country, hoping to find a band of musk-ox, but 
 another bull, killed by Paul, was the only one seen. 
 
 On the following day the frost was much keener ; 
 the smaller lakes and the sheltered bays in the big one 
 were set fast, and we began to realise that the sooner 
 we started back the better chance we had of getting 
 across Mackay Lake with the canoe, and avoiding the 
 long detour to cross Lockhart's River, which was sure 
 to remain open much longer than the lakes. The 
 winter was coming on quickly, and we were badly pro- 
 vided with clothes to withstand its severity ; our moc- 
 casins were in rags, and everybody showed signs of 
 being footsore. By rough reckoning we were about on 
 
 F
 
 66 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. v. 
 
 the 65th degree of latitude, and it seemed too reckless 
 to push on any further towards the North, as already 
 we were separated from the nearest timber by a 
 hundred miles of treeless waste; even if we found 
 a band of musk-ox, we should be forced to come out 
 again with dogs to haul in the robes, as our big canoe 
 was now too far back for us to think of carrying any great 
 weight with us. Although we had not made a success- 
 ful hunt, our trouble was not all thrown away, as enough 
 meat caches had been made to insure us a fair chance of 
 getting out into the same country on the first deep snow. 
 Nobody liked to be the first to talk about turning 
 back, but on reaching the top of a low range of hills 
 and seeing a flat desolate stretch of country lying to 
 the north of us, with the lakes frozen up and no sign 
 of animals or firewood, King turned to me and said : 
 4 It is not far from here that the white men died from 
 cold and starvation at this time of year ; let us go back 
 before the snow gets deep and we are not able to 
 travel.' The old man looked particularly tough at 
 this moment ; none of our faces were very clean, but 
 his was the more remarkable, as the blood of the last 
 caribou that we killed had splashed in it, and, running 
 down his beard, had mixed with his frozen breath and 
 appeared in the form of long red icicles hanging from 
 his chin. I think he knew what was in my mind and 
 had an idea that I was laughing at him, for suddenly 
 his quick temper got the better of him and he broke 
 into one of those wild volleys of blasphemy that I had 
 heard him give way to so often, and, turning on his 
 heel, said that I could do as I liked, but he was going
 
 CHAP. v. OF NORTHERN CANADA 67 
 
 to make the best of his way back to the lodge. The 
 walk back in front of the wind was not nearly so bad 
 as it had been coming out head to it ; and in many 
 places we could travel straight over the ice, and, by 
 cutting across the bays instead of walking round, save 
 a considerable distance. Whenever we got this chance 
 we put our loads on a handful of willow-brush and 
 dragged them after us, finding it far easier than 
 carrying them on our shoulders. 
 
 Another night we spent without fire on the Point de 
 Misere, and on October 3rd crossed the Coppermine 
 amidst running ice, and there abandoned the little 
 canoe. On the south side of the river we fell in with 
 the biggest band of caribou we had yet seen, number- 
 ing fully three hundred ; but as we had no need of any 
 more meat caches on the Lac de Gras, we only killed 
 enough for present use. 
 
 This crossing of the Coppermine, by the way, is an 
 important spot in the history of the Dog-Ribs and 
 Yellow Knives. It has always been a favourite 
 swimming-place for the caribou, and many a struggle 
 took place for the possession of this hunting-ground in 
 the old days when there was continual warfare be- 
 tween the two tribes. At the present day it is a 
 breach of etiquette for any Indians to camp here, as 
 it is supposed that if the caribou are once headed back 
 at this point they will not come south of Mackay Lake. 
 This rule had evidently been broken lately, as we found 
 signs of a recent encampment, and King considered 
 that this amply accounted for our not finding the 
 caribou before we reached the Lac du Rocher. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. v. 
 
 After two more days' hard travelling we arrived at 
 our big canoe, and had the satisfaction of finding some 
 meat, that we had left there, untouched by the wolve- 
 rines ; but the bay was frozen solid, and there was no 
 open water within two miles. Beyond the points of 
 the bay we could see the white-capped waves running, 
 but we knew that at the first spell of calm weather the 
 whole lake would set fast. 
 
 I now saw an example of the readiness of idea 
 which King possessed in devising shifts and expe- 
 dients to get out of difficulties. Of course he had had 
 fifty years' experience in northern travel, but he was 
 certainly, in my opinion, far above the average of the 
 many other half-breeds and Indians who had been my 
 companions in more or less difficult journeys in various 
 parts of Canada. Before I thoroughly understood his 
 scheme we commenced operations, by lashing together 
 all the poles and paddles into a rough sort of ice-raft ; 
 on the top of this we placed the loads that we had 
 carried so many miles, forming a smooth bed, two feet 
 above the level of the ice, on which to rest the canoe. 
 The bay had evidently frozen and broken up once, and 
 the second freezing had left a rough surface ; many of 
 the floes were piled on top of each other, while the 
 rest had been turned on edge, and it was necessary to 
 keep the canoe clear of these sharp edges, which would 
 have ripped the tender birch-bark like a knife. One 
 man ran ahead, trying the strength of the ice with an 
 axe, while the others hauled on the raft, and our 
 method of progression was so satisfactory that just 
 before dark, after much ominous cracking of the ice
 
 CHAP. v. OF NORTHERN CANADA 69 
 
 but no disaster, we camped on the east point of the 
 bay close to the edge of open water. The half-breeds 
 showed great knowledge of ice, and, with an occasional 
 tap of the axe, picked out the safest route without 
 making a mistake. 
 
 The canoe propped on her side gave us the best 
 shelter we had had for many a night, and, finding 
 willows enough for a fire, we all felt jubilant at the 
 idea of reaching the first clump of pines on the follow- 
 ing day, besides getting an opportunity to rest our 
 feet, which by this time were in a very bad condition. 
 In this, however, we were doomed to disappointment. 
 
 At the first sign of daylight we launched the canoe, 
 and, breaking our way out through the young ice, were 
 soon paddling in a heavy beam sea, with every splash 
 of water freezing on us, and many stops to knock the 
 ice from our paddles. After two or three hours of 
 this work the wind died out, and, as we approached 
 a group of small islands that cut the lake up into 
 numerous channels, we saw a thin sheet of ice across 
 the whole width. All hope of passing with the canoe 
 was given up, and we headed for the south shore 
 while a heavy snowstorm made it difficult to keep the 
 course ; the surface water was rapidly thickening into 
 ice, and the sharp needles began to scrape unpleasantly 
 along the sides of our frail vessel. We were none too 
 soon in reaching the land, and had to carry the canoe 
 over the thick ice near the shore. Here we turned 
 her over carefully, and putting the poles, paddles, and 
 all necessaries underneath, abandoned her to be buried 
 under the snow till I might want her again the next
 
 7 o THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. v. 
 
 summer. Late in the following June we found her, 
 none the worse for her long exposure to the rigour of 
 a winter in the Barren Ground, but even then there 
 was no sign of open water in Mackay Lake. 
 
 We had now to continue our journey on foot ; but 
 by keeping to the shore of the lake, and sometimes 
 making use of the ice in crossing a bay, we only 
 camped twice before reaching the pine timber. Late 
 on the third day we came to the bank of an ugly, 
 quick-flowing stream, and saw a large bunch of pines 
 on the far side. Waist-deep we made a ford among 
 the running ice, and were soon drying ourselves by 
 a blazing fire of pine-wood. 
 
 The whole of life is said to go by comparison, and 
 although a few pine-trees in a wilderness of snow 
 might seem the height of desolation to a man lately 
 used to the luxuries of the civilized world, it appeared 
 to us like a glimpse of heaven after the exposure of 
 the last few weeks. It really was a pleasant spot, and 
 one which has impressed itself on my memory more 
 than any other camp that we made during this trip. 
 A band of caribou, passing close by, provided us with 
 supper, while a big pack of ptarmigan held possession 
 of the little pine-trees, and kept up a constant expostu- 
 lation at the intrusion of the scarcely known human 
 beings. Hunger and danger were behind us just at 
 present, and we felt in the best of tempers as we lay 
 down for a long sleep on sweet-smelling pine-brush. 
 
 Shortly after leaving camp in the morning another 
 band of caribou appeared, and, as the lodge was now 
 not far ahead, we killed about a dozen, and put them
 
 CHAP. v. OF NORTHERN CANADA 71 
 
 in cache for later use. We then walked steadily on all 
 day, and in the evening came in sight of Lake Camsell, 
 over which the sun was setting in full northern splen- 
 dour, throwing a wonderful purple light across the thin 
 film of ice that coated the water. It was late in the 
 night, and it was not till we had fired several gun-shots 
 at intervals, that we heard an answering signal, and found 
 that the women had set up the lodge in the next 
 bunch of pines, as they had exhausted all the firewood 
 close to the old camp. 
 
 Meat was abundant, for the caribou had been 
 passing, and many had been killed by the women and 
 boys. Bales of dried meat formed a solid wall round 
 the lodge, varied here and there by a bladder of grease 
 or a skin-bag full of pounded meat, while bunches of 
 tongues and back-fats were hanging from the cross- 
 poles to smoke. The scene reminded me of the old 
 fairy stories in which the hero used to discover houses, 
 with walls of sugar and roofs of gingerbread, full of all 
 the good things imaginable, while any member of the 
 Beaulieu family would make a respectable ogre to 
 guard such treasures. Of course the lodge was dirty 
 and infested with the vermin from which these people 
 are never free ; but there was an air of warmth and 
 plenty about it very agreeable after the hand-to-mouth 
 existence we had been leading. 
 
 On looking back at this expedition I cannot help 
 thinking that we were lucky in getting through it with- 
 out more trouble ; it was just the wrong time of year 
 to be travelling, too late for open water and too early 
 for dogs to have been of any service, even if we had
 
 72 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP, v, 
 
 had them with us. One of the heavy snowstorms 
 that, judging from Sir John Franklin's experience, are 
 common in the end of September and beginning of 
 October, would have made the walking much more 
 laborious, as even the little snow that was on the 
 ground delayed us considerably. Another source of 
 danger was the numerous falls among the broken 
 rocks; but though we all came down heavily at times, 
 and, once or twice, with big loads of meat on our 
 backs, no damage was done. The caribou kept turning 
 up most .opportunely, and we had no real hardships 
 from want of food. Fuel was nearly always insuffi- 
 cient, but we only had two fireless camps, both on the 
 Point de Misere. In many places we used black moss 
 in addition to whatever willow scrub we could collect, 
 and so long as the weather was dry found it quite 
 good enough for boiling a kettle, but when the snow 
 fell it was perfectly useless. This absence of a fire 
 to sit by at night is the most unpleasant feature in 
 travelling the Barren Ground.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE day after our arrival was Sunday, a fine, calm 
 day with bright sunshine, of which we took advantage 
 to wash our scanty stock of clothing and generally pull 
 ourselves together. Cleanliness of the body is not 
 looked upon with much favour by the half-breeds, but 
 Sunday morning was always celebrated in the lodge by . 
 the washing of faces and a plentiful application of 
 grease to the hair. After this operation was over we 
 held a consultation as to the best way of carrying on 
 our hunt of the musk-ox, which had so far not proved 
 successful. The same old wrangling and abuse of. 
 each other ensued, and finally the following decision 
 was arrived at. Paul and Francois were to go back 
 to Fond du Lac, so soon as their feet were in a fit 
 condition to travel; they were to occupy themselves in 
 getting ready the dog-sleighs, and to return on the 
 first deep snow to the spot where we had killed the 
 caribou on the day that we reached the lodge. If any 
 of the Indians, of whom I had seen absolutely nothing 
 so far, were going to the musk-ox, arrangements should 
 be made with them to come all together, so that we 
 might have the benefit of as many sleighs as possible 
 to haul wood. All our dried meat was to be put
 
 74 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vi. 
 
 in cache at Lake Camsell, and the camp moved to a 
 clump of pines that we had noticed the day before. 
 King and myself were to remain with the women, to 
 kill meat enough to enable us to start well supplied 
 for the musk-ox country. 
 
 We built a rough scaffold with the longest poles 
 obtainable, and stowed all the meat as high above the 
 ground as possible. Then we pulled down the lodge, 
 and, after a couple of days' walk with heavy loads, 
 camped on the south side of a ridge, from the summit 
 of which we had a commanding view of Lake Mackay 
 and the surrounding country. There was little chance 
 of many caribou passing without being observed, as 
 there were usually several pairs of sharp eyes on the 
 look-out. 
 
 As this was to be our home for a month or so, we 
 took care to pick out a good spot and set up the lodge 
 in the most approved fashion, taking advantage of the 
 little shelter that the stunted pines could afford. 
 
 A mile or two to the east lay the northern end of a 
 large sheet of water, running about forty miles in a 
 southerly direction, known to the Indians as 'The 
 Lake of the Enemy,' and formerly the home of that 
 terrible Evil Spirit supposed to haunt the Barren 
 Ground. It is hard to get a full description of the 
 Enemy, as, although many people have seen it, they 
 are at once afflicted with insanity, and are incapable of 
 giving an accurate account of their experience ; but 
 one must not dare to express unbelief in the existence 
 of the Enemy any more than in that of the Giant 
 Musk-Ox, fully ten times the size of the biggest bull
 
 CHAP. vi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 75 
 
 ever seen, whose track many Indians say they have 
 come across far out in the Barren Ground. 
 
 King and myself spent most of our time prowling 
 about in search of caribou, but for the first fortnight 
 few came and we were only just able to keep ourselves 
 in fresh meat, although there was soon plenty of dried 
 meat from the animals we had cached at this spot a 
 week before. I now saw what an advantage it is to 
 take women on a hunting-trip of this kind, and certainly 
 King's wife and daughter were both well up in the 
 household duties of the country. If we killed any- 
 thing, we only had to cut up and cache the meat, and 
 the women and small boys would carry it in. On 
 returning to camp we could throw ourselves down on 
 a pile of caribou skins and smoke our pipes in comfort, 
 but the women's work was never finished. The rib 
 bones have all to be picked out, and the plat cote hung 
 up in the smoke to dry; the meat of haunches and 
 shoulders must be cut up in thin strips for the same 
 purpose, and the bones have to be collected, pounded 
 down, and boiled for the grease which is in such 
 demand during the cold weather about to commence. 
 But the greatest labour of all lies in dressing the skins, 
 cutting off the hair, scraping away every particle of 
 flesh and fat, and afterwards tanning them into soft 
 leather for moccasins, which are themselves no easy 
 task to make. Many skins, too, have to be made into 
 parchment or carefully cut into babiche for the lacing of 
 snowshoes, and again, there are hair-coats to be made 
 for each member of the party. In an ordinary Indian 
 lodge the women have to put up with ill-usage as well
 
 7 6 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vi. 
 
 as hard work; but most of the half-breeds know enough 
 to treat them fairly; and King, except in his moments 
 of passion, when he did not stop at any cruelty, treated 
 his womenkind very well. 
 
 One of our first expeditions was to hunt birch for 
 making the frames of snowshoes, which might be 
 needed at any time, and King soon had a pair ready 
 for lacing ; he was very clever with the crooked knife, 
 the universal tool of the North, but the stunted birch 
 is hard to bend to the proper shape, and requires 
 constant watching during the process of warping. 
 
 The evenings were generally spent in long discus- 
 sions over our pipes, for tobacco was still holding out, 
 and the old man was keen to hear about the doings of 
 the white man in the Grand Pays, as the half-breeds 
 indefinitely term the whole of the outside world. The 
 ignorance existing among these people is extraordinary, 
 considering how much time they spend at the forts, 
 and how many officers of the Hudson's Bay Company 
 they have a chance to talk to, besides the missionaries 
 of both faiths. It is a different matter with the 
 Indians, as they seldom come to the fort, and cannot 
 hold much conversation with the Whites without an 
 interpreter. It was difficult, for instance, to persuade 
 King that the Hudson's Bay Company does not rule 
 the whole world, or that there are countries that have 
 no fur-bearing animals, which in the North furnish the 
 only means of making a living for the poor man. He 
 was much interested in stories of the Queen, although 
 he could never believe that Her Majesty held such a 
 high rank as the Governor of the Company, and quite
 
 CHAP. vi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 77 
 
 refused to acknowledge her as his sovereign. ' No,' 
 he said ; ' she may be your Queen, as she gives you 
 everything you want, good rifles and plenty of ammuni- 
 tion, and you say that you eat flour at every meal in 
 your own country. If she were my Queen, surely she 
 would send me sometimes half a sack of flour, a little 
 tea, or perhaps a little sugar, and then I should say 
 she was indeed my Queen. As it is I would rather 
 believe Mr. Reid of Fort Province, who told me once 
 that the earth went round and the sun stood still ; but 
 I myself have seen the sun rise in the morning and 
 set at night for many years. It is wrong of you 
 White Men, who know how to read and write, to tell 
 lies to poor men who live by the muzzle of their 
 guns.' 
 
 Another matter over which his mind was greatly 
 exercised was the last North-West Rebellion under 
 Louis Riel. He was convinced that during this rising 
 the half-breeds and Indians had declared war upon the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, and gained a decisive victory 
 besides much glorious plunder; and he asked why 
 such an outbreak should not succeed on the Great 
 Slave Lake, where there was only one man in charge 
 of a fort. He had many questions too to ask about 
 the various good things that we eat and drink in 
 England, and criticised severely the habit of eating 
 three regular meals a day, which he described as 
 eating by the clock instead of by the stomach, a much 
 more greedy habit than that of gorging when meat is 
 plentiful and starving at other times. On several 
 occasions during our travels together I had reason to
 
 78 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vi. 
 
 expostulate with him on the carelessness he displayed 
 with provisions, but without making the least im- 
 pression. * What is this improvidence ? ' he would 
 say. ' I do not like that word. When we have meat 
 why should we not eat plein ventre to make up for the 
 time when we are sure to starve again?' He could 
 never realise that starvation might be partially avoided 
 by a little care. 
 
 Often King would spin me a long story as we lay 
 round the fire in the lodge ; usually some tradition 
 handed down from the time when all the animals and 
 birds could converse together ; what the wolf said to 
 the wolverine when they went on a hunting-trip in 
 company, and how the ptarmigan invited the loon to 
 dine with him in a clump of willows in the Barren 
 Ground, while there was a big stock of giant stories, 
 with heroes much resembling those of the favourite 
 nursery tales of one's childhood. Again he would 
 come down to more recent times and describe the 
 battles of the Dog-Ribs and Yellow Knives, which seem 
 to have been carried on in the same sneaking fashion 
 that has always distinguished the warfare among the 
 tribes of Canadian Indians ; there was no open 
 fighting, and all the victories were won by a successful 
 approach on an unsuspecting and usually sleeping 
 encampment of the enemy, the first grey of dawn 
 being the favourite time of attack. 
 
 The following story of the Deluge, as believed by 
 the Yellow Knives, I copied down from King's recital ; 
 it appears to be a curious mixture of old tradition with 
 some details from the Biblical version as taught to the
 
 CHAP. vi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 79 
 
 Northern Indians on the arrival of the first priests 
 in the country. 
 
 Many years ago, so long ago in fact that as yet no 
 man had appeared in the country of the Slave Lake, 
 the animals, birds, and fishes lived in peace and friend- 
 ship, supporting themselves by the abundant produce 
 of the soil. But one winter the snow fell far more 
 heavily than usual ; perpetual darkness set in, and 
 when the spring should have come the snow, instead 
 of melting away, grew deeper and deeper. This state 
 of affairs lasted many months, and it became hard for 
 the animals to make a living ; many died of want, and 
 at last it was decided in grand council to send a 
 deputation to Heaven to enquire into the cause of the 
 strange events, and in this deputation every kind of 
 animal, bird, and fish was represented. They seem to 
 have had no difficulty in reaching the sky, and passing 
 through a trap-door into a land of sunshine and 
 plenty. Guarding the door stood a deerskin lodge 
 resembling the lodges now in use among the Yellow 
 Knives ; it was the home of the black bear, an animal 
 then unknown on the earth. The old bear had gone 
 to a lake close at hand to spear caribou from a canoe, 
 but three cubs were left in the lodge to take care of 
 some mysterious bundles that were hung up on the 
 cross-poles ; the cubs refused to say what these 
 bundles contained and appeared very anxious for the 
 return of the old bear. 
 
 Now the idea of spearing caribou did not find 
 favour with the deputation from below, and as the 
 canoe was seen lying on the shore of the lake, the
 
 8o THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vi. 
 
 mouse was despatched to gnaw through the paddle, 
 and as he had nearly accomplished this feat the bear 
 came running down in pursuit of a band of caribou 
 that had put off from the far shore. When he was 
 close up to his intended victims and was working his 
 best, the paddle suddenly broke, the canoe capsized, 
 and the bear disappeared beneath the water. Then 
 the animals, birds, and fishes grew bold, and pulling 
 down the bundles, found that they contained the sun, 
 moon, and stars belonging to the earth ; these they 
 threw down through the trap-door to lighten the 
 world and melt the snow, which by this time covered 
 the tops of the tallest pine-trees. 
 
 The descent from Heaven was not made without 
 some small accidents. The beaver split his tail and 
 the blood splashed over the lynx, so that ever after- 
 wards till the present day the beaver's tail is flat and 
 the lynx is spotted ; the moose flattened his nose, and 
 many other casualties occurred which account for the 
 peculiarities of various animals, and the little bears 
 came tumbling down with the rest. 
 . And now the snow began to melt so quickly that 
 the earth was covered with water, but the fish found 
 for the first time that they could swim, and carried 
 their friends that could not on their backs, while the 
 ducks set to work to pull up the land from beneath 
 the water. 
 
 But it was still hard to make a living, so the raven, 
 then the most beautiful of birds, was sent to see if he 
 could find any place where dry land was showing; 
 but coming across the carcass of a caribou he feasted
 
 CHAP. vi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 81 
 
 upon it, although the raven had never before eaten 
 anything but berries and the leaves of the willow. 
 For this offence he was transformed into the hideous 
 bird that we know, and to this day is despised of 
 every living thing ; even omnivorous man will not eat 
 of the raven's flesh unless under pressure of starvation. 
 The ptarmigan was then sent out and returned 
 bearing in his beak a branch of willow as a message 
 of hope ; in remembrance of this good action the 
 ptarmigan turns white when the snow begins to fall in 
 the Barren Ground, and thus warns the animals that 
 winter is at hand. 
 
 But the old life had passed away and the peace that 
 had reigned among all living things was disturbed. 
 The fish, as the water subsided, found that they could 
 no longer live on the land, and the birds took to flying 
 long distances. Every animal chose the country that 
 suited it best, and gradually the art of conversation was 
 lost. About this time too, in a vague and indefinite 
 manner about which tradition says little, the first human 
 being appeared on the shore of the Great Slave Lake. 
 
 The weather continued fine without severe frost till 
 the middle of October, the snow was still light on the 
 ground, but the lakes all set fast. On the night of the 
 fourteenth a storm arose equal in violence to a Dakota 
 blizzard and continued till the following evening, by 
 which time there were a couple of feet of snow on 
 the ground. It was impossible to keep the drift from 
 coming into the lodge, and as soon as the storm was 
 over we had to throw down our shelter and clear away 
 
 G
 
 8a THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vi. 
 
 the banks that had accumulated inside. This was 
 distinctly the coming of winter and there was no more 
 sign of a thaw; the cold kept growing severer, 
 especially on clear days, but I had no thermometer 
 to mark its intensity. The daylight was shortening 
 rapidly and the sun shone with little warmth. 
 
 With the increasing depth of snow there was a 
 noticeable migration of life from the Barren Ground. 
 Ptarmigan came literally in thousands, while the tracks 
 of wolves, wolverines, and Arctic foxes made a con- 
 tinuous network in the snow. Scattered bands of 
 caribou were almost always in sight from the top of 
 the ridge behind the camp, and increased in numbers 
 till the morning of October 2Oth, when little Baptiste, 
 who had gone for firewood, woke us up before day- 
 light with the cry oi La foule f La foule ! and even in 
 the lodge we could hear the curious clatter made by 
 a band of travelling caribou. La foule had really 
 come, and during its passage of six days I was able to 
 realise what an extraordinary number of these animals 
 still roam in the Barren Ground. From the ridge we 
 had a splendid view of the migration ; all the south 
 side of Mackay Lake was alive with moving beasts, 
 while the ice seemed to be dotted all over with black 
 islands, and still away on the north shore, with the aid 
 of the glasses, we could see them coming like regiments 
 on the march. In every direction we could hear the 
 grunting noise that the caribou always make when 
 travelling ; the snow was broken into broad roads, and 
 I found it useless to try to estimate the number that 
 passed within a few miles of our encampment. We
 
 CHAP. vi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 83 
 
 were just on the western edge of their passage, and 
 afterwards heard that a band of Dog- Ribs, hunting 
 some forty miles to the west, were at this very time in 
 the last straits of starvation, only saving their lives by 
 a hasty retreat into the woods, where they were lucky 
 enough to kill sufficient meat to stave off disaster. 
 This is a common danger in the autumn, as the 
 caribou coming in from the Barren Ground join 
 together in one vast herd and do not scatter much till 
 they reach the thick timber. It turned out very well 
 for us, however, and there is really no limit to the 
 number we might have killed if we had been in need 
 of them ; but it was too far out to make a permanent 
 winter's camp, and hauling such a long distance with 
 dogs is unsatisfactory, as most of the meat would be 
 consumed on the way. We killed therefore only so 
 many as we could use, and had some luxurious living 
 during the rest of our stay in this camp. The caribou, 
 as is usually the case when they are in large numbers, 
 were very tame, and on several occasions I found 
 myself right in the middle of a band with a splendid 
 chance to pick out any that seemed in good condition. 
 The rutting season was just over, and as the bulls 
 had lost all their fat and their meat was too strong to 
 eat, only does were killed. A good deal of experience 
 is necessary to tell the fat ones, but the half-breeds 
 can tell age and sex pretty well by the growth of the 
 horns ; often King told me which to shoot at, and it 
 was seldom that he made a mistake in his choice. 
 
 This passage of the caribou is the most remarkable 
 thing that I have ever seen in the course of many 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vi. 
 
 expeditions among the big game of America. The 
 buffalo were for the most part killed out before my 
 time, but, notwithstanding all the tall stories that are 
 told of their numbers, I cannot believe that the herds 
 on the prairie ever surpassed in size Lafoule of the 
 caribou. 
 
 Soon after the migration had passed, Jos6 Beaulieu 
 arrived from Fond du Lac in company with an Indian, 
 having made the journey on foot in eight days. 
 Things had apparently gone all wrong there; they 
 had been starving, and had of course taken everything 
 of mine that they could lay hands on, both provisions 
 and ammunition. They had then quarrelled over the 
 division of the spoil, but as the caribou turned up 
 within two days of the house contentment was now 
 reigning. Jos6 had brought a little tea and tobacco, 
 of which we were now badly in need, and a long 
 string of grievances against his brothers at Fond du 
 Lac. He had done nothing to help me in any way, 
 although he had promised to have everything ready 
 for the first snow, and seemed rather surprised that I 
 did not take much interest in his wrongs. He got 
 even with me, however, on his way back, by breaking 
 into a cache, that I had made before reaching the Lac 
 du Rocher, and stealing the tobacco that I was relying 
 on for our next trip in the Barren Ground. 
 
 Jose reported the woods to the south of us to be 
 full of caribou, and a big band of Yellow Knives 
 camped at the Lac de Mort, some of whom were talk- 
 ing of coming for a musk-ox hunt, if I could give them 
 ammunition. I sent word to the chief that I could
 
 CHAP. vi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 85 
 
 supply three or four of them, and ordered Paul and 
 Michel to come on with the dogs as soon as possible. 
 The snow was by this time quite deep enough for 
 travelling, and any delay meant an increased severity 
 in the weather, while in any case it would be late in 
 the year before we got back to Fond du Lac. 
 
 After Jose left we relapsed into our lazy existence 
 of eating and sleeping, having no more excuse for 
 hunting; occasionally we made a short trip on snow- 
 shoes to examine some of our caches and bring in a 
 little meat, and once went for a three days' expedition 
 to our meat on the island in Mackay Lake, and made 
 a more secure cache by putting the carcasses of the 
 caribou under the ice. At other times we amused 
 ourselves by setting snares for ptarmigan, which were 
 in great numbers, or by hauling a load of wood across 
 a small lake in front of the lodge, as we had used up 
 all the fuel within easy reach. On the shore of this 
 lake was a fine specimen of the balanced rocks so 
 common all over the open country ; an enormous 
 boulder many tons in weight, so neatly set on the 
 three sharp points of an underlying rock that it could 
 be easily shaken but not dislodged ; the lake is known 
 among the Indians as the ' Lake of the Hanging Rock.' 
 We might have done some successful trapping for 
 wolves, wolverines, and foxes, but had unfortunately 
 left all our steel traps at Fond du Lac in order to 
 travel as lightly as possible in the portages. 
 
 Quickly and without incident the short days slipped 
 away until on the tenth of November, as I was return- 
 ing to camp, I heard a gunshot to the southward of us.
 
 86 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vi. 
 
 Instantly all was excitement, and we had barely time 
 to answer the signal before a large party of men and 
 eight dog-sleighs came in sight over the ridge. At 
 first I could recognise no one, as the day had been 
 very cold and their faces were covered with hoar frost, 
 which makes it hard to distinguish one man from 
 another; but they turned out to be Paul, Fran9ois, 
 and Michel, besides several Indians, among whom 
 was Zinto, the chief of the Yellow Knives, who had 
 come some hundred miles from his hunting-camp on 
 purpose to pay me a visit. 
 
 A small supply of tea and tobacco had come up, 
 but not nearly enough for our wants, and I could see 
 that we should have to do without these luxuries just 
 at the time when we most required them ; there was 
 also a little flour, and we had a big feast of flour and 
 grease the same evening ; all the new arrivals came 
 into the lodge, and sixteen people and fully as many 
 dogs slept inside that night. After supper I handed 
 round a small plug of black tobacco to each man, as 
 is the invariable custom of the officer in charge of a 
 fort on the arrival of a band of Indians ; and when 
 the pipes were lit Zinto gave me to understand that 
 he had a few remarks to make to me. He would 
 have been a fine-looking specimen of a Yellow Knife 
 but for a habit of blinking his eyes, which gave him 
 a rather owlish expression ; he was possessed with a 
 great idea of a chiefs importance, but I found him a 
 pretty good fellow during the many dealings that I 
 afterwards had with him. King acted as interpreter, 
 and I fancy rather cut down the speech in length, but
 
 CHAP. vi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 87 
 
 this was the gist of it. ' Zinto was very pleased to see 
 a white man on his hunting-ground. He had known 
 several at the forts, but had never before seen one 
 among the caribou. Many years ago his father had 
 told him stories of some white men who had wandered 
 across the Barren Ground and reached the sea-coast ; 
 they had all endured much hardship, and many had 
 died from cold and starvation ; he did not know why 
 they came to such a country, when by all accounts 
 they were so much better off at home, but supposed 
 there was some good reason which an Indian could 
 not understand. For his own part he liked the Whites; 
 all that he valued came from their country, and he 
 had always been well treated by the Company. He 
 was willing to help me as much as he could now that 
 I had ventured so far into his hunting-ground, but the 
 musk-ox hunt in snow-time was hard; only the bravest 
 of his young men went, and last year was the first 
 time they had made the attempt. The Dog-Ribs 
 who traded at Fort Rae often went, but they had an 
 easier country, as the musk-ox were nearer the woods. 
 There would be much walking to do, and the cold 
 would be great ; however, if I meant to go he would 
 order his young men to look after me, and on no 
 account to leave me if from starvation or any other 
 cause I could not keep up. I was to have the first 
 choice of the meat in the kettle and the best place 
 in the lodge to lie down. He hoped we should have 
 a successful hunt, and, although he knew that we were 
 short of such things, he could not help asking for a 
 little tea and tobacco to give him courage for his
 
 88 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vi. 
 
 journey back to the camp. If he received this he 
 should have a still higher opinion of the white man 
 and his heart would be glad.' 
 
 I replied that I was much gratified at seeing the 
 chief of the Yellow Knives in my camp, and was sorry 
 that I could not give him a more imposing reception 
 on the present occasion ; I had heard much to his 
 credit from King Beaulieu and from the Company's 
 officer in charge of Athabasca district ; he was spoken 
 of as a good chief and friendly towards the Whites. 
 I had come from far across the big water on purpose 
 to see the country of the Yellow Knives, and was 
 anxious to know how they lived, and how they hunted 
 the various kinds of animals upon which they de- 
 pended for subsistence. For this purpose I now 
 proposed going for a musk-ox hunt, and was glad 
 to see that some of his tribe were prepared to accom- 
 pany me. I could let them have enough ammunition 
 for the trip, and would share with them the meat 
 caches that we had made along our line of travel, 
 and also the tea and tobacco while it lasted. Much 
 interest was felt in my country with regard to the 
 Yellow Knives, and I hoped to be able to give a 
 good account of their treatment to a stranger when 
 I returned home. If his young men behaved well 
 while they were out with me they should all receive 
 presents when they reached the fort. 
 
 Here the effect of my oration was rather spoilt by 
 the Beaulieus breaking in to ask what presents they 
 were to receive. Had they not been faithful so long, 
 and gone so much out of their way to help me ? and
 
 CHAP. vi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 89 
 
 then the misery they had gone through in the Barren 
 Ground on the last musk-ox hunt ! Now followed 
 a tremendous quarrel among themselves, mostly, I 
 believe, about the stealing they had been doing at 
 Fond du Lac, and whether the value of the articles 
 they had taken should be deducted from the wages 
 I had agreed to pay them before starting. After the 
 discordant clamour had subsided a little, Zinto replied 
 that he was satisfied, and thanked me for the small 
 present of tea and tobacco which I could not well 
 refuse ; we then discussed all the various plans for 
 the forthcoming hunt, and sat up feasting <till late in 
 the night. 
 
 Something in the proceedings of the evening must 
 have displeased King, as he suddenly astonished us 
 all by saying that he would not go with us. What 
 the grievance was I never found out, but he was 
 obstinate on the point. I had been relying on him 
 for interpreter, and was rather annoyed at his refusal 
 to go, especially as Fra^ois, the best French speaker 
 in the outfit, declared his intention of returning straight 
 to Fond du Lac. Michel too was wavering, but finally 
 decided to go, as Paul, who behaved very well on this 
 occasion, steadily declared that he was quite willing to 
 accompany me, and would carry out the promise that 
 he had made at Fort Resolution to go the whole 
 trip. These two then and myself, together with the 
 five Indians, Noel, William, Peter, Saltatha, and 
 Mario (brother of Zinto), and twenty-four dogs haul- 
 ing six sleighs, made up the party that eventually 
 started for the Barren Ground about midday on 
 Sunday, November nth.
 
 90 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP. vi. 
 
 King maintained his ill-temper till the hour of 
 departure, saying that he did not want so many men 
 and dogs in his lodge eating up the provisions that 
 he had worked so hard to earn, and that the sooner 
 we started the better he would be pleased. He used 
 some particularly offensive language to me, but re- 
 lented at the last moment and gave me his own 
 hair-coat and a new pair of snow-shoes, of which I 
 was badly in want. He also promised to do his best 
 in the way of leaving meat caches along the course 
 that we should follow on our return from the musk-ox 
 country. I was rather sorry to leave the old fellow 
 after all, as on the whole we had been pretty good 
 friends while we lived together, and he certainly had 
 great influence over the Indians which might have 
 been useful during our difficult journey.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THAT night we made an open camp in a bunch of 
 pines on the south side of Lake Mackay, at which 
 point we intended to load wood for use in the Barren 
 Ground. We were much better found in all respects 
 than on the last occasion, and having dogs with us 
 should not be obliged to carry anything ourselves. 
 We used the ordinary travelling sleighs of the North ; 
 two smooth pieces of birch, some seven feet in length, 
 with thje front ends curled completely over and joined 
 together with cross slats secured with babiche into a 
 total width of sixteen inches. A ground-lashing is 
 passed along through holes in the outside edge of the 
 sleigh, and to this is fastened a rough deer-skin wrapper 
 in which the load is stowed as neatly as possible and 
 the wrapper laced on the top, so that in case of a 
 capsize, which frequently happens, nothing can fall out. 
 The traces are hitched on to loops in the front end of 
 the sleigh, and four dogs put in the caribou-skin harness 
 one in front of the other. The company officers have 
 imported leather dog-harness with buckles for their own 
 use between the forts ; but I think for handling in really
 
 9 a THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vn. 
 
 cold weather the caribou-skin, or better still moose-skin, 
 with thongs instead of buckles, is preferable. 
 
 Our twenty-four dogs rejoiced in endless varieties of 
 names, English, French, and Indian, some popular 
 names introduced by the Whites being freely given* 
 without reference to sex or colour. For instance, in 
 my own sleigh the fore-goer, a big yellow bitch, 
 answered to the name of Napoleon, whilst just behind 
 her came a black bushy-tailed dog La Reine ; we had 
 three Drap Fins, from their resemblance to the fine 
 black cloth so dearly beloved by the half-breeds and 
 Indians, two Chocolates of different colours, besides 
 Cavour, Chandelle, Diable, Lion, Blucher, Royal, Bis- 
 marck, and a host of unpronounceable Indian names. 
 
 We were all dressed alike in coats of caribou-skin 
 with the hair outside and hoods fastened up closely 
 under the chin, and these we hardly took off day or 
 night for the five weeks that we were out. Our hands 
 were thrust into moose-skin mittens lined with duffel 
 and hung round the neck by highly ornamented plaited 
 woollen strings, or in the case of a man of little wealth 
 with a more humble piece of babiche, but most of my 
 companions managed to show a little colour in this 
 respect. We rolled our feet in duffel and cased them 
 in huge moccasins, of which we all had two or three 
 pair ; and as we were very careful in drying them every 
 night before sleeping to get rid of all dampness caused 
 by perspiration there was not a single case of frozen 
 feet during the whole journey, although the big cold of 
 an Arctic winter had now fairly set in. We used small 
 snow-shoes about three feet in length, as most of the
 
 CHAP. vii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 93 
 
 travelling would be on the frozen lakes where the snow 
 is always drifting, and, consequently, pretty hard. One 
 man, or in case of softer snow two, went ahead to break 
 the road and the dogs followed in their tracks, or, if 
 they showed any disinclination to start, were most un- 
 mercifully clubbed and cursed by name till they did so. 
 
 A big deer-skin lodge and a sufficient number of 
 carefully trimmed poles had been brought up from 
 Fond du Lac, as it would have been impossible to 
 endure the cold and almost perpetual wind without 
 shelter of any kind, but they had the disadvantage of 
 greatly increasing the weight of our load. King had 
 given us a little dried meat, but only enough for a 
 couple of days for such a large outfit ; the dogs alone 
 required at least fifty pounds a day to keep them in 
 good condition. We had the meat caches ahead, and 
 hoped to fall in with the musk-ox before we ran out of 
 provisions entirely. The danger of course lay in not 
 finding these animals when we got far out, as the 
 caribou had almost all passed into the woods and we 
 could not hope to see any after the first few days. Our 
 ammunition was rather limited, but with care we had 
 enough to keep the muzzle-loading weapons supplied, 
 and Paul and myself had a fair amount of cartridges 
 for our Winchester rifles. We were obliged to wrap 
 deer-skins round the levers and the parts of the barrel 
 that our hands touched to avoid contact with the iron, 
 which sticks to the bare skin in cold weather and causes 
 a painful burn. 
 
 The next day was spent in cutting wood into short 
 lengths and loading it on to the sleighs. In the
 
 94 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vn. 
 
 morning Mario was very ill from the surfeit of flour 
 he had had in King's camp, but was well enough to 
 travel a short distance in the afternoon, and we pitched 
 our lodge in the snow, clear of all timber. Here I had 
 my first experience of a winter camp in the Barren 
 Ground. 
 
 A spot being chosen where the snow is light and the 
 ground clear of rocks, a ring of the requisite size is 
 marked out. Snow-shoes are taken off and used as 
 shovels for throwing away the snow from the inside of 
 this ring, making a wall varying in height according to 
 the depth of snowfall. Outside this circle the sleighs 
 are turned on edge, the poles planted behind them, and 
 the deer-skin lodge spread round, forming as comfort- 
 able a camp as can be expected in such a country. 
 The wood allowed for supper is carefully split and a 
 fire lighted, the kettle hanging over it from three small 
 sticks carried for the purpose ; the lumps of meat for 
 dog's food are spread round the fire till sufficiently 
 thawed, when a lively scene commences outside the 
 lodge, every man feeding his own dogs and watching 
 them to see there is no foul play. By the time this is 
 over the melted snow in the kettle is boiling, and 
 every man gets his piece of meat in much the same 
 manner as the dogs. I always had the privilege of 
 first choice, but in the dense clouds of smoke that 
 usually filled the lodge it was by no means easy to take 
 the full advantage of it. We drank tea while it held 
 out, and then fell back on the greasy snow-water that 
 the meat was boiled in. There was always a good 
 proportion of caribou hair in everything we ate or
 
 CHAP. vii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 95 
 
 drank, varying afterwards to the coarse black hair of 
 the musk-ox, which was far more objectionable. 
 
 As soon as supper was over and our moccasins dry 
 the fire was allowed to go out, to economize wood, and 
 each man rolled himself up in his blanket, lay down on 
 the frozen ground, and slept as well as he might till it 
 was time to travel again. Directly all was quiet the 
 dogs forced their way in and commenced a free fight 
 over us for any scraps or bones they could find lying 
 about ; finally they curled themselves up for the night 
 without paying much attention to our comfort. A 
 warm dog is not a bad thing to lie against or to put 
 at your feet, but these hauling dogs seem to prefer to 
 lie right on top of your body, and as most of them are 
 a considerable weight a good night's rest is an impossi- 
 bility. Any attempt to kick or shove them off produced 
 a general row, and a moving foot was often mistaken 
 in the darkness for a hostile dog and treated as such ; 
 Paul received one rather bad bite on his toes, but the 
 rest of us all got off with slight nips. We had to be 
 careful to put everything edible, in the way of mocca- 
 sins, mittens, and even snow-shoes, under us, as these 
 are things that few dogs can resist, and there is nothing 
 more annoying than to find all the babiche eaten out of 
 your snow-shoes in the morning. When the hungry 
 time came later on the dogs began to eat the lodge, 
 and would soon have left us houseless but for one man 
 always keeping watch at night. 
 
 One is accustomed to hear of men sleeping in fluffy 
 woollen bags in the Arctic regions, but I found that a 
 deer-skin coat and one blanket were sufficient to keep
 
 96 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. VH. 
 
 me warm except on the very coldest nights. I had 
 told Michel particularly to bring another blanket that 
 I had left behind at Fond du Lac, and abused him 
 roundly when I found he had come without it. It 
 seems that an Indian had arrived at the house with a 
 load of dried meat and grease, and was in want of a 
 blanket ; Michel, to use his own expression, took pity 
 on him and gave him my blanket in exchange for 
 the grease. He doubtless considered this a pious act 
 of charity, but had rather spoilt it by consuming the 
 grease himself; and on my asking him why, if he felt so 
 sorry for the Indian, he had not given him one of his 
 own blankets, or at least kept the grease for me, he 
 replied : ' I have only two blankets and I have a wife ; 
 you have no wife, so one blanket is enough for you ; 
 besides, I love grease, and it is hard for me to see it 
 and not eat it.' 
 
 In the middle of the night Saltatha, always the 
 earliest, got up and drove out the dogs, lit the fire, 
 and prepared another meal, exactly similar to our 
 supper of the evening. Usually we harnessed up 
 many hours before daylight and travelled, with only 
 an occasional ten-minutes' rest, till the sun had been 
 long down and there was just enough daylight left to 
 make camp ; dinner was completely cut out of our day 
 as being too heavy a strain on our firewood. There 
 was no attempt at washing made by any of the party 
 during the whole time that we were out, and indeed it 
 would have been an impossibility, as our small fires 
 were only just sufficient to melt the snow for cooking 
 purposes.
 
 CHAP. vii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 97 
 
 In clear weather the nights were of wonderful bril- 
 liancy, and after we had been out a couple of weeks the 
 moon was big enough to add a little light, and of 
 course kept steadily improving in this respect ; but the 
 starlight alone illumined the waste of snow sufficiently 
 to see landmarks far ahead. Generally the Aurora 
 was flashing in its full glory, and if there was no wind 
 the travelling was pleasant enough. At the first sign 
 of dawn, and thence till the sun rose, the cold always 
 became more severe, and if a light head-wind happened 
 to get up at the same time there were sure to be some 
 frozen noses and chins in the outfit. The hair on our 
 faces, even to the eyebrows and eyelashes, was always 
 coated with rime, giving everybody a peculiarly stupid 
 expression ; my beard was usually a mass of ice, and I 
 had great difficulty in thawing it out by our small fires, 
 although it proved a grand protection from frost-bite. 
 I think I was the only one that escaped being bitten 
 in the chin, but my nose, cheeks, and forehead were 
 touched several times. 
 
 The sunrise was often very beautiful, and the effects 
 of long duration, as the sun is close to the horizon a 
 considerable time before he shows above it, while the 
 dense blue blackness in the north and west gives the 
 impression that the night is still lingering there. Often 
 a sun-dog is the first thing to appear, and more or less 
 of these attendants accompany the sun during his short 
 stay above the horizon. The driving snow, which 
 obliterates everything in blowing weather, often spoils 
 the evening effects ; but once or twice I saw the sun 
 set over a frozen lake, tinting the snow with various 
 
 H
 
 9 8 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. VH. 
 
 shades of red, and throwing a beauty over the wilder- 
 ness that it is useless for me to attempt to describe. 
 
 A thick fog hung over everything during the whole 
 of the second day out from the woods, and of course 
 made it extremely difficult to find the meat cache in 
 Lake Mackay ; at dark we camped on the first land 
 that we came to, but had no very accurate idea of 
 our position. Luckily the weather cleared towards 
 morning, and we made out the island on which we 
 had stored the carcasses of the caribou killed on 
 September 22nd. We had some trouble in punching 
 a hole with our only ice-chisel and hauling out a solid 
 lump of meat and ice some five feet thick and many 
 feet in circumference ; but the Indians were much 
 cheered at the sight of so much provision, and de- 
 clared themselves ready to go out to the sea-coast if 
 necessary. The short day was nearly over by the 
 time we had got the meat, so we camped for the 
 night on the island ; but before daylight we were off 
 again, and when the sun set had nearly reached the 
 end of the lake and made a wood cache on a con- 
 spicuous point for our return journey. The next day 
 was thick again, and we were lucky in finding the bay 
 in which we had left the big canoe during our last 
 expedition. A very curious thing, illustrating the 
 difficulty of recognising objects in these fogs, happened 
 just as we were leaving the ice. We saw an animal, 
 apparently at some distance, bounding along the 
 horizon at a most remarkable pace ; all down the 
 line there were cries of Erjerer (musk-ox), Et-then, 
 Le hup ! guns were snatched from the sleighs, and
 
 CHAP. vii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 99 
 
 even the dogs charged at a gallop in pursuit of the 
 strange animal. After a rush of ten yards the quarry 
 disappeared ; the first man had put his foot on it, 
 and it turned out to be one of the small mice so 
 common in the Barren Ground. What it was doing 
 out on the lake at this time of year, instead of being 
 comfortably curled up under ground, I cannot say ; 
 but it certainly gave me the impression that if these 
 fogs continued we should run a good chance of coming 
 to grief through losing our way. 
 
 At sunrise the weather cleared, and we found a 
 small band of caribou at the beginning of the twenty- 
 mile portage to the Lac de Gras. After we had 
 killed three and fed the dogs, we began our overland 
 work. The snow was much softer here, with many 
 large rocks showing through, and some steep hills 
 made travelling hard for the dogs. Night caught us 
 about half-way between the two lakes, and the north 
 wind freshened up into a tempest such as I have 
 never seen surpassed by the blizzards of the western 
 prairies. Fortunately we found a fairly sheltered 
 place for the lodge or it must have been swept away ; 
 as it was the deer-skin flapped with a noise like that 
 of a sail blown to pieces at sea ; two of our lodge- 
 poles were carried away, and we were in momentary 
 expectation of being left without shelter to the mercy 
 of the storm ; the driving snow forced itself in, and 
 men and dogs were only recognisable by the white 
 mounds which marked their position. For thirty hours 
 we lay like this till the wind abated at midnight, when 
 we started again towards the north, and continued 
 
 H 2
 
 ioo THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. VH. 
 
 walking till we had crossed the big bay of the Lac 
 de Gras into which the Coppermine River runs. We 
 camped a little short of our second meat cache on 
 the Point de Misere, and on the following day, although 
 the fog had settled down again, Paul, by a very good 
 piece of piloting, discovered the small lake in which 
 we had cached the meat. We were getting pretty hard 
 up again by this time, and the Indians, with the 
 exception of Saltatha whose good spirits never failed, 
 were showing signs of sulkiness. This new supply, 
 however, gave them fresh courage, and we were all 
 confident of finding the musk-ox before we got to the 
 end of the six caribou that we picked up here. We 
 experienced the same difficulty in breaking the ice, 
 and as we spent much valuable time in getting out 
 the meat, made but a poor day's journey. On the 
 following day we passed the most northerly point that 
 we had reached in the autumn, and were now pushing 
 on into a country that none of us had ever seen before. 
 At the spot where we had left the Lac de Gras we 
 had noticed a few small willow sticks showing above the 
 snow, which afterwards proved very useful. Following 
 a small stream we reached another large lake, stretch- 
 ing in a north-easterly direction, and camped at the 
 far end of it in a heavy snowstorm that had been 
 going on all day. During this time we were keeping 
 a sharp look-out for musk-ox ; but we could find no 
 tracks, and as the weather continued thick had no op- 
 portunity of seeing animals at a distance. Two more 
 days we travelled on in this manner, making long 
 journeys with our meat nearly finished and our wood-
 
 CHAP. vii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 101 
 
 supply growing rapidly less ; for there had been more 
 delay, from various reasons, than we had anticipated, 
 and we had been careful to avoid caching wood for 
 our return journey as we might be unable to follow 
 the same course. The shape of the hills here changes 
 in a most distinct manner. The usual undulations 
 give way to sharp scattered buttes, composed of 
 sand and taking very remarkable forms, a solitary 
 conical mound being a common feature in the scenery. 
 Small lakes were still numerous, and for a considerable 
 distance we followed a large stream, evidently one of 
 the head waters of the Coppermine, here running in 
 a south-east direction. 
 
 On November 2oth we dropped on to a lake some 
 twelve miles in breadth, and crossed to the north shore 
 in falling snow. We had been on short rations, men 
 and dogs, for some time, and our last mouthful was 
 eaten for supper this night. When we made camp a 
 few miles beyond the lake the outlook therefore was 
 by no means cheerful. The continual thick weather 
 spoilt our chance of finding the musk-ox, and we were 
 now too far away from the woods to have much chance 
 of reaching them without meat. Of course we could 
 always have eaten the dogs, but then we should have 
 been unable to haul our wood, which in the Barren 
 Ground is almost as necessary as food. As we felt 
 certain that we were well in the musk-ox country we 
 decided to spend the next day in hunting at all risks, 
 and by good luck the morning broke clear and calm. 
 Michel and myself remained in camp to look after the 
 dogs, which had now become so ravenous that they
 
 102 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. VH. 
 
 required constant watching to keep them from eating 
 the lodge, harness, and everything else that they could 
 get at. The others went in couples in different direc- 
 tions with the agreement that if anyone discovered a 
 band of musk-ox they should return at once to wait 
 for the rest of the party to come in, when we were all 
 to start with the dogs in pursuit. There was no break- 
 fast, and all the hunters were off before daylight, 
 evidently fully aware that the success of our expedition, 
 if not our chance of supporting life, was centred in the 
 result of the day's proceedings ; and it was certainly a 
 great relief when Paul and Noel appeared towards 
 mid-day and reported a large band of musk-ox undis- 
 turbed a short distance to the north. Peter and Mario 
 returned soon afterwards, having found another band 
 in a more westerly direction. I distributed a pipeful 
 of the now very precious tobacco, while we waited for 
 William and Saltatha, and discussed the plan of attack. 
 I was rather surprised at Noel's asking Paul to tell me 
 that I might have some of the musk-ox, as he was 
 pleased at receiving the tobacco. I was about to 
 reply that I had come far, and been to a great deal of 
 trouble, on purpose to kill some of these animals, and 
 I should think it rather extraordinary if I were not 
 allowed to do so, when Paul explained that it was a 
 custom among the Yellow Knives to consider a band 
 of musk-ox as the property of the discoverer, and only 
 his personal friends were granted the privilege of 
 killing them without payment of some kind. Some- 
 times an Indian would go through all the hardships of 
 a hunt, and then have to give up nearly all his robes
 
 CHAP. vii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 103 
 
 because he had not been lucky enough to discover a 
 band and was out of favour with his more fortunate 
 companions ; so I told Noel I was very grateful for his 
 kindness, and made him believe himself a remarkably 
 good Indian. By this time it was getting late, and as 
 the wind had risen the snow was beginning to drift. 
 There was much grumbling at the delay, and in spite 
 of my remonstrances at breaking up our agreement to 
 wait for William and Saltatha, the dogs were harnessed, 
 the lodge pulled down, and the sleighs loaded. I 
 pointed out that the snow was drifting badly and that 
 the other two would not be able to follow our tracks ; 
 but was told that it was only white men who were 
 stupid in the snow, so I made no further objection. 
 After travelling about three miles through some rough 
 hills, we caught an indistinct view of the musk-ox, 
 fully a hundred in number, standing on a side-hill from 
 which most of the snow had drifted away ; and then 
 followed a wonderful scene such as I believe no white 
 man has ever looked on before. I noticed the Indians 
 throwing off their mitten-strings, and on enquiring the 
 reason I was told that the musk-ox would often charge 
 at a bright colour, particularly red ; this story must, I 
 think, have originated from the Whites in connection 
 with the old red-rag theory, and been applied by the 
 Indians to the musk-ox. I refused to part with my 
 strings, as they are useful in keeping the mittens from 
 falling in the snow when the hand is taken out to 
 shoot, but I was given a wide berth while the hunt 
 was going on. Everybody started at a run, but the 
 dogs, which had been let out of harness, were ahead of
 
 104 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. VH. 
 
 us, and the first thing that I made out clearly through 
 the driving snow was a dense black mass galloping 
 right at us ; the band had proved too big for the dogs 
 to hold, and most of the musk-ox had broken away. 
 I do not think they knew anything about men or had 
 the least intention of charging us, but they passed 
 within ten yards, and so frightened my companions 
 that I was the only man to fire at them, rolling over a 
 couple. The dogs, however, were still holding a small 
 lot at bay, and these we slaughtered without any more 
 trouble than killing cattle in a yard. There is an idea 
 prevalent in the North that on these occasions the old 
 musk-ox form into a regular square, with the young in 
 the centre for better protection against the dogs, which 
 they imagine to be wolves ; but on the two occasions 
 when I saw a band held in this manner, the animals 
 were standing in a confused mass, shifting their posi- 
 tion to make a short run at a too impetuous dog, and 
 with the young ones as often as not in the front of the 
 line. There was some rather reckless shooting going 
 on, and I was glad to leave the scene of slaughter with 
 Mario in pursuit of stragglers. Mario, in common 
 with the other Indians, had a great horror of the 
 musk-ox at close quarters, and I was much amused at 
 seeing him stand off at seventy yards and miss an 
 animal which a broken back had rendered incapable 
 of rising. He said afterwards that the musk-ox were 
 not like other animals ; they were very cunning, could 
 understand what a man was saying and play many 
 tricks to deceive him ; it was not safe to go too 
 near, and he would never allow me to walk up within
 
 CHAP. vii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 105 
 
 a few yards to put in a finishing shot. After killing 
 off the cripples, we started back to the place where we 
 had left the sleighs, and, night having added its dark- 
 ness to the drifting snow, we had the greatest difficulty 
 in finding camp. Mario confessed he was lost, and we 
 were thinking what it was best to do for the night when 
 we heard the ring of an axe with which somebody was 
 splitting wood in the lodge ; the others, with the excep- 
 tion of William and Saltatha, were all in, but there 
 seemed little chance of these two reaching camp that 
 night. We had eaten nothing for a long time, so we 
 celebrated our success with a big feast of meat, while 
 the dogs helped themselves from the twenty carcasses 
 that were lying about. They gave us very little 
 trouble in the lodge, as we saw nothing of them till we 
 skinned the musk-ox next day, when two or three 
 round white heaps of snow would uncurl themselves 
 on the lee-side of a half-eaten body. I questioned the 
 Indians about the two missing men, and they were 
 unanimous that unless the night got colder they were 
 in no danger of freezing to death ; they were sorry 
 that they had not waited, and would go at the first 
 sign of daylight to see if they were in the old camp. 
 Peter and Noel accordingly started very early in the 
 morning, and found the men lying close together under 
 the snow at the old camp ; they had returned at dark, 
 and as our tracks had drifted up there was not the 
 least chance of finding us. They were slightly frost- 
 bitten in the face and hands, but as soon as they had 
 got over their first numbness were able to walk to 
 camp, where they soon forgot their natural indignation
 
 106 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vn. 
 
 at the mean trick we had played them in the joys of 
 warmth and food. We were obliged to be a little 
 extravagant in our wood to make up for the hard 
 times of the night before, and Saltatha soon recovered 
 his liveliness ; he was far away the best Indian that I 
 met in the North, always cheerful and ready for work, 
 and afterwards, in the summer, the only one of the 
 Yellow Knives brave enough to volunteer for an expe- 
 dition down the Great Fish River. A hard life he 
 leads, always in poverty, a butt and a servant to all 
 the other Indians, who are immeasurably his inferiors 
 for any useful purpose. Although a capital hunter, 
 they swindle him out of everything he makes, and take 
 the utmost advantage of the little fellow's good-nature ; 
 he seems to have no sense in this respect, and will jump 
 readily at any bargain that is offered him. He is just 
 the man for an expedition in the Barren Ground, as 
 when once he has given his word to go he can be 
 relied upon to carry out his promise, which is more 
 than I can say for the rest of his tribe, who only wait 
 to rebel and desert till a time when they think you 
 can least do without them. 
 
 We spent most of the day in skinning the musk-ox, 
 which, by the way, is not a pleasant undertaking in cold 
 weather ; the skin is naturally hard to get off, and on 
 this occasion the carcasses had grown cold during the 
 night, and the difficulty was greater than usual. The 
 robes were in splendid condition; the undergrowth, 
 which resembles a sheep's fleece and is shed in sum- 
 mer, was now thick and firm, while the long permanent 
 hair had obtained the black glossiness distinctive of a
 
 CHAP. vn. OF NORTHERN CANADA 107 
 
 prime fur. We cut up all the meat that the dogs had 
 left us, and loading it on the sleighs with the robes, 
 moved camp about five miles to the west to be ready 
 to go in search of the other band which Peter and 
 Mario had discovered. We calculated that we should 
 be able to haul forty-five robes, besides meat enough 
 for our journey, back to the woods, and at present we 
 had only half a load. 
 
 While the men were planting the lodge I climbed 
 to the top of a high butte to have a look at the sur- 
 rounding country; the hill was so steep that I had to 
 take off my snow-shoes to struggle to the summit, and 
 was rewarded for my trouble by a good view of pro- 
 bably the most complete desolation that exists upon 
 the face of the earth. There is nothing striking or 
 grand in the scenery, no big mountains or waterfalls, 
 but a monotonous snow-covered waste, without tree or 
 scrub, rarely trodden by the foot of the wandering 
 Indian. A deathly stillness hangs over all, and the 
 oppressive loneliness weighs upon the spectator till 
 he is glad to shout aloud to break the awful spell of 
 solitude. Such is the land of the musk-ox in snow- 
 time ; here this strange animal finds abundance of its 
 favourite lichens, and defies the cold that has driven 
 every other living thing to the woods for shelter.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EARLY on the following morning we left camp with 
 the light sleighs, and at sunrise were close to the place 
 where the second band had been discovered. We 
 were a long time in finding them, as the fog had 
 settled down again, but at last made out a band of 
 sixty on a high ridge between two small lakes in a 
 very easy place to approach. Directly after we sighted 
 them Paul's sleigh, which was ahead, capsized over a 
 rock, and his rifle, which was lashed on the top of it, 
 exploded with a loud report. The bullet must have 
 passed close to some of us, as on examination the rifle 
 appeared to be bearing right down the line, and it was 
 lucky that nobody was killed or crippled ; a wounded 
 man would have had little chance of getting back to 
 the woods alive. The musk-ox took not the slightest 
 notice of the report, although we were within a couple 
 of hundred yards of them, and we soon had eighteen 
 rounded up, the main body breaking away as they had 
 done before. A sickening slaughter, without the least 
 pretence of sport to recommend it, now took place till 
 the last one was killed, and we were busy skinning till 
 dark.
 
 CHAP. viii. NORTHERN CANADA 109 
 
 I took some of the best heads, but most of them 
 were afterwards thrown away by the Indians to lighten 
 the load on the sleighs. The animals that we killed in 
 this band were of various ages, and it was interesting 
 to note the growth of the horns in different specimens. 
 They begin in both sexes with a plain straight shoot, 
 exactly like the horns of a domestic calf, and it is then 
 impossible to tell the male from the female by the 
 head alone. In the second year they begin to broaden 
 out, and the bull's horns become much whiter and 
 project straighter from the head than the cow's, which 
 are beginning already to show the downward bend. 
 At the end of the third year the cow's horns are fully 
 developed, and I do not think they grow much 
 after that age ; with the bulls, however, the horns are 
 only just beginning to spread out at the base, and it is 
 not till the sixth year that the solid boss extends right 
 across the forehead, the point of junction being marked 
 by a slight crack into which the skin has been squeezed 
 during the growth of the horns. A curious fact is 
 noticeable in the horns of the young bulls before the 
 boss has begun to form ; they are quite soft and 
 porous at the base, and can easily be cut with a knife ; 
 when once the boss has grown, the horn is as hard as 
 a rock. I made careful inquiries of the Indians on 
 these points, and they told me that, except in the case 
 of very young or very old animals, they could always 
 tell the age of the musk-ox by a glance at their horns. 
 
 We had the greatest difficulty in finding our way 
 back to the lodge, and it was late before we turned in, 
 everybody agreeing that we had done enough, and
 
 no THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vin. 
 
 ought to make our best way back to the timber before 
 our firewood was exhausted. The loads would be 
 quite as heavy as they had been coming out, for we 
 now had the weight of robes and meat to make up for 
 the wood we had used. We had, roughly, three hun- 
 dred and fifty miles to travel to reach Fond du Lac, 
 but intended to take the last part of the journey easily 
 after we fell in with the caribou. I should like to have 
 known our exact position on the map, and the distance 
 from the sea-coast at Bathurst Inlet, but of course had 
 no chance of making even an approximate calculation ; 
 the Indians had no local knowledge, as they were 
 entirely beyond any country they knew. Our only 
 luxuries, tea and tobacco, were now finished, and I 
 found that the want of tobacco was the most trying 
 hardship on the whole trip : one pipeful as you roll up 
 in your blanket for the night imparts a certain amount 
 of comfort, and makes you take a more cheerful view 
 of life ; but when even this cannot be obtained there 
 is a perpetual craving for a smoke, and the best of 
 tempers is liable to suffer from the deprivation. After 
 we had boiled our last handful of tea-leaves three times 
 over, Saltatha ate them with great gusto, and in future 
 we drank the water in which the meat was boiled. I 
 did not miss the tea nearly so much as the tobacco, 
 and soon began to like the hot greasy bouillon well 
 enough to struggle for my full share. 
 
 We were late off next morning, and could not make 
 a good day's journey, as the snow was soft till we got 
 on the large lake, and we were further delayed in the 
 evening by finding another band of musk-ox. The
 
 CHAP. VIIL OF NORTHERN CANADA in 
 
 Indians said they could carry half a dozen robes more, 
 and insisted, against my wishes, on killing this number; 
 the consequence was that we had to camp for the night, 
 and the dogs were more overloaded than ever ; they 
 were able, however, to eat to their hearts' content, and 
 there was very little left of the six musk-ox in the 
 morning. Two long days' travel took us back to 
 the point on the Lac de Gras where we had seen the 
 willows above the snow, and as the dogs were showing 
 signs of fatigue and their feet were much cut about by 
 the sharp snow-needles sticking between their toes, we 
 decided on taking a day's rest. We managed to pull 
 up enough small willows to keep a bit of a fire going 
 most of the day, and if we had had tobacco should all 
 have enjoyed ourselves immensely. It was a bright 
 clear day, without wind and terribly cold. I climbed 
 to the top of a hill in the afternoon to see if I could 
 make out the west end of the lake, but an intervening 
 hill made it impossible to get a clear view, and I could 
 form no idea of its length. On this day I felt the top 
 of my tongue cold in breathing, and my companions, 
 who were well accustomed to low temperatures, all 
 remarked the extreme severity of the cold. 
 
 It must have been about midnight when I heard 
 Saltatha splitting wood, and the well-known cry of Ho 
 /eve, leve, il faut partir ! Looking out of my blanket I 
 felt the snow falling in my face through a big hole that 
 the dogs had eaten in the lodge, and said that it was 
 no use moving, as we should never be able to find our 
 way across the broad traverse that lay ahead. I was 
 laughed at as usual, and after a breakfast of boiled
 
 na THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vm. 
 
 meat we started out into the darkness. I soon saw 
 there was little chance of picking up the skin of the 
 musk-ox that we had cached in September, as, although 
 the intention was to follow the shore of the lake till we 
 came to the cache, we lost sight of land immediately 
 with absolutely nothing to guide us on our course. 
 'There was no wind, and such a thick downfall of snow 
 that matters did not improve much when the blackness 
 turned into grey with daylight. 
 
 I have often heard it stated that the gift of finding 
 their way is given to Indians under all conditions by a 
 sort of instinct that the white man does not possess, 
 but I never saw children more hopelessly lost than 
 these men accustomed all their lives to Barren Ground 
 travel. I have seen it happen to half-breeds and 
 Indians many times, and have come to the conclusion 
 that no man without a compass can keep his course in 
 falling snow, unless there is wind to guide him. It is 
 always advisable to put ashore at once, or, better still, 
 not to leave your camp in the morning, as then you 
 know your point of departure on the first signs of 
 a break in the weather. On this occasion the usual 
 thing happened ; we walked all day, changing our road- 
 breaker every hour or so, while the men behind 
 shouted contrary directions when they thought he was 
 off his course. Luckily we found land just at dark, 
 and camped immediately. A great discussion ensued 
 as to our position, and opinions varied greatly about 
 the direction of the north star ; but we could do nothing 
 till the weather improved, and even then, unless it 
 grew very clear, or the sun came out, we might not
 
 CHAP. vin. OF NORTHERN CANADA 113 
 
 know which course to take, as landmarks are few and 
 far between. Fuel could not last more than three 
 nights with the strictest economy. 
 
 The wind rose in the evening, and the snow ceased 
 falling, but began to drift heavily. In the night there 
 was a tremendous uproar. I was awakened by hearing 
 the universal Indian chant (Hi hi he, Ho hi he), and 
 much clapping of hands, while the dogs were howling 
 dismally far out on the ice, evidently thinking they 
 were meant to hunt something, but disappointed at not 
 being able to find anything to tear to pieces. I looked 
 out to see what was going on, and found everybody 
 sitting in the snow shouting ; Saltatha had discovered 
 a single star, and the noise I had heard was the ap- 
 plause supposed to bring out one of the principal 
 constellations, so that we might get an idea of our 
 direction. The heavens certainly did clear, and when 
 daylight broke and the wind moderated we made out 
 our position easily enough. In fourteen hours' walk 
 we had come perhaps five miles straight, having made 
 a huge circle to the right and fallen on an island close 
 to the shore that we had left in the morning. There 
 was still the whole width of the lake to cross, but when 
 we camped late in the portage between the two big 
 lakes I thought we had got out of the scrape very well. 
 There was no apparent reason why the snowstorm 
 should have stopped, and a continuation of it must 
 have brought us serious trouble. 
 
 The next day was worse than ever. A gale from 
 the south in our teeth and drifting snow made it cruel 
 work to face the storm ; but we had to go, as fuel was 
 
 i
 
 II4 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vm. 
 
 rapidly vanishing, and we had already burnt some of 
 our lodge-poles, and we hoped to reach a small wood- 
 cache that night. We could find the way, as we had 
 the wind to guide us ; but the snow was soft, and the 
 dogs were hardly able now to drag the sleighs over 
 the rough hills ; one of the poorest froze in harness 
 and had to be abandoned. Our blankets, which we 
 usually wrapped round our head and shoulders when 
 facing the wind, now came in for dog-cloths, and cer- 
 tainly saved some more of the dogs from being disabled 
 by frost-bite ; but as the snow melted between their 
 backs and the blankets, the latter got wet and after- 
 wards froze till they would stand like a board, and 
 were then a most uncomfortable form of bedding. 
 The slow pace at which we were forced to travel made 
 it much worse, and we all found our faces slightly 
 frozen. At dark we camped nearly at the end of the 
 portage, although we did not know it till morning, and 
 reluctantly cut up another couple of lodge-poles for fire- 
 wood, besides a small box in which I had been carrying 
 my journal and ammunition. 
 
 The wind lightened during the night, and backing 
 into the east came fair on Lake Mackay. We found 
 our -wood-cache all right, and set out on the sixty-mile 
 walk that still lay between us and the first pine-timber. 
 The travelling on the lake was better than in the 
 portage, and well on in the night we put ashore on 
 the island where we had stored our first meat during 
 the autumn musk-ox hunt. The dogs were too tired 
 to go any further without rest, or we should have 
 pushed on all night. Our last lodge-pole was burnt to
 
 CHAP. vin. OF NORTHERN CANADA 115 
 
 cook a kettleful of meat for breakfast on December ist, 
 and before daylight we were off, with no thought of 
 camping till we could make fire. The sun at this time 
 only stayed above the horizon for a couple of hours, 
 and had sunk beneath the snow before we made out 
 far ahead the high ridge under which the first clump 
 of pines lay. We were badly scattered along the track, 
 and some of the dogs, and the men too for that matter, 
 had great difficulty in keeping up pace enough to 
 make the blood circulate ; it was six hours later, and 
 we were all pretty well used up, when we saw the little 
 pines standing out against the sky line. 
 
 What a glorious camp we had that night ! The 
 bright glare of two big fires lit up the snow-laden 
 branches of the dwarf pines till they glittered like so 
 many Christmas-trees ; overhead the full moon shone 
 down on us, and every star glowed like a lamp hung in 
 the sky ; at times the Northern Lights would flash out, 
 but the brilliancy of the moon seemed too strong for 
 even this wondrous fire to rival. It was pleasant to 
 lie once again on the yielding pine-brush instead of the 
 hard snow, and to stretch our legs at full length as we 
 could never stretch them in the lodge ; pleasant, too, 
 to look back at the long struggle we had gone through, 
 and to contrast our present condition with that of the 
 last month. Our experiences had been hard and not 
 without their share of danger, and we could now con- 
 gratulate ourselves on having brought our hunt to 
 a most satisfactory conclusion. I had fully succeeded 
 in carrying out the object of my expedition, and could 
 look forward to a period of ever-increasing comfort, 
 
 I 2
 
 n6 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vin. 
 
 culminating in the luxury of life at a Hudson's Bay 
 Fort within a few weeks. I had intended to winter at 
 the edge of the Barren Ground, but was forced to give 
 up the idea, as I had seen too much of the Beaulieus 
 to care about living any longer with them. The fact 
 that meat was scarce again did not trouble me, as I 
 was by this time accustomed to empty larders and had 
 fallen into the happy Indian method of trusting that 
 something would turn up ; besides, we were pretty 
 sure to run across the caribou within the next few 
 days. The want of tobacco was the worst grievance 
 that I had, but the prospect of obtaining this was 
 getting brighter after each day's travel. 
 
 Very late at night Saltatha turned up with a badly 
 frozen nose and chin. One of his dogs had given out 
 and been abandoned, and he had been pushing the 
 sleigh for many hours ; he had almost given up trying 
 to bring in his load when he saw the blaze of the fires 
 far off and his courage came back. The sun was up 
 before anyone turned out, but the dogs were better for 
 the rest, and a short day took us into a big bunch of 
 pines on King Lake, within an easy day of a small 
 meat cache that I had made while we were camped at 
 the Lake of the Enemy. 1 had my doubts about 
 finding the place, as none of the others knew where it 
 was, but was lucky enough to hit it off; and we took 
 out the meat of two caribou, after breaking an axe to 
 pieces in our endeavours to chop away the ice which 
 had formed between the rocks from the melting of 
 the snow during a warm spell in the beginning of 
 October.
 
 CHAP. viii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 117 
 
 The same night we camped at the scaffold on which 
 we had stored all the dried meat that the women had 
 made while we were away on the first musk-ox hunt. 
 King was to have taken most of it, leaving us sufficient 
 for a couple of days' supply, and a note in the syllabic 
 characters introduced into the North by the priests 
 informed us that he had kept his promise. There 
 were plenty of signs that he had done so ; but the 
 wolverines had been before us, and a few shreds of 
 meat lying at the foot of the stage told the story 
 plainly enough. This was rather a disappointment, 
 and matters looked worse when we had travelled the 
 whole length of Lake Camsell at our best speed. Here 
 again we expected to find a cache, as some meat had 
 been left when we killed the first caribou in the autumn, 
 but the wolverines had taken it. This is a common 
 incident in Northern travel, but never fails to draw 
 forth hearty execrations on the head of the hated 
 carcajou. 
 
 There was much talk of abandoning loads and 
 making a rush to reach the caribou or a Yellow Knife 
 encampment which was supposed to lie some distance 
 ahead of us ; but I opposed this scheme strongly, and 
 for once managed to get my own way. The weather 
 was fine, and we cared little for the cold, as we could 
 always make a fire in case of freezing. Without 
 eating much we pushed on rapidly for two days, 
 crossing the Lac du Rocher, the scene of our starva- 
 tion in September, and finally on the third morning 
 found a band of caribou, of which we killed enough to 
 relieve all immediate anxiety. By this time we were
 
 n8 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vm. 
 
 among thick timber and following closely our canoe- 
 route of three months ago. 
 
 In the early hours of December ;th we came to a 
 line of pine-brush planted across a small lake, and soon 
 afterwards fell on the tracks of fresh snow-shoes ; 
 before daylight, at the end of a long portage over a 
 thickly wooded hill, we dropped into an encampment 
 of a dozen lodges. It turned to be Zinto's camp, and 
 all my Indians found their wives and families awaiting 
 them here. There were great rejoicings over our 
 arrival, as we had been so long on the hunt that a good 
 deal of anxiety was felt for the safety of husbands and 
 brothers. Zinto invited me into his lodge, gave me a 
 feast of pounded meat and grease, a cup of tea, and, 
 better still, a small plug of black tobacco ; this seemed 
 too good to leave, and as we had travelled many hours 
 in the night I decided to spend the rest of the day here. 
 
 The camp was very prettily situated on a small flat 
 a few feet above the edge of a frozen lake ; and when 
 the sun rose over the hill, lighting up the brown deer- 
 skin lodges with their columns of blue smoke rising 
 straight up in the frosty air, the snow-laden pine-trees, 
 and the silver-barked birches, the whole scene seemed 
 a realization of one of Fenimore Cooper's descriptions 
 of an Indian camp in winter. 
 
 Much talking had to be got through, and the story 
 of our musk-ox hunt was told many times over. I was 
 the object of great interest, and was closely questioned 
 as to my experiences in the Barren Ground and the 
 contrast between life there and in my own country. 
 After Zinto had satisfied himself on these points he
 
 CHAP. vni. OF NORTHERN CANADA 119 
 
 broached more abstruse subjects, insisting on knowing 
 my opinion with regard to the differences of the 
 Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths, and seeming 
 pleased to hear that he was by no means the first man 
 who had found this point hard to fully understand. 
 Many other things there were about which he desired 
 information ; but I am afraid some of my answers con- 
 veyed little .meaning to him, as I was myself rather 
 hazy about many of the topics of conversation, and had 
 only Michel, who was the worst Frenchman of all, for 
 interpreter, Paul having gone off to see his wife who 
 was camped a few miles to the east. But when Zinto 
 got on to trading he was quite at home, and before 
 leaving I had to give him an order for many beaver- 
 skins (the medium of trade in the North), to be paid at 
 Fort Resolution. He was very good in providing me 
 with everything I wanted for my journey, and gave me 
 a new pair of snow-shoes and a sleigh, besides lending 
 a dog to replace one that had fallen lame ; meat he was 
 short of, but he had heard that the Beaulieus had been 
 killing caribou, so that I was likely to find caches by 
 the way ; a track was broken to Fond du Lac, and we 
 ought to get there easily in three days. Zinto thought 
 the Great Slave Lake would be entirely frozen over 
 and fit to travel on by this time, as lately the sky had 
 been clear in the south ; when there is any open water 
 a perpetual mist rises from it and lies like a huge fog- 
 bank over the lake. 
 
 A happy indolent life the Yellow Knives lead when 
 the caribou are thick on their pleasant hunting-ground 
 round the shores of the Great Slave Lake, and most of
 
 I20 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vm. 
 
 the hard times that they have to put up with are due 
 to their own improvidence. This is their great failing ; 
 they will not look ahead or make preparation for the 
 time when the caribou are scarce, preferring to live 
 from hand to mouth, and too lazy to bother their heads 
 about the future. They are rather a fine race of men, 
 above the average of the Canadian Indian, and, as they 
 have had little chance of mixing with the Whites, have 
 maintained their characteristic manners till this day; 
 they are probably little changed since the time when 
 the Hudson's Bay Company first established a trading- 
 post on the Big Lake a hundred years ago. When 
 the priests came into the country the Yellow Knives 
 readily embraced the Roman Catholic religion, and are 
 very particular in observing all the outward signs of 
 that faith, but I doubt if their profession of Christianity 
 has done much to improve their character. They are 
 a curious mixture of good and bad, simplicity and 
 cunning ; with no very great knowledge of common 
 honesty, thoroughly untrustworthy, and possessed with 
 an insatiable greed for anything that takes their fancy, 
 but with no word in their language to express thanks 
 or gratitude. To a white man they are humility itself, 
 looking upon him, by their own account, as their father, 
 and so considering him bound to provide them with 
 everything they want, even to his last pair of trowsers 
 or pipeful of tobacco ; refuse them anything when you 
 are dependent upon their services on a journey, and 
 they will leave you in the woods ; for their own part, 
 if they have ammunition they are always at home. In 
 another way they are generous enough, and take great
 
 CHAP. viii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 121 
 
 pride in showing hospitality. Go into one of their 
 lodges, and a blanket is spread for you in the seat of 
 honour farthest away from the flap that does duty for 
 a door ; a meal is instantly provided, no matter if it 
 takes the last piece of meat in the camp, and the 
 precious tea and tobacco are offered you in lavish 
 quantities. The Yellow Knives are a timid, peaceable 
 race, shrinking from bloodshed and deeds of violence, 
 and it is seldom that quarrels between the men get 
 beyond wrestling and hair-pulling. The women are, as 
 a rule, not quite so hideous as the squaws of the Black- 
 feet and Crees ; they are lax in morals, and accustomed 
 to being treated more as slaves than wives in the 
 civilized interpretation of the word. They do all the 
 hard work of the camp, besides carrying the heaviest 
 loads on the march ; and in too many cases are 
 rewarded with the worst of the meat and the blows 
 of an over-exacting husband. Early marriages are 
 fashionable, as a man is useless without a wife to dry 
 his meat and make moccasins for him. The great 
 object of a Yellow Knife beauty is to secure a good 
 hunter for a husband ; the man who can shoot straight, 
 and is known to be skilful in approaching the caribou, 
 is always a prize in the matrimonial market and need 
 have little fear of a refusal, especially as the husband is 
 supposed to hunt for his father-in-law after marriage, 
 and the old man will use all his influence to arrange 
 the match. Superstition still reigns supreme among 
 these people ; any mischance is put down to ' bad 
 medicine,' and reasons are always forthcoming to 
 account for its presence. There are several miracle-
 
 122 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vm. 
 
 workers and foreseers of the future in the tribe, who 
 are said to perform very wonderful things, but I found 
 them extremely shy of showing off their accomplish- 
 ments when I asked for an exhibition. Like all other 
 Indians who live the wild life that they were intended 
 to live, the Yellow Knives are dirty to the last degree. 
 They are careful about combing and greasing their 
 hair, and are lavish in the use of soap, if they can get 
 it, for face and hands, but their bodies are a sanctuary 
 for the disgusting vermin that always infest them ; 
 they seem to have no idea of getting rid of these 
 objectionable insects, but talk about its being a good 
 or bad season for them in the same way that they 
 speak of mosquitos. 
 
 From every point of view, then, the Indian of the 
 Great Slave Lake is not a pleasant companion, nor a 
 man to be relied upon in case of emergency. Nobody 
 has yet discovered the right way to manage him. 
 His mind runs on different principles from that of a 
 white man, and till the science of thought-reading is 
 much more fully developed, the working of his brain 
 will always be a mystery to the fur-trader and traveller. 
 
 At sunrise the following morning I left Zinto's camp, 
 with Michel and Mario, bound for Fond du Lac, all the 
 other musk-ox hunters going back to domestic happi- 
 ness. The weather was still bright and cold, and the 
 days perceptibly longer as we travelled south. We 
 were again short of meat, as all the Indians were in 
 the same plight, and although we saw a band of caribou 
 shortly after starting, we were unable to get a shot at 
 them. Towards evening we found a small cache of
 
 CHAP. vin. OF NORTHERN CANADA 123 
 
 meat hung in a tree, and knowing that it must belong 
 to some of the Beaulieus I had no compunction in 
 taking it. Here we left our canoe-route, and passing 
 to the westward of the Lac de Mort headed straight 
 for the house at Fond du Lac. The woods were well 
 grown and signs of life abundant ; the tracks of wolves, 
 wolverines, foxes, and an occasional marten, frequently 
 crossed the road, and ptarmigan were continually flying 
 up under the leader's feet. Here, too, I saw again my 
 old friend the Whisky Jack, as he is called throughout 
 the North, a grey and white bird the size of a thrush, 
 with a most confiding disposition and an inordinate 
 love of fat meat ; he sits on the nearest tree while the 
 camp is being made, comes in boldly, inspects the 
 larder, and helps himself with very little fear of man. 
 If it is a starving camp he chortles in contempt and 
 flies away, having a very low opinion of people who 
 travel without provisions ; but if meat be plentiful he 
 spends the night there, and comes in for rich pickings 
 in the morning when the camp is struck. This bird 
 is common throughout the wilder parts of Canada, 
 and has acquired many names in different places ; in 
 the mountains of British Columbia he is the Hudson's 
 Bay bird or grease bird, and far away to the East the 
 moose bird, caribou bird, Rupert's bird, and camp- 
 robber. 
 
 On the afternoon of the second day we met the 
 Indian Etitchula, who had left the fort with us in 
 August and had been hanging on more or less to our 
 party ever since. He was on his way back to King 
 Beaulieu's camp, two days' travel to the north-east,
 
 1 24 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. vm. 
 
 having made a trip to Fond du Lac to make a raid on 
 my tea and tobacco, and see if there was any news of 
 us, as King was greatly alarmed at our prolonged 
 absence. We relieved him of a little tea, but he had 
 not been able to get any tobacco out of Fran9ois, who 
 had roundly asserted that it all belonged to him ; he 
 also gave us a couple of whitefish, which proved a very 
 acceptable change from our long course of straight 
 meat. Late the same evening we made our last camp 
 on the high land close to the edge of the mountains 
 within five miles of the house ; we could easily have 
 got in that night, but I much preferred a quiet camp 
 under the stars to the company of the gang of Beau- 
 lieus who were sure to be at Fond du Lac. 
 
 One word of caution against using the compressed 
 tea imported by the Hudson's Bay Company into the 
 North as a substitute for tobacco ; it is very good to 
 drink, but if you smoke it you pay the penalty by 
 a most painful irritation in the throat, which is made 
 worse by breathing the intensely cold air. We all 
 tried it that night, and all swore never to do so again, 
 although I have often smoked the ordinary uncom- 
 pressed tea without disastrous results and with a 
 certain amount of satisfaction. 
 
 We were off in good time on the morning of Decem- 
 ber loth, and were soon sitting on the sleighs, rushing 
 down the steep incline, with frequent spills from 
 bumping against trees ; this was the only piece of 
 riding I had during the whole five weeks' travel. 
 The first signs of the petit jour were just showing as 
 we pulled up at the house, and Fra^ois quickly pro-
 
 CHAP. vin. OF NORTHERN CANADA 125 
 
 duced the tobacco he had refused Etitchula. I think 
 for a few minutes they were really glad to see us back 
 safe, but soon the old complaints began. Times had 
 been hard, although the women and children all looked 
 fat enough to belie this statement ; Jose" had been 
 catching whitefish, but had refused to give any to 
 Fran9ois ; while the latter, according to Jos6, had been 
 very mean in distribution of my effects, eating flour 
 every day himself but giving none away. They had 
 gone through nearly everything between them, and 
 moreover did not seem the least bit ashamed of their 
 conduct. As my dogs were all used up, I decided to 
 leave them here, and made arrangements with Fran- 
 9ois to bring his own train on to the fort with me. 
 It seemed that notwithstanding the hard times he had 
 sufficient meat and fish stored away for our trip, and 
 there were still a few pounds of flour left, so that we 
 should live in luxury all the way in. 
 
 I spent the day shooting a few ptarmigan, indulging 
 in much tobacco, and listening to the petitions of the 
 various ill-used members of the family. Jose was 
 particularly amusing ; he had been the most useless 
 man of the lot, never even venturing into the Barren 
 Ground, but spending most of his time at Fond du 
 Lac, shooting away my ammunition and playing havoc 
 with tea and tobacco, besides robbing the cache at the 
 Lac du Rocher. Now he was full of love for me, and 
 gave me a list of things that he wanted in addition to 
 his wages, as a reward for all that he had done and 
 was ready to do for me. Among other items, he 
 wanted my rifle and hunting-glasses, and remarked
 
 126 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP. vm. 
 
 that my Paradox gun, which had been lying here all 
 the time, would be very useful for him at the goose- 
 hunt in the following spring. Fortunately none of the 
 Beaulieus knew how to put together a breech-loading 
 gun, so the Paradox and its ammunition had been left 
 in peace to do me good service in the summer. I 
 think the Paradox is the most useful gun yet invented 
 for purposes of exploration, as it does away with the 
 necessity of carrying a separate weapon for shot and 
 ball, and shoots very true with either ; but there seems 
 no reason why the patent should not be applied to 
 a 2o-bore. For procuring food in a really rough 
 country, where a man has to carry his own ammunition, 
 the ball-cartridges for a 1 2-bore are needlessly heavy, 
 and the charge of shot is too great for the close range 
 shooting which is usually done on these occasions.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AT Fond du Lac I slept for the first time since we 
 left the fort under a roof, but on account of the awful 
 squalor of the house I should have much preferred 
 the usual open camp in the snow. Daylight found us 
 under way again, Franois and myself, with a small 
 boy to run ahead of the dogs ; as we were travelling 
 light I expected to be able to ride the last half of the 
 journey, but for the first two days the fish for dogs' 
 food made our load too heavy to travel at a fast pace. 
 I left all the musk-ox and caribou heads and skins 
 that I had managed to save, to come in with Michel 
 and Mario when they made the usual journey to the 
 fort for New Year's day, on which occasion the Indians 
 from all quarters bring in their furs to trade, and 
 receive a small feast of flour and sugar, an event not 
 to be missed on any account, even though wives and 
 families may be left to starve in the woods and the 
 famished dogs drop with fatigue along the track. 
 
 There was no news as to the state of the ice, as we 
 were the first people to attempt the crossing of the 
 lake this winter. It is usually not safe for travel till 
 the middle of December, so we coasted along the
 
 iz8 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. ix. 
 
 north shore, increasing the distance, but getting greater 
 safety by doing so. We took things easily, making 
 early starts and putting ashore frequently for a cup of 
 tea ; it was a great improvement on the canoe-travel- 
 ling which had delayed us so much in the autumn. 
 At sundown every night we picked out a sheltered 
 spot among the tall pine-trees where firewood was 
 plentiful, threw away the snow with our snow-shoes, 
 and put down a thick mat of pine-brush ; then a huge 
 fire was lit and enough wood cut for the night, the 
 fish thawed for the dogs, and supper cooked for the 
 men. We had bread at every meal, which is in itself 
 a luxury after four months of straight meat ; the day 
 ended with tobacco, and we rolled ourselves in our 
 blankets to sleep, till the position of the Great Bear 
 told us it was time to be on the march once more. 
 People who live in civilization find it hard to believe 
 that men in these northern latitudes habitually sleep 
 out under the stars, with the thermometer standing at 
 30, 40, and even 60 below zero ; yet it is those same 
 people of civilization who suffer from colds in the 
 head, lung-diseases, and a variety of ailments unknown 
 to the voyageur, whose only dangers are starvation and 
 the risk of accidents incidental to travelling in rough 
 countries. 
 
 On the second day we passed a couple of houses 
 occupied by an Indian, Capot Blanc, with whom I 
 afterwards became great friends ; he had left for the 
 fort a couple of days before, but the ice was reported 
 to be dangerous in the Grand Traverse. Another 
 Indian, Thomas, a brother of Mario and Zinto, was
 
 CHAP. ix. OF NORTHERN CANADA 129 
 
 ready to start, and joined in with us for the rest of the 
 journey ; he had only two dogs, but with a light load 
 managed to keep up easily enough. The ice among 
 the islands was pretty good, but the snow was soft and 
 deep, and it was not till our fourth night out from 
 Fond du Lac that we camped on the last outlying 
 island, ready to take the Traverse. About eighteen 
 miles away to the south, without any chance to put 
 ashore till we reached it, lay the He de Pierre, and 
 we were to make for a half-breed's house that lay 
 within a mile of it on the main shore of the lake. It 
 had been arranged that I was to ride in pomp across 
 this piece, so, after a good breakfast about three 
 o'clock, I turned into the sleigh and soon dropped off 
 to sleep to the music of sleigh-bells and a volley of 
 French oaths with which Fra^ois encouraged his 
 dogs every few minutes. At this time the stars were 
 shining brightly, and there was not a breath of wind. 
 I must have slept for a couple of hours when Fra^ois 
 awoke me with the information that we were lost. 
 Turning out of my warm berth I found a gale of wind 
 blowing, with snow falling and drifting heavily ; I 
 could hardly make out the men in the darkness, though 
 they were all standing within a few yards of me. Of 
 course I had not the slightest idea where we were, 
 or the direction in which we had been travelling. 
 Francois seemed undecided, but Thomas was quite 
 sure that by keeping the wind abeam we should, hit 
 off the He de Pierre. We put him ahead, and he 
 proved perfectly right in his direction ; for after four 
 hours' steady walk we made out the land, the weather 
 
 K
 
 ,30 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. ix. 
 
 clearing a little at daybreak. We had headed a little 
 too far to the west, but were soon inside the half- 
 breed's cabin, where we found plenty of fish for the 
 dogs, and so decided to spend the day there, as the 
 wind had freshened up again and the drifting snow 
 made travelling unpleasant. We did not know what 
 a narrow escape we had had till the owner of the house 
 came in, after making an attempt to visit his nets. 
 He reported the ice broken up to the west by the 
 violence of the gale, and had we kept a little more in 
 that direction we might easily have walked into open 
 water in the darkness and made a disastrous ending to 
 our expedition. 
 
 Our course the next day lay over shoal water, 
 mostly inside sandbanks and through narrow channels 
 of the delta of the Slave River. We crossed the main 
 stream on good ice, and following the shore of the 
 lake for ten miles, rattled into the fort about two 
 o'clock, within ten minutes of the arrival of the out- 
 ward-bound packet from Mackenzie River. Luckily 
 enough it had been delayed one day by the storm that 
 had overtaken us in the Grand Traverse, and I had 
 an opportunity of sending out letters by the dog- 
 sleigh that was to leave the same night. For true 
 hospitality there is nothing in the world to beat the 
 welcome back to a Hudson's Bay post in the North 
 after one has made a long journey in the wilds ; no 
 need to trouble your head with the idea that you may 
 not be wanted, or that you will eat too much of the 
 ever insufficient supplies sent in from the outside 
 world to the officer in charge. Why is it that the less
 
 CHAP. ix. OF NORTHERN CANADA 131 
 
 a man has, and the harder things are to obtain, the 
 more ready he is to divide ? It does not seem to 
 work in civilization, but it is certainly so in rough 
 countries, and especially with the Hudson's Bay 
 Company's officers in the Far North. Perhaps it is 
 because they have all seen hardships and privations in 
 the Company's service and know the value of a 
 helping hand given in the time of need ; men who 
 have suffered themselves have always more feeling 
 for the sufferings of others than people who have 
 lived only on the soft side of life. 
 
 I don't think I ever enjoyed a meal so much as that 
 first dinner at Fort Resolution, after a most necessary 
 wash. A year later I dragged myself into a small 
 trading-post at the foot of the Rocky Mountains after 
 many days' total starvation, but had then got beyond 
 the capacity of enjoying anything. On the present 
 occasion I was able to thoroughly appreciate the 
 change from my four months' 'experience in the Barren 
 Ground. How strange it seemed once more to sit at 
 a table, on a chair, like a white man, and eat white 
 man's food with a knife and fork, after the long course 
 of squatting in the filth of a smoky lodge, rending a 
 piece of half-raw meat snatched from the dirty kettle. 
 Then, too, I could speak again in my own language, 
 and there was a warm room to sit in, books to read, 
 and all the ordinary comforts of life, with the know- 
 ledge that so long as I stayed in the house I had 
 my own place, while the wind and the snow had theirs 
 outside. 
 
 There was no scarcity at the fort this year, although 
 
 K 2
 
 ,32 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. ix. 
 
 the autumn fishing had not been successful. The 
 Fond du Lac boat had brought in a good supply of 
 dried meat, and there was a better stock of flour than 
 is usually to be found at a northern fort. Mr. Mackinlay, 
 too, had got in a fair supply of luxuries from Winnipeg, 
 and, as Mrs. Mackinlay was an excellent manager, we 
 always lived as well as one should wish to live any- 
 where. 
 
 Fort Resolution is a fair sample of a trading-post in 
 the North. It is situated on the south side of a bay, 
 the entrance to which is sheltered by a group of 
 islands, the largest known as Mission Island, from the 
 Roman Catholic mission established there in charge of 
 Father Dupire. The original site was on an outlying 
 island known as Moose Island, but the present position 
 on the mainland has been found more practicable. 
 The buildings consist of the master's house, a com- 
 fortable log-building flanked on each side by a large 
 store, one used for provisions and the other as a fur and 
 trading store ; these were originally within a stockade 
 and formed the fort proper, but the peaceable nature 
 of the Indians has removed all need for defensive 
 works. Outside is a small row of log-houses, occupied 
 by the engaged servants, freemen, and a couple of 
 pensioners too old to make their living in the woods. 
 Close at hand are the buildings belonging to the Pro- 
 testant Mission, while the willows and bush-growth of 
 a densely-wooded level country hem in the small patch 
 of cleared ground on which the settlement stands; here 
 potatoes and a few other vegetables are raised, and in 
 a favourable season produce very fair crops. There
 
 CHAP. ix. OF NORTHERN CANADA 133 
 
 are a yoke of work-cattle for hauling wood and a 
 couple of milch cows are kept, as hay is easily procured 
 in the numerous swamps which are scattered through 
 the woods in every direction. The only high land to 
 be seen is a conspicuous bluff marking the entrance to 
 the Little Buffalo River some ten miles along the lake 
 shore ; this stream heads in to the south, and as it 
 breaks up earlier in the spring than the Little Slave 
 River it is used at that time of year as a route to 
 Fort Smith, one overland portage being made, to 
 drop on to the main stream a short distance below the 
 fort. 
 
 Looking out over the vast expanse of frozen lake 
 on still, bright days some very beautiful and curious 
 mirage effects can often be seen. Everything takes 
 an unnatural and frequently inverted form ; islands so 
 far away as to be below the horizon are seen suspended 
 in the air, and it is impossible to recognise a point or 
 bunch of trees with which you are perfectly familiar in 
 ordinary circumstances. 
 
 There are four engaged servants at the fort ; a 
 white man, Murdo Mackay, native of the Hebrides, 
 who was serving a five years' contract with the Com- 
 pany, and three half-breeds, by far the best of whom 
 was Michel Mandeville, who has held the position of 
 interpreter at Fort Resolution for several years. Ex- 
 cept at the time of the Fall fishery, an engaged 
 servant's work is light cutting and hauling enough 
 firewood to keep the fort supplied, visiting the nets 
 and lines, and an occasional trip with the packet, or to 
 get trading-goods from another fort.
 
 i 34 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. ix. 
 
 Christmas passed away quietly, but there was stir 
 enough when the Indians came in for New Year and 
 the trading began. The old system of barter is still 
 carried on, with the beaver-skin for a standard. An 
 Indian's pile of fur is counted, and he is told how many 
 skins' worth of goods he has to receive ; then he is 
 taken into the store and the door solemnly locked, as 
 it is found impossible to trade at all with more than 
 one at a time. It seems very simple ; the Indian 
 knows exactly how many skins he has to take, and the 
 value in skins of every common article. But, to begin 
 with, he wants everything he sees, and the whole stock 
 would hardly satisfy him, and it is a long time, with 
 many changes of opinion, before he has spent the 
 proceeds of his hunt. Then arises the question of his 
 debt, and he tries to take the largest amount possible 
 on credit for his spring hunt ; the trader cannot refuse 
 absolutely to make any advances, as there are some 
 things essentially necessary to the Indian's life in the 
 woods, but the debts are kept in proportion to the 
 man's character. After he has finished his trade, he 
 shows his purchases to his friends, and, acting on their 
 advice, usually comes back to effect some change, and 
 the game begins all over again ; sometimes a whole day 
 is passed in laying out a hundred skins, roughly fifty 
 dollars according to our method of calculation. Before 
 the Indian leaves the fort he always comes in and 
 does a little begging while saying good-bye to his 
 master. 
 
 I had a very bad time of it settling up with the 
 Beaulieus. Promises that I had made under stress of
 
 CHAP. ix. OF NORTHERN CANADA 135 
 
 circumstances had to be redeemed, but it was hopeless 
 to try and satisfy them ; although they had each re- 
 ceived far more than had been originally agreed upon, 
 they continued grumbling till they left the fort. On 
 New Year's day a big ball was given to the half-breeds, 
 while the Indians were provided with the materials for 
 a feast, and held a dance of their own in one of the 
 empty houses. It was the poorest display imaginable ; 
 many of the Canadian tribes have really effective 
 dancing, but the Yellow Knives appear to have a very 
 elementary idea of graceful movement. Their only 
 figure is to waddle round in a circle, holding each 
 others' hands, keeping up a monotonous chant, and 
 spitting freely into the middle of the ring. In the 
 big house Red River jigs and reels were kept up with 
 unflagging energy till daylight. 
 
 As soon as everything had quieted down and the 
 Indians had gone back to their hunting-ground, Mac- 
 kinlay and myself started on an expedition after the 
 caribou to try and kill some fresh meat for the fort. 
 We took Michel, the interpreter, with us, and Pierre 
 Beaulieu, a brother of King's ; and a resident of Mission 
 Island joined us with his two sons, as there was news 
 of the caribou being at no great distance on the far 
 side of the lake. It was now the dead of winter, the 
 season of the gra frete, and we had two remarkably 
 cold days' travel to reach the north shore of the Great 
 Slave Lake. We struck into the woods, not far to 
 the eastward of the Gros Cap, the point forming the 
 eastern extremity of the long narrow arm leading to 
 Fort Rae. We each had a sleigh of dogs, and were
 
 136 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. ix. 
 
 able to ride most of the time on a good road broken 
 by a band of Indians hunting in the neighbourhood. 
 Two long days over small lakes and through the thick 
 pine woods, in a country much resembling that of 
 Fond du Lac but of lower elevation, brought us 
 among the caribou, but they were not in very large 
 numbers. 
 
 We had everything we could want to make life 
 pleasant in the woods, abundance of tea and tobacco, 
 meat if we killed it, and no hardships ; the cold was 
 severe of course, but there was plenty of firewood, and 
 it was our own fault if we could not keep ourselves 
 warm. Three days we spent in hunting, and, although 
 we did not kill very much, there was a little meat to 
 take back ; we never really found the caribou in any 
 quantity, or we should have made a big killing and 
 cached the meat, to be hauled later on when the days 
 grew longer. A rattling three days' journey took us 
 back to the fort, as old Pierre, who is one of the most 
 rushing travellers I ever met, hustled us along to save 
 using his meat on the way home ; he had no intention 
 of feeding his dogs from his load for more than two 
 nights when he had fish to give them at home. This 
 trouble about dogs' food is the great drawback to 
 winter travelling in the North ; a dog, to keep him 
 in good order, requires two whitefish, weighing each 
 perhaps three pounds, every night. This adds so 
 much to the load that a ten days' journey is about 
 the longest one can undertake with full rations all 
 round, unless it be in a part of the country where game 
 is plentiful or fish can be caught en route.
 
 CHAP. ix. OF NORTHERN CANADA . 137 
 
 After the caribou hunt, we amused ourselves about the 
 fort ; sometimes going in search of ptarmigan, which 
 are usually to be found among the willows close to the 
 edge of the lake ; and sometimes paying Father Dupire 
 a visit on his island, a couple of miles away, to hear 
 some of his interesting experiences during a residence 
 of many years among the Indians. Close at hand lay 
 the Protestant Mission, where there was always a wel- 
 come, and, with these attractions and a fair supply of 
 books, time did not hang at all heavily till early in 
 February the winter packet from the outside world 
 arrived. I received a big bundle of letters, the first 
 that reached me since June, but it happened that none 
 of the newspapers for the fort turned up, and we were 
 left in ignorance of what had happened in the Grand 
 Pays. 
 
 So many travellers have written about this great 
 Northern Packet and the wonderful journey that it 
 makes that it is unnecessary for me to say much about 
 it. On its arrival at Fort Resolution it presents the 
 appearance of an ordinary dog-sleigh, with a man 
 ahead of the dogs, which are driven by a half-breed, 
 with plenty of ribbons and beads on leggings and moc- 
 casins, capable of running his forty miles a day with 
 ease, and possessed of a full command of the more ex- 
 pressive part of the French language. 
 
 Dr. Mackay, who was on his yearly round of visits 
 to inspect the outlying posts in his district, came down 
 from Fort Chipeweyan with the packet, and we had 
 a long talk respecting a summer trip to the Barren 
 Ground which I proposed making.
 
 , 3 8 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. ix. 
 
 My intention was to leave the fort on the last ice 
 in the spring and travel with the dogs to the spot 
 where we had left our big canoe in the autumn, there 
 to await the breaking up of the lakes and to descend 
 the Great Fish River with the first open winter. I had 
 no special object in reaching the sea-coast, as a birch- 
 bark canoe is not the right sort of craft for work 
 among salt-water ice ; and it was more to see what 
 the Barren Ground was like in summer, and to notice 
 the habits of the birds and animals, than for the sake 
 of geographical discovery, that I wished to make the 
 expedition. 
 
 The Great Fish River has been twice descended 
 before, but of course both Back's and Anderson's 
 parties were compelled by the shortness of the sum- 
 mers to confine their exploration to the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the river; and I thought that, by 
 spending more time at the head-waters than they had 
 been able to do, I should get a good idea of the nature 
 of the country and an insight into the Indian summer 
 life among the caribou. The difficulty was to obtain 
 a crew ; but Dr. Mackay very kindly consented to Mac- 
 kinlay's accompanying me, and also lent me the two 
 engaged servants, Murdo Mackay and Moise Man- 
 deville, brother of Michel Mandeville the interpreter, 
 but not half such a good fellow. We hoped to be able 
 to engage the services of some of the Indians to guide 
 us to the head of the river, but they have such a dread 
 of the Esquimaux, who hunt farther down the stream, 
 that we hardly expected any of the Yellow Knives to 
 accompany us beyond that point. Long ago there was
 
 CHAP. ix. OF NORTHERN CANADA 139 
 
 always war between the Indians and the Esquimaux, 
 and Hearne's description of the massacre at the Bloody 
 Falls on the Coppermine gives a good idea of the 
 hatred that existed between these tribes. For many 
 years they have not met, and although the Esquimaux 
 seen by Anderson on the Great Fish River appear 
 peaceable enough, the Yellow Knives hunting at the 
 head of the river are in constant fear of meeting 
 them. 
 
 Zinto, the chief, and another Indian, Syene, arrived 
 at the fort soon after Dr. Mackay left, and we con- 
 sulted them as to the best route to follow, and whether 
 we could depend upon their tribe for any help. They 
 told us that there was no difficulty in reaching the 
 head- waters of the river, as the Indians were in the 
 habit of coming there every summer, but beyond was 
 an unknown country; they both remembered Ander- 
 son's expedition, and were full of stories about the 
 difficulties of navigation, the numerous portages and 
 the likelihood of starvation, but knew nothing from 
 personal experience. We failed lamentably in the 
 attempt to discover when the ice in the river usually 
 broke up. Syene told us that it was in the moon 
 when the dogs lie on their backs in the sun, and Zinto 
 volunteered the information that it was soon after the 
 leaves begin to shoot on the little willows in the 
 Barren Ground ; but we could not work it out into 
 any particular month. Both promised to make dried 
 meat and pemmican for us if they fell in with the 
 caribou, and to leave caches in the last bunch of pine- 
 trees. Next day they left for their camp, two hundred
 
 1 40 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP. ix. 
 
 miles away in the woods, to await the first signs of 
 warmer weather to start for the spring musk-ox hunt. 
 Zinto was to come to the fort about the ist of May, 
 and personally conduct us to the places where he had 
 piled up the meat of many caribou for our use.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ABOUT the middle of February, 1890, little Frar^ois, 
 an Indian living at the mouth of Buffalo River, arrived 
 with the news that during a hunting-trip he had made 
 to the southward he had seen the tracks of a band of 
 wood buffalo and intended to go in pursuit of them 
 after this visit to the fort. 
 
 Mackinlay and myself both wanted an excuse to be 
 in the woods again, and the next day saw us plodding 
 across the bay on snow-shoes to the comfortable little 
 shanty, under the high bluff, which forms the most 
 conspicuous landmark within sight of Fort Resolution. 
 The establishment was presided over by an old lady, 
 formerly cook at one of the forts, and kept with a 
 cleanliness not always to be found in a white man's 
 dwelling. The following morning we started with two 
 sleigh-loads of fish for the dogs and provisions and 
 blankets for ourselves. Francois brought his wife 
 and little girl, besides a rather crazy boy, given to 
 epileptic fits, but a good worker in the intervals between 
 his attacks. We followed the river for a mile or two, 
 then turned into the woods on the west bank, and, 
 crossing a lake of some size, headed in a south-west
 
 , 42 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. x. 
 
 direction through the thick pine-forest, occasionally 
 picking up a marten from a line of traps set by little 
 Franyois, for we were following the track that he had 
 made on his last trip, or finding a rabbit hung by the 
 neck in one of his wife's snares ; very cunning these 
 old women are in all things concerning the stomach, 
 and if there are many rabbit-tracks to be seen in the 
 snow there is little danger of going without supper. 
 
 On the second day we crossed a large prairie dotted 
 with lakes, formerly the home of many beavers, and 
 still bearing evidence of their labours in the long 
 banks which served as dams and the huge mounds 
 which were once their houses. The beavers have all 
 gone long ago, and the ladies who wore the pretty fur- 
 trimmed jackets in far-away England, and the husbands 
 who grumbled at their price, are gone too ; but the 
 beavers have left the most impression on the face of 
 the earth. Wonderful moulders of geography they 
 are ; a stream dammed up in a level country forms a 
 huge lake where the forest stood, the trees fall as their 
 roots rot in standing water, and, if the dam be not 
 attended to by the workers, a fertile grass-covered 
 prairie takes the place of the lake. From the Liard 
 River and Great Slave Lake, to the Peace River on 
 the east side of the Rocky Mountains, extends the 
 greatest beaver country in the world. It is known by 
 Indian report alone, as no white man ever penetrates 
 far into the wilderness of pine-forest and morass ; 
 many streams head away into the interior of this 
 unknown land, but the white man has only seen their 
 mouths, as he passes up or down the main waterways
 
 CHAP. x. OF NORTHERN CANADA 143 
 
 of the North. It is true that the Company's men 
 have ascended Hay River, a large stream falling into 
 the Great Slave Lake, and by making an overland 
 portage, have dropped on the Peace River at Fort 
 Vermillion ; but they have always made hurried 
 voyages and have had no opportunity of exploring 
 much new ground. 
 
 Scattered over this huge extent of country are still 
 a few bands of buffalo. Sometimes they are heard of 
 at Forts Smith and Vermillion, sometimes at Fort 
 St. John close up to the big mountains on Peace River, 
 and occasionally at Fort Nelson on the south branch 
 of the Liard. It is impossible to say anything about 
 their numbers, as the country they inhabit is so large, 
 and the Indians, who are few in number, usually keep 
 to the same hunting-ground. These animals go by the 
 name of wood buffalo, and most people are of opinion 
 that they are a distinct race from the old prairie buffalo 
 so numerous in bygone days ; but I am inclined to 
 think that the very slight difference in appearance is 
 easily accounted for by climatic influences, variety of 
 food, and the better shelter of the woods. Here too 
 the giant moose and the woodland caribou have their 
 home, and even in the short journey that I made into 
 this district the tracks in the snow told a tale of plenty. 
 Many black bears' skins are brought out every year, 
 and towards the mountains the formidable grizzly is 
 often encountered by the fearful hunter. Nor are the 
 small fur-bearing animals wanting ; foxes red, cross, 
 and a few silver seek their living on the prairie, while 
 wolverines, fisher, mink, marten, and lynx may be
 
 i 4 4 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. x. 
 
 trapped in the woods, and a few otters frequent the 
 streams and lakes. In the summer ducks, geese, and 
 many other water-birds have their nests in the mus- 
 kegs, and two or three varieties of the tree grouse are 
 always to be found. ' The hunter's Paradise ! ' says the 
 sporting reader ; ' let us go and have a hunt there. ' 
 But now for the other side of the picture. In the 
 summer it is practically impossible to travel, as it is a 
 swampy country not to be crossed with horses, and the 
 lakes are too far apart to be available as a canoe-route, 
 while the mosquitos are intolerable. Only when the 
 snow has fallen, and all water is held fast in the grip of 
 winter, has one a chance of exploring this Land of 
 Promise with dogs, sleighs, and snow-shoes ; but, by 
 this time, the summer life has all flown far away south- 
 ward, and, though I think one would be fairly safe in 
 pushing on, there is always a chance of coming across 
 a large tract of gameless country, and finding a 
 difficulty in obtaining provisions. 
 
 After three days' good travel we reached the end of 
 Fran9ois' road, and long before daylight on the follow- 
 ing morning were away to try and find the buffalo 
 tracks. We had a long day's walk over a perfect 
 hunting-ground, crossing several open ridges with 
 sufficient elevation to give us a view of the surround- 
 ing country. Prairie and timber were about in equal 
 proportion, and the eye could follow the windings of a 
 large stream that falls into the Little Buffalo River 
 close to the Fort Smith portage ; its waters are 
 strongly impregnated with sulphur, and do not readily 
 freeze ; in fact this stream, although it has little
 
 CHAP. x. OF NORTHERN CANADA 145 
 
 current, remains open during a considerable part of its 
 course even in the coldest weather. About noon we 
 found the track that we had been looking for, easily 
 distinguishable from the many tracks of moose and 
 woodland caribou that we had crossed ; little Franyois 
 made a capital approach, and after a couple of hours' 
 walk we sighted a band of eight buffalo feeding in a 
 small wood-surrounded swamp. There are few spots 
 on the American continent to-day where one can see 
 buffalo in their wild state, but the Indian gave us no 
 time to watch them, and completely spoilt the chance of 
 clean shooting by letting off his gun too soon ; we only 
 wanted to kill one, as we could not haul any more 
 meat, and it is really a pity to kill animals so nearly 
 extinct as these. As it turned out there were several 
 snap-shots fired as they ran into the woods, and two 
 tracks of blood in the snow showed that we had done 
 too much shooting, although it was not till late in the 
 second day that we secured a cow that had travelled 
 many miles before lying down. 
 
 By the way, it is as well when going for a hunting 
 expedition in the North to leave at home all the old- 
 fashioned notions of shooting-etiquette. If you see a 
 man in a good position for a shot, run up, jostle his 
 elbow, and let your gun off ; if an animal falls, swear 
 you killed it, and claim the back-fat and tongue no 
 matter whether you fired or not ; never admit that you 
 are not quite sure which animal you shot at. It is only 
 by strict attention to these rules that a white man can 
 get a fair division of plunder when shooting with half- 
 breeds and Indians. 
 
 L
 
 146 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. x. 
 
 The other buffalo, on whose track there was little 
 blood, had not separated from the band, although 
 we followed it for a whole day, and, as this was a 
 sure sign of its having been only slightly wounded, 
 perhaps not much damage was done ; a badly struck 
 animal will always leave its companions and lie 
 down. 
 
 There was much rejoicing when late on the third 
 night the result of our hunt was hauled into our pleasant 
 camp in a clump of thick pine-timber. The little girl 
 patted and played with the meat as an English child 
 would with a doll, and eventually dropped off to sleep 
 with the raw brisket for a pillow; while Pierre, the 
 boy, after a huge feast was seized with such a violent 
 fit that for a long time I was afraid it would prove his 
 last. The others took no notice of him beyond putting 
 down a log to keep him from rolling in the fire, and in 
 the morning he seemed perfectly well and hungry as 
 ever for buffalo-meat. With heavily-laden sleighs we 
 started back for the fort, but a wind-storm had drifted 
 up our track over the prairie, and the dogs had hard 
 work to drag their loads. In one of our steel traps 
 were the remains of a cross fox that a wolverine had 
 eaten, and beyond a few more martens our fur-hunting 
 was unsuccessful. It took us four days to reach little 
 Franyois' house at the mouth of the river, and another 
 half-day to get to the fort, where we found everything 
 quiet, as usual in the monotony of the long winter. 
 February was nearly over, and the ' moon of the big 
 wind' was doing its best to keep up its reputation. 
 Day after day the north wind howled over the lake,
 
 CHAP. x. OF NORTHERN CANADA 147 
 
 drifting the snow into a vast ridge on the lee shore and 
 making it no easy matter to find the trout-lines, which 
 had now to be set four or five miles out at sea, the fish 
 moving into deep water as the cold gets more intense 
 and the ice thicker. The thermometer hanging against 
 the wall of the house ranged between minus 30 and 
 minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and this state of affairs 
 continued until I left the fort for another hunt with 
 little Fra^ois. We spent three weeks happily enough 
 in the woods, doing a little trapping, and getting enough 
 moose and caribou-meat to keep the dogs and our- 
 selves in good condition. Our course lay the same 
 way as on the last hunt, to take advantage of the road 
 and visit the line of traps ; but we pushed further on 
 till we came across the tracks of a party of Indians 
 hunting from Fort Smith. We saw no sign of buffalo, 
 and as Fra^ois' wife damaged her leg rather badly 
 we were obliged to haul her back on the sleigh, and 
 this accident put an end to our trip. Away far in the 
 forest beyond the influence of the great frozen lake we 
 found the first indications of the coming spring. By 
 the end of the first week in April the snow was balling 
 under our snow-shoes in the middle of the day, and the 
 sun, which now had a long course to run, shone with 
 considerable power ; the pine-trees threw out the 
 delicious scent so suggestive of Nature's awakening 
 after her long snow-wrapped sleep, and a puff of warm 
 south wind, sighing through the poplars, whispered a 
 message of hope from a more favoured land. But 
 winter made a final struggle, and it was not till the 25th 
 of April that the collapse came. Then the snow in the 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. x. 
 
 woods around the fort melted away rapidly, and the 
 bare ground showed in patches. On May ist water 
 was standing in pools over the ice in the bay, the snow 
 had disappeared except in the drifts, a light rain was 
 falling, and the first goose was killed from the door 
 of the master's house ; small bands of wildfowl were 
 passing frequently, and cranes were calling in the 
 swamps to the southward ; daylight lingered in the sky 
 all night, but there was always a sharp frost while the 
 sun was down. 
 
 It was time to shake off our luxurious habits and 
 push out again for the North to take full advantage of 
 the short summer of the Barren Ground. The fort 
 seemed to wake up with the spring, and there was 
 bustle and activity everywhere. The furs had to be 
 spread out to dry before they could be baled up ; fish 
 had to be thrown out of the provision-store as they 
 thawed, and the dogs were happy for once. There was 
 talk of ploughing and planting the potato-crop ; Indians 
 kept dropping in with small bundles of fur, to trade for 
 ammunition for the goose-hunt, which would soon be in 
 full swing ; canoes were patched up and made tight in 
 readiness for the first open water. But there was a 
 rumour that the expedition to the Great Fish River 
 would fall through, as no crew could be found, and 
 some discontented spirits had been trying to persuade 
 the Indians against going with us ; the half-breeds 
 were all full of excuses, and for a time it looked bad for 
 us. Mackinlay was of course keen enough for the trip, 
 and so was Murdo Mackay, the Scotch engaged servant; 
 and luckily David, an Esquimaux boy from Peel's
 
 CHAP. x. OF NORTHERN CANADA 149 
 
 River, who had been left at Fort Resolution for the 
 winter to learn English from the Protestant missionary 
 there, was willing to come with us, and, although not a 
 first-rate traveller, might be very useful as interpreter 
 if we fell in with any of his countrymen. Moise 
 Mandeville was more obstinate and had the greatest 
 horror of the expedition, but he finally agreed to come 
 in the capacity of steersman and Montaignais as inter- 
 preter. We were still without a guide. Zinto, despite 
 his promises, had not put in an appearance, and there 
 was as yet no news of him. Meanwhile preparations 
 went on ; dogs were got together, new snow-shoes pro- 
 vided for each member of the party, and all available 
 pounded meat and grease converted into pemmican as 
 the most portable form of provisions ; four sacks of 
 flour were forwarded to Fond du Lac to await our 
 arrival, and the women round the fort were busy 
 making moccasins for men and dogs, as the latter 
 have to be shod in spring-travelling, to prevent their 
 feet being cut to pieces on the rough needle-ice that 
 appears after the snow has melted off the lakes. We 
 also took a light canvas lodge in place of the heavier 
 deer-skins, and found it a great saving in weight, 
 especially after rain; dressed deer-skins hold water like 
 a sponge, and where firewood is scarce are extremely 
 hard to dry. 
 
 On May 4th Mr. Clark arrived from Fort Smith to 
 take charge of Resolution during Mackinlay's absence. 
 The slushy state of the snow made travelling hard, 
 but the Fort Smith people had managed to bring us 
 a welcome supply of tea, tobacco, ammunition, and
 
 1 5 o THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. x. 
 
 a few matches ; none of these necessary articles were 
 to be had at Resolution, as the unusually heavy fur- 
 trade had left the store empty. We collected all the 
 touch-wood we could get hold of, and each took a 
 flint and steel, while Dr. Mackay sent us a burning- 
 glass, a compass, and a watch from Chipeweyan, 
 besides half a dozen pair of spectacles to keep off 
 snow-blindness, from which an unprotected eye is sure 
 to suffer. There was also a small stock of axes, 
 knives, and beads, presents for the Esquimaux in case 
 we fell in with them. Arrangements were made for 
 the fort boat to meet us at the old site of Lockhart's 
 house, at the north-east end of the Great Slave Lake, 
 on August ist, to bring us across the lake, as I wished 
 to start for the South in time to get back to civilization 
 before the rivers and lakes were set fast by the coming 
 winter. 
 
 The day after Mr. Clark's arrival a couple of Indians 
 came in from Fond du Lac. Zinto had not yet arrived 
 there, but was expected any day ; he had no meat for 
 us, and caribou were reported scarce on the road we 
 proposed taking; most of the Yellow Knives would 
 be at Fond du Lac to meet us if they found food 
 enough for present use. Pierre Lockhart, an Indian 
 who had come to the fort, immediately engaged with 
 us as guide to the Great Fish River, saying that 
 whatever the other men might do he would be 
 faithful to the end of the journey, even if we wanted 
 him to go to the sea-coast: needless to say he was 
 the very first to desert on the appearance of hard 
 times.
 
 CHAP. x. OF NORTHERN CANADA 151 
 
 It was a goodly procession that left Fort Resolution 
 on the afternoon of May yth, for every sleigh was 
 pressed into service to help us over the bad ice that 
 lay between the fort and the big river, and all the goose- 
 hunters had been waiting till we started to move their 
 families to the favourite feeding-grounds. Across the 
 first bay there was fully a foot of water, with a crust 
 of ice caused by the last night's frost ; this top crust 
 had to be broken, and the dogs waded up to their 
 bellies, with the sleighs floating behind them : bitterly 
 cold for the feet and hard to avoid a fall, which meant 
 a thorough drenching in the icy water. On reaching 
 the delta and passing into the narrow channels at the 
 mouth of the big river the ice was much better, as 
 the water had run off through the cracks ; the crossing 
 of the main stream looked dangerous, but, by carefully 
 picking our way and sounding the ice with an axe, we 
 got across without accident and camped in a bunch 
 of willows on the far side. The fires were kept 
 up late that night and much talking was done, as 
 to-morrow we had to say good-bye to our companions, 
 and many instructions were given to wives, mothers, 
 and children with reference to their good behaviour 
 during our absence. The red glow of sunset stayed 
 in the sky till it mingled with the brightness of the 
 coming day ; often a whirr of wings told of a flock of 
 wildfowl passing overhead, and a few geese that had 
 arrived from the south kept up a continual honking 
 as they searched for a patch of open water to alight 
 on. But the frost was sharp in the night, and on 
 breaking camp at four o'clock we found the crust of
 
 ,52 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. x. 
 
 surface-ice in the next bay strong enough in most 
 places to bear our sleighs, which were now reduced to 
 two in number and much more heavily loaded than 
 on the previous day. Sometimes a man would break 
 through, and, floundering on the bottom ice, would 
 bruise his shins and feet in a desperate manner, and 
 we were all badly knocked about when we put ashore 
 at Tete Noire's House, five miles beyond the He de 
 Pierre, ready to take the big traverse on the following 
 day. A couple of hours out from the land brought us 
 again to dry snow, as the change of climate is very 
 sudden after leaving the south shore of the lake. 
 Crossing the big traverse was ordinary winter travelling, 
 although the snow was soft in the strong sunshine ; 
 we made use of the frost at night and generally rested 
 during the heat of the day. Between the islands 
 snow-shoes were necessary, and, although spectacles 
 were constantly worn, some of the men began to show 
 signs of snow-blindness ; occasionally we found a bare 
 rock to camp on, but more generally made the old 
 winter form of encampment on the snow. It was not 
 till the sixth day after leaving the fort that we pulled 
 into Fond du Lac, and found nearly the whole tribe 
 of Yellow Knives awaiting us with King Beaulieu and 
 his family at their head ; there were five and twenty 
 lodges, and in every one we heard the old story of 
 Berula (no meat) ; they had tried fishing without 
 success, and hoped the white masters would give them 
 a little flour and pemmican. Why had they not 
 pushed on to some of the sure fisheries in the big lake 
 Avhen they found the caribou fail ? They wished to
 
 CHAP. X. U-f JNUKm&KJN UAJNAJJA 153 
 
 talk with us, they said, and so had stayed and starved 
 at Fond du Lac till we came. What did they want 
 to speak to us about ? Only this, that an Indian's life 
 is hard, and he has at all times need of a little tea and 
 tobacco to give him courage ; they had heard we were 
 taking much tea and tobacco, besides other presents, 
 to the Esquimaux. In vain did we tell them that 
 we had not enough for own use ; there was no peace 
 till pipes were going in every lodge. 
 
 Zinto had not put up any meat for us. At one 
 time he had killed a good many caribou, but he had 
 met with a band of Dog-Ribs from Fort Rae and the 
 two tribes had camped together; the chief of the 
 Yellow Knives was bound in honour to give a feast to 
 his guests, and after the meat that was meant for us 
 had been used for this purpose they fell to gambling. 
 The unfortunate Zinto lost all his ammunition, so that 
 he had no chance to kill any more caribou, much as he 
 would have liked to help the white men in their under- 
 taking. 
 
 The snow was lying deep in the woods and as yet 
 no breath of spring had visited Fond du Lac, although 
 at Fort Resolution, not more than one hundred miles 
 to the south, the buds were by this time shooting on 
 the birch and willow trees, and the ground had been 
 bare for two weeks ; no wildfowl had arrived, and the 
 Indians were of opinion that such a late spring had 
 never been known, advising us strongly not to attempt 
 to force our way into the Barren Ground till there was 
 some indication of better weather. It seemed to us, 
 though, that we should never be in a better position
 
 , 54 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. x. 
 
 to start than now, as any delay meant waste of pro- 
 visions, and we hoped to find caribou before we began 
 to starve. Several days we spent in talking to the 
 Indians before we came to any satisfactory conclusion, 
 and we had the greatest trouble in persuading any of 
 them to come with us. Finally it was settled that 
 Capot Blanc, Saltatha, Syene, and Mario, with their 
 wives and families, should start with us, and on reach- 
 ing the head of the Great Fish River should wait 
 there and hunt while we made the descent of the 
 stream. Capot Blanc behaved very well at all the con- 
 sultations, speaking up for the white men whenever an 
 opportunity offered, but the interpretation was un- 
 satisfactory ; Moise refused this duty in the presence 
 of the Beaulieus, and the latter, so far as we could 
 make out, used all their influence with the Indians to 
 damage our chances of making a successful expedition. 
 David, the Esquimau, rather complicated matters by 
 falling in love with King's daughter, but he made no 
 objection to starting, and soon forgot all about her in 
 the excitement of the journey. On the last evening 
 that we spent at Fond du Lac a Dog-Rib arrived with 
 his family from the Barren Ground in a wretched 
 state of starvation. He had come in by the route 
 that we proposed to take, and gave a very unsatis- 
 factory report of the country : the cold was still 
 severe, and he had met with no game since leaving 
 the musk-ox a couple of weeks before ; one of his 
 children had died of starvation and he was forced to 
 bury her under the snow at the Lac de Mort ; the rest 
 had barely escaped with life. Of course we gave them
 
 CHAP. x. OF NORTHERN CANADA 155 
 
 enough flour and pemmican to take them to a well- 
 known fishery twenty miles on, but our provisions 
 were going very fast. Most of the Yellow Knives 
 had already moved away to the fishery, and the en- 
 campment was entirely deserted when we pulled down 
 our lodges on the morning of May 2ist. Paul 
 Beaulieu was to have caught us up to show us some 
 meat-caches that he had made in the winter, and we 
 had engaged an Indian, Carquoss, to fish for his wife 
 while he was away ; but we saw neither Paul nor his 
 caches. Carquoss however joined us later on, and 
 explained that he had given up fishing because we 
 had not left him any tea and the other Indians had 
 laughed at him. 
 
 A miserable-looking outfit we were as we plodded 
 for two days along the north shore of the lake, against 
 a strong head-wind and driving snowstorms. Seven 
 trains of starving dogs hauled their loads in a melan- 
 choly procession, and over twenty people walked in 
 the narrow road made by the passage of the sleighs ; 
 by far too large a party for any rapid travelling, and 
 badly handicapped by women and children. On the 
 third day we turned up the mountain, and followed the 
 course of a stream coming in on the north shore ; we 
 mounted by a series of frozen cascades, many of them 
 so steep that we were obliged to use ropes to help the 
 dogs, and towards evening camped at the far end of 
 the first lake on the plateau. This day's work was not 
 got through without a good deal of growling, as every- 
 body was kept on short rations to make the most of 
 our provisions ; three days' full allowance for human
 
 i 5 6 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. x. 
 
 beings alone, to say nothing of the thirty dogs, would 
 have put an end to our supplies. 
 
 From this lake the country was level, and the women 
 were quite able to manage the dog-sleighs, while the 
 men scoured the country on either side of the track in 
 search of caribou or ptarmigan. The birds were fairly 
 plentiful, but of course at this season were all paired, 
 and there was no chance of making a slaughter at a 
 single shot, as one can do in the fall of the year when 
 the birds are in big packs ; this shooting at separate 
 birds was a serious strain on our ammunition, but the 
 ptarmigan helped us out till we fell in with the caribou. 
 It was almost a certainty to find these birds in every 
 bunch of pines, and they kept up such a constant 
 crowing round the camp at night that they had a poor 
 chance of escaping the hungry man's gun. After the 
 snow has melted the male bird gets pugnacious and 
 runs up to meet the hunter, with his feathers puffed 
 out, offering a fair mark for a stone ; but before this 
 happened we disdained ptarmigan, and would only kill 
 the fattest-looking caribou. We eked out a precarious 
 existence in this manner for a week, making short days' 
 journeys, as the dogs could not travel fast or far. Pierre 
 Lockhart deserted one morning when breakfast was 
 particularly scanty, and taking his gun and blanket 
 started back for Fond du Lac ; we were depending on 
 him for guide, but it was rather a relief when he went, 
 as he was inclined to steal food, and had several dis- 
 gusting habits that made his absence from the lodge 
 rather acceptable than otherwise. Mario's brother-in- 
 law disappeared about the same time, but we thought
 
 CHAP. x. OF NORTHERN CANADA 157 
 
 they had gone off together and did not trouble our- 
 selves further about them. 
 
 On the last day of May, acting on Capot Blanc's 
 advice, we forked from our canoe-route, and took a 
 more easterly course, to fall on the chain of lakes by 
 which Anderson and Stewart had reached the Great 
 Fish River. We hoped to find caribou in this direc- 
 tion, and on the same day that we made this change 
 in our course the indefatigable Saltatha, having made 
 a much longer round than the rest of us, came into 
 camp late at night with a load of caribou-meat on his 
 back ; he had seen snow-shoe tracks to the east, but 
 falling in with the caribou had turned back to the camp 
 without following the tracks. 
 
 Sunday, June ist, brought a distinct change in the 
 weather ; a mild south-west wind was melting the snow 
 rapidly, and several flocks of geese and ducks passed 
 to the north. A few geese were called up to the camp 
 and killed from the doors of the lodges ; the Indians 
 imitate to perfection the cry of any bird, and at this 
 time of year the geese are easy to call, as they are 
 always in search of open water, and seem not a bit 
 surprised to hear their friends calling to them from 
 a group of deer-skin lodges. In the morning we sent 
 two men to bring in the rest of Saltatha's meat, with 
 orders to investigate the tracks, and see if there was 
 another encampment of Indians to the east, as none of 
 the caribou hunters had intended to leave the Great 
 Slave Lake till the thaw came. Our peaceful Sunday 
 was greatly disturbed by a royal row in one of the 
 lodges, and we sent for Capot Blanc to ask him what
 
 158 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP, x, 
 
 the trouble was. The old fellow was glad enough to 
 get into our lodge away from the clamour, and ex- 
 plained the cause of the disturbance in his even low- 
 pitched voice, so pleasantly contrasted with the Yellow 
 Knife Billingsgate that was being freely used outside. 
 * It is the women,' he said ; ' the wife of Syene has 
 called the wife of Saltatha by a bad name, because she 
 would not give her some meat ; the wife of Saltatha 
 has taken the wife of Syene by the hair and beaten 
 her in the face with a snow-shoe till her nose bleeds 
 very much ; the men have tried to separate them, but 
 that only makes things worse. It is always like this in 
 our camps when we starve. If the men are alone they 
 are quiet ; but when there are women there is no peace. 
 Is it so also in your country ? ' 
 
 Late in the night the men who had gone to fetch the 
 meat came back, hauling on the sleigh Mario's brother- 
 in-law Jose, whom they had found lying in the snow, 
 without fire, in a bunch of dwarf pines ; the snow-shoe 
 tracks were his, and but for the lucky chance of 
 Saltatha's killing the caribou in that direction he must 
 have perished in a day or two, as he was too weak to 
 travel. He had left us to hunt ptarmigan, and lost 
 himself eight days ago, and, as we supposed he had 
 deserted with Pierre, we had taken no trouble to look 
 for him. He was one of the unlucky ones, believed to 
 have seen ' the Enemy ' in his youth, and it certainly 
 says little for his wits that he was unable to follow the 
 tracks of such a large party. Jos6 had used up what 
 little ammunition he started with on the first day, and 
 since then had eaten nothing ; he was without
 
 CHAP. x. OF NORTHERN CANADA 159 
 
 matches or touchwood to make fire, and as the 
 weather had been cold he must have suffered greatly. 
 We fed him up to the best of our ability, and he 
 recovered rapidly when meat was abundant in the 
 camp.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ON the following day we made an easy day's travel 
 to the east, and most of us succeeded in killing caribou 
 while the women drove the dogs. From this time, all 
 through the summer till we again reached the Great 
 Slave Lake late in August, we had no difficulty about 
 provisions ; although there was many a time when we 
 could not say where we might find our next meal, some- 
 thing always turned up, and we were never a single day 
 without eating during the whole journey. I really 
 believe it is a mistake to try to carry enough food for 
 a summer's work in the Barren Ground, as the difficulty 
 of transport is so great, and after the caribou are once 
 found there is no danger of starvation. 
 
 We were now travelling with the bull caribou, which 
 had just left the thick woods, and made easy marches 
 from lake to lake in a north-east direction ; the weather 
 became cold again for the last time, and June yth was 
 like a bad winter's day with a strong north wind and 
 snowstorms. Then the summer came suddenly, and 
 on the nth we were obliged to camp on a high gravel 
 ridge to await le grand dtgel, which rendered travelling 
 impossible, till the deep water had run off the ice.
 
 CHAP. XL NORTHERN CANADA 161 
 
 Although we had been so far taking it very easily, a 
 rest was of great service, as many of the party were 
 suffering from acute snow-blindness caused by the 
 everlasting glare of the sun on the treeless waste ; 
 there was no dark object to rest the eyes upon for a 
 moment, and besides the actual pain the constant in- 
 flammation injured the sight and made rifle-shooting 
 very uncertain. The Indians smeared their faces with 
 blood and wood-ashes, and the white men were further 
 protected with spectacles ; but these efforts were only 
 partially successful in keeping off the glare. I was 
 lucky in getting off quite free myself, but should 
 imagine that it must be a most painful affliction. 
 
 Along the foot of the sandy ridge, which closely 
 resembled the one I had seen the autumn before at 
 Lac de Gras, were many small lakes partially thawed, 
 and here the snow geese, or white ' wavies,' were 
 resting in thousands, waiting till the warm weather 
 should have melted the snow from their feeding-ground 
 along the sea-coast. We could have made enormous 
 bags of them, as they were tame and disinclined to 
 leave the open water ; but we were sparing with our 
 ammunition, as we might want it badly later on. Great 
 numbers were killed, however, and their prime condi- 
 tion told of the good feeding-ground they had left far 
 southward. There were also plenty of large Canada 
 geese, but the grey wavy, or laughing goose, the best 
 of all for eating, is much scarcer. Of the more edible 
 ducks the pin-tail seems to be the only one that comes 
 so far beyond the Great Slave Lake, but long-tailed 
 ducks and golden eyes were in great numbers along 
 
 M
 
 !6 2 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. XL 
 
 this sandy ridge. Of the loons, the red-throated variety 
 was by far the most numerous, and the Pacific or 
 Adam's diver was fairly common, but the great northern 
 diver, although plentiful on the Great Slave Lake, does 
 not appear to visit the Barren Ground. 
 
 While we were waiting here, another band of Indians 
 from Fond du Lac caught us up, and our camp assumed 
 still larger proportions ; but as we were fairly among 
 the game it did not much matter. With the new 
 arrivals were two blind men, Pierre and Antoine Fat, 
 who preferred a wandering life to the support they 
 would doubtless have been given at the fort. Both 
 were good fishermen, and would spend hours sitting 
 on the ice at the edge of an open hole with the 
 greatest patience, and later on made heavy catches of 
 trout. Pierre would often walk with the hunters to 
 get his share of the meat ; Capot Blanc was usually 
 his guide, but seldom did more than trail a stick after 
 him and the blind man followed the sound; when a 
 caribou was killed, Pierre was led up to it, and in spite 
 of his blindness would do the butcher's work cleanly 
 and well. 
 
 The snow melted away rapidly; the hillsides were 
 running with small streams, the ground showed up in 
 ever increasing patches, and a thick mist, which the 
 Indians say always appears at the time of the big thaw, 
 hung over everything. On June i6th we found that 
 most of the water had run off through the cracks in the 
 ice, and resumed our journey, after solemnly burning 
 some thirty pairs of used-up snow-shoes. At first 
 walking without them seemed hard to me, as I had
 
 CHAP. XL OF NORTHERN CANADA 163 
 
 used them continually since the previous October, and 
 we all found that our feet were made sore by walking 
 on the rough ice ; unfortunately the skins of the cari- 
 bou that we killed were so riddled by grubs that they 
 were unfit to dress for leather, and we were always 
 short of moccasins. We still travelled along easily, 
 as the river would not break up for a fortnight at the 
 earliest, and our best plan was to move with the cari- 
 bou, which seemed to be keeping up with the edge 
 of the snow much in the same manner as ourselves. 
 The portages between the lakes were often three or 
 four miles in length, and, as the snow had gone, we 
 were obliged to carry the heavy loads on our backs ; 
 firewood was getting scarce, and I came to the con- 
 clusion that our old canoe-route was by far the best 
 way to reach the Barren Ground in summer or in 
 winter. A few warm days made a great difference in 
 the appearance of the country. Leaves began to 
 sprout on the little willows, and the grass showed 
 green on the hillsides ; sober-hued flowers, growing 
 close to the ground, came out in bloom, and a few 
 butterflies flapped in the hot sunshine, while we were 
 still walking on eight feet of solid ice. Mosquitos 
 appeared in myriads : in the daytime there was usually 
 a breeze to blow them away, and the nights were too 
 cold for them ; but in the calm mornings and evenings 
 they made the most of their chance to annoy us. 
 
 On June 25th we planted our lodges on a high 
 ridge overlooking Lake Mackay. It has always been 
 the fashion of the Yellow Knives to camp in an 
 elevated position, in order to have command of the 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xi. 
 
 surrounding country in looking out for the caribou, or, 
 in the olden times, for a band of hostile Indians. 
 Right across the lake we could see the bay in which 
 we had left our big canoe during our first attempt to 
 find the musk-ox, and the hills forming the height of 
 land between the Great Slave Lake and the Arctic Sea ; 
 on our right lay Lockhart's River and the huge 
 Aylmer Lake, which we were about to cross. Blind 
 Pierre knew the whole picture as well as any of us ; on 
 my way back to camp at sundown I found him sitting 
 on a boulder smoking, for we always rather favoured 
 him in the matter of tobacco ; his face was turned to 
 the north-east, and he was evidently taking in all the 
 details of the landscape, without the sense of sight. 
 ' Tetchenula, Tetchen Yarsula, Tetchen Taote (no 
 wood, not a little wood, no wood at all),' he said, as he 
 waved his hands towards Aylmer Lake ; then, with a 
 sweep of his arm, he traced correctly the course of 
 Lockhart's River, with a rapid downward motion, to 
 denote its abrupt termination in a series of rapids and 
 waterfalls as it joins the Great Slave Lake. Poor old 
 fellow, it must be hard for him not to see the country 
 he loves so well ; but he is happy, after his fashion, in 
 the summer-time when the caribou are thick. 
 
 From this point we sent Moise with three Indians 
 and our own dogs to bring up the big canoe from the 
 south shore of Lake.Mackay, where I had left her in 
 the beginning of last October. Many little hunting- 
 canoes had been picked up along the track from Fond 
 du Lac, and now every sleigh carried a canoe athwart- 
 ships; these proved useful enough in crossing the
 
 CHAP. xi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 165 
 
 small lake in the course of Lockhart's River, as on 
 arriving at the far side we found open water between 
 us and the land, and had to use the canoes to ferry our 
 cargo to the shore, the dogs swimming with the empty 
 sleighs in tow, while some enterprising spirits, who 
 conceived the idea of floating ashore on blocks of ice, 
 came in for a ducking. The ice on Aylmer Lake 
 was still solid, but extremely rough, causing great 
 damage to our moccasins. We kept near the north 
 shore, with sometimes a long traverse across a deep 
 bay ; at the head of every bay a stream ran into the 
 lake, and the open water at its mouth was always a 
 sure find for trout ; forty or fifty large fish were often 
 caught in a day with hook and line at these places, 
 and, as we could always kill caribou, even the dogs 
 were getting fat in this land of plenty. Soon we began 
 to see scraps of musk-ox hair on the large boulders 
 where these animals had been rubbing, and on the 
 second day's travel along Aylmer Lake David had an 
 adventure with an old bull. David was by far the 
 keenest hunter in the outfit, but up till now had not 
 succeeded in killing anything bigger than a goose, 
 and it was an exciting moment for him when he got 
 within range of a musk-ox. He had heard strange 
 stories about these animals when a small boy among 
 his own countrymen at the mouth of the Mackenzie 
 River, and it was not without a little trembling that he 
 fired one of his scanty stock of bullets. The beast was 
 wounded but would not die, and David, standing off at 
 a safe distance, soon exhausted all his bullets ; he then 
 proceeded to load his gun with round stones, and
 
 166 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xi. 
 
 finally with handfuls of gravel; his last charge of 
 powder was used to fire the ramrod, but another half 
 hour elapsed before the musk-ox expired. As this was 
 the first one that had been killed on this trip, the 
 proud hunter was made a good deal of when he came 
 into camp with the best of the highly-flavoured meat. 
 
 On the evening of July ist we made the encamp- 
 ment at the head of the most northerly bay of Aylmer 
 Lake, named Sandy Bay by Back, from the conspicuous 
 sand-ridges that here form the divide between the lake 
 and the Great Fish River, a distance of three quarters 
 of a mile. The ice was still firm in Aylmer Lake, but 
 there was a little difficulty in getting ashore through 
 a narrow belt of open water, and the head-reaches of 
 the river were clear. We were inspecting the stream, 
 to see what chance there was of being able to run the 
 canoe through the numerous rapids, when Noel, one of 
 the Indians who had been with me on the winter hunt, 
 came up with the news that he had spied a large band 
 of musk-ox feeding a couple of miles down the river. 
 The women were badly in need of their hides for 
 making moccasins, as the caribou-skins were still in 
 poor condition, so a hunt was arranged in a fashion 
 that I had not seen before. Most of the guns crossed 
 the river, and a spot was selected for the slaughter just 
 where the stream broadened out into a small lake ; at 
 right angles to the river mounds of stone and moss 
 were put up at a few yards' distance from each other, 
 ornamented with coats, belts, and gun-covers, and behind 
 the outside mound Capot Blanc took up his position. 
 A steep hill ran parallel with the stream about two
 
 CHAP. XL OF NORTHERN CANADA 167 
 
 hundred yards away, and along this guns were posted 
 at intervals, with the intention of heading the musk-ox 
 towards the water. Noel and Mario, supposed to be 
 the two best runners, were to make a long round and 
 start the band in our direction ; I was stationed with 
 three other guns among some broken rocks on the 
 south side of the river, just opposite the barrier ; and 
 orders were given that no shot should be fired till the 
 musk-ox took to the water. 
 
 It was a most interesting scene, and I would not 
 willingly have changed places with any of the loyal 
 Canadians who were at this time celebrating the anni- 
 versary of Dominion Day, with much rye whisky, a 
 thousand miles to the southward. I had plenty of 
 time to admire the surrounding landscape, and the sun- 
 set that lit up the snow-drifts on each side of the river ; 
 when suddenly over the opposite ridge appeared the 
 horns of a band of caribou, and for a moment the 
 leader was outlined against the sky as he paused to 
 look at the strange preparations going on in the valley 
 below. Behind me a ptarmigan, perched on a rock, 
 crowed defiance ; but there was no other sound, except 
 the rush of water and the occasional grinding of an ice- 
 pan dislodged from some small lake in the course of 
 the stream. Fully an hour we sat among the rocks, 
 and were beginning to think that the hunt had mis- 
 carried, when we heard a distant shouting far down 
 the valley, and the next moment caught sight of a 
 scurrying black mass crossing a spur of the hill close 
 to the river's bank. The men posted along the ridge 
 took up the cry as the musk-ox passed them, and
 
 1 68 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xi. 
 
 joined in the chase; soon the animals came to the 
 barrier, and pulled up short at the apparition, while, to 
 increase their alarm, the hoary head of Capot Blanc 
 arose from behind a mound of rocks right in front of 
 them. This was the critical moment, and they would 
 certainly have taken to the water and been at the 
 mercy of their pursuers but for an untimely shot that 
 caused them to break, and I was not sorry to see that 
 several of the band escaped. I had had a splendid 
 view till now, as the musk-ox halted within twenty 
 yards of me, but we were forced to lie low when the 
 shooting began, as bullets were rattling freely among 
 the rocks in which we were hiding. We did no shoot- 
 ing on our side of the river, except to finish off a couple 
 that took to the water; seven were killed in all, six 
 cows, and a calf about a month old ; there were no 
 bulls in the band, and from what I afterwards saw 
 they seemed to keep separate from the cows during the 
 summer. A solitary old bull is often met with at this 
 time of year. 
 
 When the hunt was over, I inquired the meaning of 
 the shouting that had been kept up so continually 
 throughout the drive, and was informed that this was 
 necessary to let the musk-ox know which way to run. 
 At starting they had shouted, * Oh, musk-ox, there is 
 a barrier planted for you down there, where the river 
 joins the little lake ; when you reach it take to the 
 water, there are men with guns on both sides, and so we 
 shall kill you all ' ; when the men are out of breath, 
 they shout to the musk-ox to stop, and, after they have 
 rested, to go on again. These animals are said to
 
 CHAP. xi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 169 
 
 understand every word of the Yellow Knife language, 
 though it seems strange that they do not make use of 
 the information they receive to avoid danger instead of 
 obeying orders. The partial failure of the hunt was 
 attributed to the fact that Moise had called across the 
 river to me in French, and the musk-ox had not been 
 able to understand this strange language. 
 
 The sun had risen again when we got back to camp, 
 and there we found the big canoe, not a bit damaged 
 by her long rest under the snow or her adventurous 
 journey on the dog-sleigh. The day was spent in 
 getting in the meat and skins, and early the next 
 morning we carried the canoe across the portage and 
 launched her on the waters of the Great Fish River. 
 The cargo was all sent overland to a lake some six 
 miles down the stream ; sleighs were abandoned, as 
 there was now no snow to haul on, but the dogs' 
 work was by no means over, the only difference being 
 that they had to carry loads on their backs instead of 
 dragging a sleigh ; rough deer-skin pack-harness was 
 made, and the loads secured in a manner worthy of 
 a Mexican mule-packer. We came to grief with the 
 canoe at the third rapid, and should have done much 
 better to have made the portage to the lake, instead of 
 trying to navigate the difficult stream. A long delay 
 was necessary to effect repairs, and there were so many 
 portages over ice-blocks along the edge of the lake, 
 when we reached it, that the sun was high on the 
 following morning before we camped. The same work 
 continued for several days, the Indians toiling overland 
 heavily loaded, and our own party struggling with the
 
 170 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xi. 
 
 ice in a chain of lakes through which the river runs. 
 On the edge of one of these lakes we stopped for dinner 
 on the spot where Stewart and Anderson separated 
 from their Indian guides before descending the river in 
 1856. The rough stone fireplaces, by which they had 
 economised fuel, were still standing, and Capot Blanc, 
 seated on one of them, gave us a long lecture on the 
 events that had taken place during their expedition, as 
 he had heard the story from his father. More than 
 thirty years had elapsed since the last party of Whites 
 camped by the side of the Great Fish River, and thirty 
 years again before them Back the discoverer had 
 pushed out into the unknown land. Why has all 
 exploration in the Barren Ground ceased ? No more 
 is known of the country than was discovered by 
 Franklin and Back sixty years ago in their short 
 summer journeys, and the expeditions sent out in 
 search of the former in the 'Fifties. There are many 
 thousands of square miles on which the foot of white 
 man has never stepped. The Canadian Government 
 has an efficient body of surveyors and geologists at its 
 command, and it is curious that no attention is paid to 
 one of the most interesting fields for exploration. 
 
 On July 6th, after slow and tiresome travelling, we 
 reached the north end of a large sheet of water named 
 by Back Musk-ox Lake, and finding enough willow- 
 scrub for firewood, determined here to await the 
 breaking up of the ice in the lake. Judging by the 
 Indian's account the season was fully three weeks later 
 than usual, and, as I wished to be back at Fort Reso- 
 lution in time to save the open water up Peace River
 
 CHAP. XL OF NORTHERN CANADA 171 
 
 before winter set in, there was a poor chance of our 
 being able to penetrate far into the country of the 
 Esquimaux. Musk-ox Lake runs pretty nearly due 
 north and south, and is fifteen miles in length, averag- 
 ing about two miles in width. Our camp was just at 
 the point where the river runs out, and a short distance 
 above is the best swimming-place for the caribou 
 known to the Indians. In some years immense slaugh- 
 ters are made here, but on the present occasion the 
 caribou did not cross in their usual numbers, so that 
 our companions had no chance to put up the dried 
 meat that we expected to get for our cruise down 
 stream, and we could only kill enough for the present 
 support of such a large encampment. Across the lake 
 is a hill of insignificant height, known as the Musk-ox 
 Mountain, a good landmark, and a favourite haunt for 
 the animals from which it takes its name. 
 
 This is the northerly limit of the Yellow Knives' 
 hunting-ground. Northwards is the land of the dreaded 
 Esquimaux, and many rumours were brought into the 
 camp of a strange track seen on soft ground, of men 
 standing far off on the sky-line, and a blue cloud of 
 smoke arising far down the valley of the river. The 
 Indians were convinced that their old enemies were 
 continually close to them, despite the fact that it would 
 be an impossibility for canoes to have yet ascended the 
 stream on account of the ice. We afterwards dis- 
 covered that there was a debateable ground, fully sixty 
 miles in width, between Musk-ox Lake and the highest 
 point that the Esquimaux reach. 
 
 There is here a very striking change in the appear-
 
 172 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. XL 
 
 ance of the country. The old red granite formation 
 gives way almost entirely to ironstone, split up into 
 slabs and piled into such peculiar shapes that one 
 might imagine giants had been building castles over 
 the rolling hills. Some of the slabs were turned on 
 edge and formed perfect turrets towering many feet into 
 the air, and in many places were heaps of shiny black 
 sand, resembling coal-dust, piled up into conical mounds 
 almost too steep to climb. Wherever vegetation had 
 a chance to grow it was much more luxuriant than one 
 could suppose possible in such a climate. The stunted 
 willows, not two feet in height, were thickly clothed 
 with bright green leaves ; there was abundance of 
 grass, and in many spots the pretty little Arctic flowers 
 formed a bright carpet along the foot of a slowly 
 melting snowdrift. 
 
 Capot Blanc and myself made an expedition into the 
 roughest part of this country, to the north-east of 
 Musk-ox Lake, but we found travelling very hard, as 
 we had to climb continually over broken masses of 
 ironstone. This is another well-known haunt of ' the 
 Enemy,' and Capot Blanc attributed to his malign 
 influence the disaster that prevented our further explo- 
 ration in this direction. We reached a stream of no 
 great size, one of the tributaries of the Great Fish 
 River, and attempted to wade across to the opposite 
 bank, selecting the head of a small rapid for the 
 purpose, as the water appeared to be shallower there. 
 On reaching the centre of the current our legs were 
 swept from under us, and we were immediately running 
 the rapid at the imminent risk of breaking our heads
 
 CHAP. xi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 173 
 
 against a rock. We both reached the still water at the 
 foot of the rapid with nothing worse than a few bruises, 
 and moreover held on to our guns, but of course our 
 ammunition was spoilt, and we were obliged to make 
 the best of our way back to camp. Capot Blanc after- 
 wards told me that he thought the Enemy had made 
 the water strong, to keep us from coming into his 
 country, and it would be flying in the face of Pro- 
 vidence to make another attempt. It would be interest- 
 ing to know how far this ironstone formation extends ; 
 and, as the journey to Musk-ox Lake and back to the 
 fort might easily be made by canoe during the summer, 
 the trip would amply repay the geologist and botanist 
 for their trouble. 
 
 Many other little expeditions we made in various 
 directions, sometimes watching the birds, and some- 
 times in pursuit of caribou or musk-ox. One hunt in 
 particular I remember, which took place appropriately 
 enough on the top of Musk-ox Mountain. We had 
 made out the moving black spots through the glasses 
 from the lodge, and, as there was still a demand for 
 hides from the women and meat was being used in 
 great quantities, we paddled across the lake through 
 a narrow channel in the ice. The sun went down 
 while we were climbing the ascent, and a long wait 
 was necessary, as the animals were feeding towards us 
 on the flat top of the mountain and there was no cover 
 to enable us to make a nearer approach. The mos- 
 quitos buzzed merrily round us while we lay behind 
 the rock and watched the grotesque motions of the 
 calves as they played with each other, little suspecting
 
 1 74 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xi. 
 
 that danger was so close. Presently the band moved 
 within easy range and we opened fire with four guns. 
 Seven were killed, and Mackinlay caught a calf that 
 stayed by the body of its dead mother, a fluffy, long- 
 haired little beast ; I was sorry that we could not keep 
 it alive, but it would have been impossible to carry it 
 in a birch-bark canoe. Cruel work, this shooting in the 
 summer-time, but it was necessary to keep the camp in 
 meat even though mother and young had to be sacri- 
 ficed. I had a long run after a cripple, and eventually 
 killed it on the shore of a large lake in a valley 
 eastward of the mountain. The sun was high when 
 I found the rest of the hunters eating marrow-bones in 
 front of a big fire, in a clump of well-grown willows 
 close to the canoe, and we took a load of wood back to 
 the camp, sending over the women for the meat and 
 skins later in the day. 
 
 The weather during this time was variable in the 
 extreme ; two or three hot days would be followed by 
 a snowstorm, and once we were visited by a hurricane 
 that did much damage to lodge-poles, and caused us 
 to shift camp hurriedly to the lee-side of a steep clifif 
 hanging over the river. July loth was exceptionally 
 hot in the morning, with the mosquitos at their 
 worst ; in the middle of the day there was a thunder- 
 storm, and at five o'clock the ground was covered with 
 snow. The ice now began to show signs of rotting, 
 and the channel of open water round the weather 
 edge of the lake grew rapidly broader. 
 
 We had many talks with the Indians about the chances 
 of our being able to get together a crew ; but they had
 
 CHAP. XL OF NORTHERN CANADA 175 
 
 no enthusiasm about the voyage, and wanted nothing 
 better than to keep us hanging about the head of the 
 river, providing them with ammunition. Saltatha was 
 the only one of the band who volunteered to go, and 
 he insisted on having another Indian with him, as he 
 was not used to the ways of white men, and would feel 
 safer if he had one of his own tribe with him in case 
 of accidents ; but he hoped we should not go farther 
 than the big lake (Beechey Lake) which he had heard 
 us talking about, for it was getting late in the year, 
 and when the ice is long in melting winter comes 
 again soon. At last it was arranged that Saltatha and 
 Noel were to come in our canoe, while Mario and 
 Carquoss accompanied us with a small hunting-canoe, 
 to carry a little ammunition in case we lost our cargo 
 by capsizing in a rapid ; we should then have a chance 
 of making a living, and be able to cross the tributary 
 stream if we had to- return on foot. On our part we 
 agreed to turn back from Beechey Lake, reserving the 
 privilege of taking the little canoe overland from there 
 to Bathurst Inlet. As caribou were scarce, the rest of 
 the Indians were to work their way back towards the 
 Great Slave Lake, except Capot Blanc, who was to 
 stay on the divide at Aylmer Lake, if he could kill 
 enough meat to keep his family, and there await our 
 return. 
 
 The evening before we started Syene, who was a 
 Medicine Man, sent a message to our lodge that he 
 was going to foretell the result of our expedition down 
 the river, so we went over to hear what was in store 
 for us. His lodge was full of Indians, but they made
 
 J7 6 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP. XL 
 
 room for us, and we sat down on a blanket on the side 
 of the fire farthest from the door. Syene held a drum 
 made of tightly-stretched deer- skin parchment, which 
 he punched continually with a caribou's thigh-bone, 
 keeping up a melancholy chant, and singing a sentence 
 or two every few minutes. ' It is not that I can see 
 anything myself,' he said, 'but it is an unborn child 
 that is speaking to me.' Mrs. Syene, who was sitting 
 close to the Medicine Man, clasped her hands and 
 groaned, as if in great pain, by way of giving assent to 
 this statement. ' The child sees the canoe of the big 
 masters running down the strong water of a rapid ; 
 below the rapid is a long point, and seven lodges of 
 the Esquimaux are planted on the point. There is 
 blood on the snow-drift ; it is the blood of a white man. 
 One man is walking on the bank of a river ; he walks 
 like a starving man, and the child knows not if he is 
 white or Indian. Now all is dark, and the child has 
 ceased speaking.' 
 
 Not a very cheerful prophecy, and it was hard to 
 make out how far the Indians believed in the Medicine 
 Man ; but our crew were rather down-hearted about it, 
 although, as is usual all the world over, the people 
 who were not going the journey themselves took a 
 philosophical view of the whole affair.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ON Thursday, July lyth, at two o'clock in the after- 
 noon, we struck camp and started on a four-mile 
 portage to the next lake down stream, as the river-bed 
 was too full of large boulders to navigate the strong 
 current with safety. It was hard work carrying the 
 cargo and canoe through the mosquito-stricken iron- 
 stone country, and we did not camp till midnight. 
 Here another bad omen was observed. Mackinlay 
 and I had gone ahead, after carrying over a load, to 
 try and kill something for supper ; we found a musk- 
 ox, but made rather a clumsy mess of killing it, and 
 the animal was badly heated before we finished it 
 off. The meat was consequently discoloured, and 
 Saltatha declared this to be an unfailing sign of some 
 great misfortune at hand. The women had made us 
 a few pair of moccasins each, but not nearly enough 
 for the tracking-work that we should have to do when 
 we turned up stream ; and our stock of provisions, 
 instead of the bales of dried meat that we had expected 
 to enable us to travel without waste of time in hunting, 
 consisted of ten dried deers'-ribs, so full of maggots, 
 from having been imperfectly cured, that we threw 
 
 N
 
 178 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. XH. 
 
 them away on the second day out. Our flour and 
 pemmican had of course been finished long ago, and 
 we drank the last kettleful of tea before leaving Musk- 
 ox Lake, but as the Labrador tea grows all over this 
 country in profusion, this did not much matter ; tobacco 
 too was nearly at an end. 
 
 The lake was still full of floating ice, but we had no 
 trouble in passing the canoe into the river at the north 
 end, and found the stream considerably increased in 
 volume by a couple of large tributaries that come in 
 from the opposite sides of the lake. After dropping 
 down two or three miles with a sluggish current, we 
 heard the roar of a rapid, and put ashore on an island 
 in mid-stream as soon as we sighted broken water. 
 It was lucky we did so, as there was a heavy overfall 
 impossible to run, and we were obliged to portage the 
 whole length of the island and then shoot the tail of 
 the rapid. Here we put ashore to patch the canoe, 
 which was leaking badly, and pulled out big trout as 
 quickly as we could throw in the spoon-bait ; we found 
 this could be done at the foot of all the rapids, so one 
 need not take much thought about provisions in this 
 part of the stream. After another small rapid, which 
 was run with a full load, the river, heading straight to 
 the north, passes through a small lake and emerges as 
 a broad canal-like waterway with very slight current, 
 flowing through the roughest part of the ironstone 
 country that we had yet seen ; the banks were steep 
 too, and we could put the canoe alongside a natural 
 wharf in any spot for a distance of five or six miles. 
 In passing down these reaches we saw and killed
 
 CHAP. xii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 179 
 
 musk-ox, but the caribou seemed to shirk the labour 
 of crossing the confused masses of rocks, and none of 
 these animals were seen till we reached a less rugged 
 district. Again the channel widened out into a lake, 
 two miles in length, with an ugly rapid at the north 
 end ; this we negotiated with the precaution of leaving 
 guns and ammunition ashore, and directly afterwards 
 Saltatha caused some excitement by saying he had 
 caught a glimpse of a man walking on a neighbouring 
 ridge ; we put ashore, but could find no tracks, and 
 came to the conclusion that it was Saltatha's imagina- 
 tion. A long day's travel was made successfully, and 
 by ten o'clock we were clear of the ironstone and 
 slipping quietly along through a pleasant sandy country. 
 We camped at the foot of a high sand-butte covered 
 with flowers and moss, and found a bunch of willows 
 on the bank of the river. There were indications that 
 some one had camped on the same spot many years ago ; 
 small sticks had been chopped with an axe, and bones 
 of caribou were lying in heaps on the ground. The 
 Yellow Knives at once said it was an old Esquimaux 
 camp, and it was evident that they had little inclina- 
 tion to go any farther down stream ; more probably 
 the chopping was done by a band of Dog-Ribs, whose 
 hunting-grounds lie to the west, or possibly by the 
 members of Stewart's and Anderson's expedition. On 
 mounting the butte we saw that the country northward 
 presented a much more fertile appearance than any- 
 thing we had seen on the south side of the watershed. 
 There was a luxurious growth of grass over the sandy 
 ridges, and during the two months of summer one 
 
 N a
 
 i8o THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. XH. 
 
 could imagine oneself back on the prairies of Alberta ; 
 the willows here too grew to a better size, and, as far 
 as we descended the river, we had little trouble about 
 fuel ; in the winter, of course, the willows would be all 
 drifted over with snow, and it would then be no easy 
 matter to make a fire. This stream heads in the 
 woodless country ; consequently there is no drift-timber, 
 and not a single pine-tree is to be seen along its course. 
 We had a pleasant camp enough that night, but 
 rebellion was rife and burst into flame on the following 
 morning when we ordered the men to take their places 
 in the canoes. This is the hopeless part of having to 
 rely on natives for travelling in the Barren Ground ; 
 they have no courage outside their own country. If 
 we had had a good crew of half-breeds from Red 
 River or the upper country of British Columbia we 
 might even now, notwithstanding the lateness of the 
 season, have pushed far out towards the northern sea- 
 coast, and possibly have made the acquaintance of 
 some of the scattered bands of Esquimaux who live 
 there in happy ignorance of any more comfortable 
 form of life. But we were practically in the hands of 
 the Yellow Knives, for although I would myself have 
 taken the risk of steering, none of the men who were 
 willing to go knew how to stitch up a broken canoe, 
 and it would have been madness to push on without 
 this knowledge. Moise, our half-breed interpreter and 
 steersman, who was an engaged servant of the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company and bound by his contract to obey 
 Mackinlay's orders in everything, showed the Indian 
 side of his nature by joining the mutineers and refusing
 
 CHAP. xii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 181 
 
 to take his position in the stern af the canoe. For 
 two hours we argued the matter on the bank of the 
 river, and at one time I thought we should certainly 
 have come to blows. Mario and Carquoss were the 
 ringleaders, but Saltatha was inclined to stand by us, 
 although afraid of giving offence to the other Indians. 
 The result of the dispute was that the worst two 
 deserted, taking with them the little canoe, while Noel 
 and Saltatha, tempted by many promises of great 
 reward when we reached the fort, agreed to come with 
 us, and Moise sulkily went back to his duty. After 
 we had thus got rid of the element of discord things 
 went on better ; but the loss of the little canoe, besides 
 doing away with our chance of crossing overland to 
 Bathurst Inlet, increased the risk of losing all our pos- 
 sessions by one disaster. A pretty poetical thing is a 
 birch-bark canoe, as it leaps down a sparkling river 
 among its native birch woods, but too frail a craft for 
 a long journey in the rock-bound country beyond the 
 line where timber grows. No chance here to strip the 
 bark from a birch-tree and put a new side in a canoe 
 that has struck a rock in the foaming rapid, or if needs 
 be to build a new canoe altogether ; three square feet 
 of birch-bark, a little gum, and a bundle of fibre were 
 our only resources for effecting repairs. 
 
 The day's journey began with a rapid below, which 
 was a reach of quiet water gradually broadening out 
 into a lake some eight miles in length ; its surface was 
 covered with ice at the north end, but we found an 
 open channel close ashore on the west side and effected 
 a passage through by skirting the bays. Several bands
 
 1 8a THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. XH. 
 
 of musk-ox were seen, and there was always too much 
 anxiety among the men to put ashore and shoot, OF to 
 do anything except push steadily on; just as we were 
 leaving the lake a magnificent bull appeared on the 
 top of a high ridge, and, standing on a flat rock within 
 one hundred yards of us, leisurely surveyed the first 
 human beings who had encroached upon his sanctuary 
 for so many years. 
 
 Below the lake the river makes a sharp bend east- 
 ward, and for three miles is nothing but a succession of 
 rapids. Moise when once at work was a splendid 
 steersman, and he certainly handled the canoe with 
 great skill through this difficult piece of navigation ; 
 we passed the mouths of two big streams coming in 
 from the west, and at camping-time shot into a quiet 
 sandy lake and put ashore for the night. A musk-ox 
 that I killed from the door of the lodge, and the un- 
 limited number of trout that we could catch in the 
 river, enabled us to spend a peaceful Sunday without 
 hunting. We explored towards the east, and came 
 once more upon the iron country, which seems to run 
 with a sharply defined edge in a north-easterly direc- 
 tion. There were few lakes out of the course of the 
 river, but long stretches of flat grassy muskegs ex- 
 tended as far as the eye could see to the west. Four- 
 footed game was plentiful, especially musk-ox ; the 
 caribou that we saw were generally solitary bucks, but 
 it was now nearly time for the does to be coming back 
 from the sea-coast; of the smaller animals we often 
 came across a skulking wolf, a wolverine, an Arctic fox, 
 or a hare, while the holes in the sand-hills were the
 
 CHAP, xii, OF NORTHERN CANADA 183 
 
 abode of numerous siffleurs and ermines. A ferocious 
 little mouse, brown in summer, but turning white as 
 the winter comes on, is very common all over the 
 Barren Ground ; if disturbed from a tuft of grass it 
 will turn on a man and dance with impotent rage 
 at his feet ; these mice naturally fall an easy prey 
 to the hawks and owls, which make a good living here 
 during the summer months. Beyond these predatory 
 birds little feathered life was visible in this part of the 
 country ; a few gulls, terns, and skuas flitted along the 
 reaches of the river, and occasionally a loon or a long- 
 tailed duck could be seen in the lakes. The Canada 
 goose and grey wavy were breeding in the marshes, 
 but not in great quantities ; the main body of geese 
 go right out to the coast to lay their eggs, and do not 
 start for the South till the end of August. 
 
 In the early morning we made a short portage over 
 a small cascade immediately below the camp, and found 
 that the river still held its northerly course through 
 a chain of small lakes connected by short stretches of 
 bad water. We made one more portage at mid-day and 
 ran several rather nasty rapids. After dinner we were 
 obliged to portagfe fully a mile to avoid an impassable 
 reach, and then took more risk than we were justified 
 in doing with our only canoe by running a couple of 
 miles of broken water, full of boulders and with such 
 a heavy sea that we shipped a good deal of water ; 
 luckily we did not touch anything, and dropped safely 
 into a long narrow lake, on the east side of which 
 camp was made for the night. This was the most 
 dangerous day that we made ; as although we always
 
 184 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. XH. 
 
 put ashore to inspect the rapids in case we might dis- 
 cover a waterfall below, we became emboldened by 
 success and ran in safety through some places that we 
 should not have attempted. Back's map of the river 
 would have been a great help to us, but neither this 
 nor an account of the previous journeys that had been 
 made down the stream was procurable at the fort. 
 
 The next day a curious blue haze hung over every- 
 thing, closely resembling the smoke of a forest fire at 
 a distance from the scene of conflagration. The lake 
 that we had camped on proved to be about six miles 
 in length, with the usual rapid at its north end con- 
 necting it with another lake, the size of which we could 
 not at first determine owing to the murky state of the 
 air ; nor could we at once find its outlet, but by keeping 
 in a north-easterly direction soon felt the influence of 
 a current, and found the volume of water much in- 
 creased by the junction of a tributary, which we after- 
 wards discovered came in from the north-west. On 
 the east side of the stream, just as it left the lake, we 
 noticed a circle of flat stones standing on end, evidently 
 put up by human hands, and on landing discovered 
 unmistakable signs of a band of Esquimaux having 
 been encamped there not very long before. Seven 
 small oval-shaped enclosures, surrounded by rough 
 turf-heaps six inches in height, had been the dwelling- 
 places, but we could not determine whether these low 
 walls were the foundations of snow-houses or deer-skin 
 lodges; there were several blackened fireplaces outside, 
 but the fires must have been very small judging from 
 the charred stumps of tiny green willow twigs, and we
 
 CHAP. xii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 185 
 
 saw no wood within several miles of the encampment. 
 The stones propped on end had been used probably 
 for drying meat, and for tying up the dogs to keep 
 them from stealing. Bones and horns of musk-ox and 
 caribou were lying about in every direction, and their 
 numbers showed that this must be a favourite camping- 
 place of the Esquimaux ; some of the musk-ox horns 
 had been cut into rough spoons, and several were 
 found in a half-finished condition. A flat stone kettle 
 was picked up with the grease still sticking to it, and a 
 small piece of copper let into the back, possibly an 
 arrangement for a handle, showed that these people 
 are able to work this metal ; there were also a few 
 bone arrow-heads scattered about in the camp. If any 
 further proof were necessary to determine what tribe 
 of people had camped here, it was forthcoming in the 
 form of several pieces of undressed sealskin with the 
 hair on, and these seemed to be of greater interest to 
 our crew than any of the other discoveries ; arrow- 
 heads, spoons, and kettle were dropped in the con- 
 templation of the skin of an animal they had never 
 seen, and they instantly demanded a description of the 
 seal. After we had told them all we knew upon the 
 subject, we asked their opinion as to the length of time 
 that the Esquimaux had remained here, and when they 
 had left. Saltatha, reading the signs that a white man 
 might miss, came to the conclusion that they had come 
 here in the autumn, as was proved by the hard horns 
 of male caribou lying about, that they had stayed here 
 through the winter, and left late in the spring with 
 dogs on the last snow, about six weeks before our
 
 1 86 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xn. 
 
 arrival. He thought too that they made a practice of 
 coming here regularly, in the same manner that the 
 Yellow Knives come to the head-waters of the river, 
 as the bones appeared to him to have belonged to 
 animals killed at widely differing dates. We found 
 hiding-places among the rocks close to the edge of the 
 river, which had evidently been used for concealing 
 men engaged in spearing the swimming caribou. The 
 only weak point in Saltatha's theory seemed to be the 
 absence of any carcasses of freshly killed caribou ; but 
 it is possible that the Esquimaux may have left before 
 the females came out so far, and the animals would 
 have been later than usual in arriving here owing to 
 the backward nature of the spring. 
 
 When we had thoroughly inspected everything we 
 left again down stream, with a swift current and good 
 water without rapids for eight miles, where we found 
 another lake running more to the eastward than the 
 general course of the river; on the west side of this 
 lake we were obliged to camp, as a strong head-wind 
 raised too much sea to travel against, and rain was 
 falling in torrents. We explored the shore of the lake 
 in hopes of finding further traces of the Esquimaux, 
 but made no discoveries of any kind. No musk-ox 
 were seen this day, but there were enough caribou to 
 provide food for the party. 
 
 With better weather we made an early start in the 
 morning, the river on leaving the lake bending a little 
 more to the eastward, with a swift current for several 
 miles, and two rapids which we ran in safety. A short 
 distance below the second rapid the current slackens
 
 CHAP. xii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 187 
 
 and the stream gets rapidly broader, till, with a sudden 
 sweep to the south-east, the whole length of Beechey 
 Lake comes open ; a long narrow sheet of water, 
 twenty-five miles in length, and nowhere more than 
 two in breadth, lying east and west, and forming a well- 
 defined elbow in the course of the Great Fish River. 
 With a light fair wind, and a blanket set for a sail, we 
 ran down the lake and pitched our lodge on the north 
 shore. Two days were spent in exploration, but again 
 we failed entirely to find any signs of the Esquimaux. 
 Towards the east end of the lake the iron formation 
 shows up once more, and the country is rough to 
 travel through. There was a slight difficulty about 
 provisions at this time as game was scarce, and, though 
 we fully expected to catch fish in the lake and put out 
 our net both nights, not a single fish was taken ; just 
 at the critical time, however, a few female caribou with 
 their young turned up on their way back to the South, 
 and we were relieved of all anxiety. 
 
 As we had promised our crew that we would not 
 descend the river beyond Beechey Lake, and it was 
 already the end of July, orders were reluctantly given 
 on the third day to start up stream with the intention 
 of doing a little exploration to the northward of the 
 old Esquimaux camp, to see if there was any feasible 
 route from there to Bathurst Inlet, as there were 
 no signs of these people having camped in any other 
 place along the river. It seemed a pity to abandon 
 the voyage just at the interesting time, after we had 
 got over all the difficulties of the upper part of the 
 river and had now only a broad stream to follow, with
 
 1 88 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. XH. 
 
 a great deal of easy lake-travel, to reach the Arctic 
 Ocean, and the scene of the final sufferings of the 
 members of Sir John Franklin's last expedition. On 
 the other hand, we had no object in going down to the 
 sea, and there is little pleasure to be got out of a 
 journey of this kind with an unwilling and untrust- 
 worthy crew ; our canoe, too, which was already leaking 
 badly, would have been of very little service for sea 
 work. 
 
 As far as Beechey Lake the south side of the Great 
 Fish River is free from any large tributary streams, so 
 that, if our canoe had been smashed up in a rapid, and 
 we had been able to save guns and ammunition, it 
 would have been easy enough to follow the river 
 on foot ; but on the north side there are several large 
 streams to be forded, and a long detour might be 
 necessary to find a spot shallow enough for this 
 purpose. 
 
 There was much more enthusiasm displayed by the 
 Indian portion of the crew on the up-stream journey, 
 and no encouragement was needful to get a good day's 
 work done. In the river stretches the tracking line 
 was used, and three men at the shore end of it kept 
 the canoe travelling at a lively pace except in the very 
 strong water ; in mounting the second rapid a mistake 
 on the part of Noel, our bowsman, caused a heavy 
 collision with a rock, and several hours were spent in 
 putting in a patch of birch-bark. On the second night 
 we pitched our lodge on the sandy lake within sight of 
 the Esquimaux camp, and found a considerable stream 
 coming in from a north-westerly direction. I cannot
 
 CHAP. xii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 189 
 
 find any mention of this stream in the accounts of the 
 two former journeys down the river, nor is it marked 
 on the maps ; it was probably unnoticed on both 
 occasions, as it comes in at the west end of the lake, 
 out of the course of a canoe passing up or down the 
 main river. 
 
 Mackinlay, Murdo, and myself started on foot the 
 following morning, to explore this stream for a couple 
 of days, taking David with us in case we came across 
 any of his countrymen. The malcontents were left in 
 charge of the camp, with orders to kill caribou if any 
 passed, and partially dry the meat to save the waste of 
 time caused by having to hunt for our living as we 
 travelled; they were also to thoroughly gum the 
 canoe, to stop as much as possible the leaking which 
 was getting serious. 
 
 We struck out along the bank of the stream, carry- 
 ing nothing but a gun and a blanket apiece, and at 
 .dinner-time were lucky enough to find a flock of moult- 
 ing Canada geese, unable to fly ; four were shot, and 
 two eaten at once, while the other two were stowed 
 away among the rocks for use later on. We had a 
 long day's walk through a pleasant grassy country, and 
 towards evening crossed an unusually high range of 
 hills through which the river canons. Finding a few 
 willows here, we left our blankets, and walked on along 
 the bank for an hour or two, finally climbing a solitary 
 sand-butte at sundown for a last survey of the country 
 before turning our faces to the south. 
 
 Far away towards the north-west we could trace the 
 windings of the stream to a ridge of blue hills, which
 
 1 9 o THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xn. 
 
 formed the horizon under the setting sun. How these 
 blue ridges in the distance tempt one to push on and 
 see what lies on the far side ! And the experience 
 that nine times out of ten you would have done better 
 to stay where you were is never sufficient to overcome 
 this feeling; to this day I can seldom resist it, although 
 game may be plentiful at the door of my lodge and 
 everything that one desires in a wild country is close 
 at hand. Below us lay a broad valley, so green and 
 fertile in appearance that we could hardly realise that 
 for nine months in the year it lay frost-bound and 
 snow-covered under the rigour of an Arctic climate. 
 In the middle of this valley, close to the bank of the 
 stream, was a black object that we had long ago learnt 
 to recognise at a glance, an old bull musk-ox feeding 
 in a patch of willow-scrub ; he was sacrificed for our 
 night's rations, and, loaded with meat and marrow- 
 bones, we returned to the canon where we had left our 
 blankets. There was a distinct twilight, and late in 
 the night David awoke me to draw my attention to the 
 first star that we had seen for many weeks. ' See,' he 
 said, ' a star already ; it is past middle summer, and we 
 have not yet seen the sun all night.' It was the first 
 summer he had ever spent without seeing the midnight 
 sun, as, since he had been left at the Peel River Fort 
 by a band of Esquimaux who come there annually to 
 trade, he had passed his life within the Arctic circle. 
 
 The only signs that we saw of people having 
 travelled along this valley were occasional cache-marks 
 made by piling up a heap of small stones in a con- 
 spicuous position, to denote the carcass of an animal
 
 CHAP. xii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 191 
 
 hidden in the rocks close by ; but it seems such an 
 easy route and leads so nearly in the direction of 
 Bathurst Inlet, the nearest point on the sea-coast, that 
 it is probably used regularly by wandering bands of 
 Esquimaux on their way to and from their inland 
 hunting-ground. 
 
 This was the end of our voyage of discovery, though 
 I should have liked to have pushed on another day or 
 two ; but we wanted a small canoe to be certain of 
 reaching the coast, which must have been within sixty 
 miles of us, as there are sure to be many lakes to cross 
 en route, and making long detours on foot would be an 
 endless task. The fine weather also had broken, and 
 heavy showers of rain came driving in front of the 
 north wind, while the rest of our crew that had re- 
 mained with the canoe were not too trustworthy, and, 
 with the exception of Saltatha, in whom bothMackinlay 
 and myself had great confidence, were quite capable of 
 leaving us to find our way out of the country on foot. 
 We had to content ourselves with the hope that in a 
 future summer, with an earlier season and a better 
 crew, we might find an opportunity of exploring 
 thoroughly this promising valley in the Barren 
 Ground. But now I must turn my attention to my 
 long journey of seventeen hundred miles, mostly up- 
 stream, to cross the Rocky Mountains by the head- 
 waters of the Peace River before the winter set in ; 
 and even if I could manage this there were still many 
 hundred miles of mountain and forest to be crossed 
 before I saw the shores of the Pacific and the abodes 
 of civilization.
 
 192 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. XH. 
 
 When we reached the lodge we found that the 
 Indians had made a stupid slaughter of caribou, and, 
 not contented with taking as much meat as we could 
 carry, had been recklessly killing the females and young 
 that were now passing in great numbers. The love of 
 killing seems deeply rooted in the nature of most men, 
 but the Yellow Knives have it more fully developed 
 than other people. This indiscriminate slaughter is 
 especially culpable in a land where ammunition is 
 scarce, and not to be replaced when wasted by needless 
 firing. 
 
 The next morning we picked out of our trading-stock 
 a few presents to be left in the Esquimaux camp, as 
 a sign that there were people in the interior willing to 
 be on friendly terms with the people of the coast. 
 Knives, axes, beads, and files, a couple of hand- 
 mirrors, a few strips of red cloth, and a flannel shirt or 
 two were stuffed into a copper kettle, which would be 
 itself the biggest prize of all. On lifting the lid, the 
 first object to meet the eye of the wondering Esqui- 
 maux would be the photograph of the Protestant 
 missionary at Fort Resolution, which David had been 
 keeping among his small stock of treasures ; it was 
 a photograph of a Church of England clergyman, in 
 clerical costume, and should certainly give the Esqui- 
 maux a favourable idea of the style of man who had 
 visited their camping-place. We also put in a note 
 asking anyone who might read it to let us know in 
 what manner it had come to hand, as it is uncertain 
 whether these scattered bands of Esquimaux ever visit 
 the Hudson's Bay Company's summer trading-post on
 
 CHAP. xii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 193 
 
 Marble Island, which lies a great distance away at 
 the mouth of Chesterfield Inlet, or whether they only 
 know of the white men by hearsay from other tribes 
 that trade annually with the Company. The kettle 
 was carefully stowed in one of the pits made for watch- 
 ing the swimming caribou, and a canoe-pole, bearing 
 a gaudy cotton handkerchief for a flag, planted along- 
 side to attract attention. Everybody tried their 
 handiwork at sketching our story with burnt sticks on 
 the conspicuous flat rocks close to the river : there was 
 a picture of a canoe, with seven upright black lines 
 supposed to represent seven men ; another of a Yellow 
 Knife and an Esquimaux (though the artist could not 
 say which was which) shaking hands with the greatest 
 affection ; while David was certainly entitled to the 
 first prize for a bloodthirsty sketch of a misshapen 
 musk-ox, with a thin black line, again supposed to be 
 a man, transfixed on the point of his horn. When we 
 thought we had represented everything to perfection, 
 we turned our backs on the land of the Esquimaux and 
 plodded away up stream, tracking and portaging in the 
 river-stretches, and paddling through the lakes which 
 are always a great help in mounting a stream. 
 
 We now came in for a spell of really bad weather, 
 which made the uphill work very laborious. A heavy 
 unceasing downpour of rain, and sometimes sleet, 
 continued day after day, accompanied by strong winds. 
 The men all worked well and without much grumbling, 
 although we were never dry and in many places the 
 tracking had to be done waist-deep in water ; at night 
 we slept in our wet clothes, on the wet ground, rolled 
 
 o
 
 194 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. XH. 
 
 up in our sopping blankets. This is the killing weather, 
 and one needs perfect health to resists its effects ; the 
 dry cold of a northern winter is child's play in compari- 
 son. Saltatha, who had hurt himself by a nasty fall 
 while carrying a heavy load over a portage, broke 
 down completely at this time, and was unable to work 
 during the rest of the trip. We could do nothing for 
 him, as there was no medicine of any kind in the 
 outfit, and he had to take his chance with the rest. 
 I think he came very near dying while we were running 
 down Lockhart's River; he lost all strength and was 
 spitting blood freely for a fortnight, but ultimately 
 recovered in a miraculous manner. We worked long 
 days tracking up-stream, but were continually delayed 
 by having to patch up the canoe every time she touched 
 a rock ; it was just as well we did not go down to the 
 mouth of the river, for she would certainly not have 
 stood another three weeks' work of this kind. Another 
 trouble was the scarcity of moccasins, which were 
 completely worn out by a single day's walk on the 
 sharp rocks along the river's bank. 
 
 In eight days we reached Musk-ox Lake, and, 
 finding the wind too strong to paddle against, we put 
 ashore on the east side and took advantage of a little 
 sunshine to thoroughly dry all our belongings. From 
 this camp we saw the last musk-ox, and, crossing the 
 bay with a canoe, went in pursuit as our meat supply 
 was short. Some of the guns were posted, and others 
 tried to drive the animals, but we made a mess of the 
 hunt and the whole band escaped ; my last remem- 
 brance of the animals that I had started out a year
 
 CHAP. xii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 195 
 
 before on purpose to kill, being a stern view of a grand 
 old bull disappearing at a gallop over a ridge, and 
 a puff of dust just behind him, marking the spot where 
 a badly aimed rifle-bullet had struck the ground. A 
 caribou, however, supplied us with meat, but we had 
 some trouble in picking him up, as he was killed in the 
 water and it was no easy matter to tow his carcass 
 ashore against the gale of wind that was raging. 
 Mackinlay and myself for once got ahead of the wol- 
 verines on this occasion. We saw three coming our 
 way before they saw us, and, lying behind a rock, 
 bowled them all over ; a right and left at wolverines 
 is seldom brought about in a lifetime, but it is very 
 satisfactory when one thinks of the stolen caches and 
 consequent hard times that these wily brutes are re- 
 sponsible for. 
 
 From the south end of the lake I walked ahead with 
 Mackinlay, starting early in the morning, and at mid- 
 day sighted three lodges on the Aylmer Lake divide. 
 We fired a signal-shot which brought everybody out, 
 and we were soon surrounded by Capot Blanc's brigade, 
 and deluged with questions as to what had happened 
 and why we had come back alone ; for surely some- 
 thing evil had taken place in the country that always 
 slopes downhill. With our small command of the 
 Yellow Knife language, and plenty of signs, we made 
 them understand that the canoe was by this time at 
 the first lake, and the water was so low in the river 
 that it would be necessary to portage the whole 
 distance. All the available men and women went to 
 help our crew to carry the loads, and by sundown our 
 
 o 2
 
 196 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xn. 
 
 lodge was once more planted by the water that finds 
 its way to the Great Slave Lake and runs a course of 
 a thousand miles before falling into the Arctic Sea. 
 
 It took half a day to settle accounts with the Indians 
 who had been working for us on our way up to Musk- 
 ox Lake, while the women were busy gumming the 
 canoe and getting her in order for the run down 
 Lockhart's River. A good proportion of the wages 
 due were paid out of the remainder of our trading- 
 stock that had been intended for the Esquimaux if we 
 had met them. The box that contained this small 
 supply of goods had been an object of strife the whole 
 time. The Indians had the strongest objection to any 
 of the products of the Grand Pays passing through 
 their country being given to strangers, and we had 
 been careful not to let them see the gaudy contents of 
 the box, or we should have been troubled with the 
 constant begging that the Yellow Knives think will 
 eventually gain them the object they desire. Imagina- 
 tion had run high as to the contents of the fairy casket, 
 and there was a great rush when it was announced that 
 any of the men to whom wages were due might take 
 what they fancied. They had seen pressed bales of 
 blankets landed at the fort on the arrival of the yearly 
 outfit from Winnipeg, and had been surprised at the 
 number of blankets that could be squeezed into a small 
 space ; there was an idea prevalent that our box had 
 been packed on the same principle, and might contain 
 an abundant supply of all the good things that only the 
 white men know how to make. Some disappointment 
 was shown when it turned out that we had only been
 
 CHAP. xii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 197 
 
 speaking the truth in answering their petitions by 
 telling them we had such a small stock that nothing 
 could be spared. The trade went off to the satis- 
 faction of both sides ; the Indians obtained the trinkets 
 so dear to their vanity, and we lightened our load for 
 the numerous portages that lay between us and the 
 Great Slave Lake. There was some question as to 
 what it was best to do with Saltatha ; whether to leave 
 him here with his friends, or to let him take his chance 
 of the canoe journey to the fort, where medicine could 
 possibly be obtained ; at his own request we decided 
 on the latter course, and during the first few days his 
 health seemed to improve. 
 
 The route that we were now to take was the same 
 that Back and Anderson had both chosen, following the 
 Lockhart's River down-stream through the immense 
 lakes that lie in its course, gradually bending to the 
 south-west, and avoiding the impassable obstructions 
 in the lower part of the river by portaging through 
 a chain of lakes, the last of which is only three miles 
 distant from the north-east end of the Great Slave 
 Lake. The boat was to meet us on August ist, and 
 as it was already several days past that date we deter- 
 mined to travel our best, although there was a chance 
 of getting windbound in any of the big lakes.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LATE in the afternoon, with a great improvement in 
 the weather, our canoe was afloat on Aylmer Lake 
 (known to the Indians as the Lake of the Big Cliffs), 
 over which she had been dragged on a dog-sleigh five 
 weeks before. The following evening we passed into 
 the short stretch of river that leaves its east end, and 
 camped late on the south shore of Clinton Golden 
 Lake, or, as the Yellow Knives call it, the Lake where 
 the Caribou swim among the Ice. The vast body of 
 water opened out before us into apparently a perfect 
 circle, and now for the first time we were in doubt as 
 to our course, for there was nothing to indicate the 
 point at which the river leaves the far end of the lake ; 
 the east shore was invisible from the slight hill behind 
 our camp, although it was a clear bright morning. We 
 had two maps with us, one, the latest issued under the 
 Dominion Government's directions, and the other, an 
 old 1834 map of Arrowsmith's which we had discovered 
 at the fort ; they offered very divergent opinions as to 
 the general lay of Lockhart's River, and it says little 
 for later geographical research that the older map 
 should have been by far the more accurate of the 
 two.
 
 CHAP. xiii. NORTHERN CANADA 199 
 
 We put out at three o'clock in the morning to take 
 advantage of calm weather to make the crossing of the 
 lake, and after paddling about eight miles went ashore 
 on an island to cook breakfast and reconnoitre. From 
 here we could see the faint outline of land to the east, 
 and made out that what had appeared a circle consisted 
 in reality of three enormous bays, one heading east, 
 one south-east, and the third south-west. Which was 
 the right one to take ? An appeal to Saltatha and 
 Noel, who were supposed to have local knowledge, 
 produced no results ; Noel said he thought the east 
 bay was the right one, while Saltatha, pointing south- 
 west, said perhaps that was the correct course to 
 follow. It ended in our taking the middle bay, and, 
 for the benefit of the next party that crosses this lake, 
 I may state that there is a peculiar conical butte lying 
 roughly twenty miles south-east from this island ; it is 
 just visible above the horizon, and is a capital leading 
 mark to bring a canoe into a long narrow arm of the 
 lake, which afterwards broadens again into a huge 
 round sheet of water, and here, by keeping close to 
 the east shore for five miles, the entrance to the river 
 will be found. It was in great uncertainty that we 
 headed our frail vessel across the broad traverse with 
 a blanket set in front of a light fair wind ; at noon we 
 again put ashore on an island, and, killing a caribou, 
 made a long halt for dinner. We climbed to the 
 highest point of land but could make nothing out of 
 our survey, and continued coasting along the island 
 till we reached its south end, and then found ourselves 
 in the channel I have mentioned. No current was
 
 200 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xm. 
 
 noticeable, and we pushed on through the winding 
 waterway, in fear that it might be a cul de sac and 
 we should have to turn back and try our luck in some 
 other direction. On landing, however, we saw a sheet 
 of water ahead of us, so broad that the far shore was 
 below the horizon, and, on passing out of the channel 
 we had been following, pitched camp on the east side 
 of the lake, still uncertain as to where the river lay. 
 Very early in the morning we were under way again, 
 and followed the land to make sure that we did not 
 pass the opening of the river, if indeed we were any- 
 where near it. About six o'clock there came a shout 
 from the bowsman, that he saw a pole planted among 
 the rocks ashore, and the canoe at once began to feel 
 the influence of a slight current. Rounding a low 
 point, a reach of strong running water lay before us, 
 and we landed to see what was the meaning of the 
 pole. A broken piece of babiche hanging from it told 
 the old story of a rifled cache, another evidence of the 
 wolverine's handiwork. 
 
 Among the Indians who had come to the fort during 
 the winter to trade fur was a hunter generally known 
 by the name of Pierre the Fool, though it seems hard 
 to understand how one of the most intelligent Indians 
 in the country of the Great Slave Lake had earned 
 this soubriquet. Pierre had been much interested in 
 our expedition. Every summer he pitched his lodge 
 where the river leaves the lake in which the caribou 
 swim among the ice, to make dried meat to sell at the 
 fort ; his hunt this year had been successful, and, when 
 he broke up his camp, he had faithfully kept his pro-
 
 CHAP. xiii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 201 
 
 mise to leave us a cache of pounded meat and grease, 
 but the wolverines had reaped the benefit. Just below 
 the camp we saw plain evidence of the slaughter he 
 had made among the swimming caribou ; what we took 
 at first for a bunch of remarkably big willow sticks 
 proved to be the horns of fifty or sixty bucks, lying in 
 shallow water at the edge of the stream ; and enough 
 meat to keep an Indian family for a year, if properly 
 cured, was rotting in the sun. 
 
 After a mile of strong running stream the river falls 
 into another lake, and immediately makes a sharp bend 
 to the south-west, and, during the rest of the descent, 
 we travelled in that direction with little variation till 
 we reached the Great Slave Lake. Saltatha now 
 began to recognise the country, and there was no 
 more doubt about the way ; but had we been left to 
 our own judgment, we should have certainly gone 
 wrong in this first lake, as there is a promising bay 
 heading in to the south. None of the maps show this 
 bend in the stream at all correctly, nor do they take 
 any notice of the next lake, the Indians' Ptarmigan 
 Lake, a large sheet of water fully twenty miles in 
 length, which Pierre the Fool afterwards told us 
 lies within a short portage of the west bay of Clinton 
 Golden Lake. 
 
 We now fell in again with the big herds of caribou. 
 For the last few weeks we had only seen enough to 
 provide us with meat, but here they were in their 
 thousands, and I am sorry to say that our crew did 
 far too much killing, during the short spell of bad 
 weather which forced us to camp on Ptarmigan Lake.
 
 202 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xm. 
 
 The excuse was that the hides were now at their best 
 for coats and robes ; but even so, far more were killed 
 than could be used for this purpose. 
 
 We made rather a risky passage down the lake in 
 front of a strong wind and heavy sea, and at the west 
 end found an ugly rapid six hundred yards in length : 
 the cargo was portaged and the canoe run light in 
 safety; and, after crossing a short lake, another rapid 
 was negotiated in the same manner. In this second 
 portage stood a solitary pine-tree, round which we all 
 crowded as in welcome of an old friend after our long 
 journey in a woodless country. Just below there was 
 an impassable rapid, the only real impediment to 
 navigation from the head of Mackay Lake to the 
 foot of Artillery Lake, a distance of four hundred 
 miles. Below the portage we ran five or six miles 
 down a steady swift current, occasionally widening out 
 into a small lake, with caribou continually swimming 
 across the river ahead of the canoe, and late at night 
 camped on the edge of a huge lake with a clear horizon 
 to the west. This proved to be Artillery Lake, and at 
 four o'clock next morning we were running down the 
 south shore, in front of a gale of wind with our smallest 
 blanket set for a sail. The day was much colder, with 
 a few flakes of snow flying, and everybody was pleased 
 to put ashore in a clump of pine-trees at dinner-time ; 
 the wind moderated towards evening, and, crossing to 
 the north shore, we camped once again in the strong 
 woods. The timber line is much more clearly defined 
 here than on the other routes by which I approached 
 the Barren Ground ; the outlying clumps of pines ex-
 
 CHAP. xin. OF NORTHERN CANADA 203 
 
 tend to a very short distance, and their growth ceases 
 entirely within seventy miles of the Great Slave Lake. 
 If it should ever again prove necessary to reach the 
 Arctic Sea by way of the Great Fish River, Artillery 
 Lake would, in my opinion, be by far the best place at 
 which to build light boats for the voyage ; the timber 
 is quite large enough, and only one portage has to be 
 made to reach the Aylmer Lake divide. 
 
 The next morning we reached the end of Artillery 
 Lake, which we reckoned roughly at forty-five miles in 
 length, and passed into a narrow channel with hardly 
 any current. Towards mid-day a couple of small canoes 
 appeared ahead of us, and the usual formalities of 
 saluting ensued. When they came alongside the oc- 
 cupants were asked for the news, and they informed 
 us that the burnt Indian was drowned, that the caribou 
 had been passing more thickly than ever known before, 
 and that the fort boat had not yet arrived at the ap- 
 pointed meeting-place. The burnt Indian seems to 
 have been badly out of luck. He had rolled into his 
 camp-fire during a fit, and was found with his . feet 
 burnt off; after being doctored by the missionary for 
 many months, and cured as far as it was possible to 
 cure such a case, the cripple had left the fort with 
 some of his relations to get back among the caribou, 
 but on the second day out was drowned by capsizing 
 his canoe. We could not account for the non-arrival 
 of the boat, as we ourselves were already a fortnight 
 later than the day agreed upon for meeting. 
 
 Round the next bend of the stream were six lodges, 
 and the first greeting we received was from old Syene,
 
 204 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xm. 
 
 the Medicine Man. There was no doubt that the 
 caribou had been passing, as the children and dogs 
 were rolling fat, and an unmistakeable air of plethora 
 from much feasting hung over the camp. Only four 
 days before there had been one of those big slaughters, 
 which one would think could not fail in a short time to 
 exterminate the caribou. A large band had been seen 
 to start from the opposite bank, and was soon sur- 
 rounded by seven hunting-canoes ; the spears were 
 kept going as long as there was life to take, with the 
 result that three hundred and twenty-six carcasses were 
 hauled ashore, and fully two hundred of these left to 
 rot in the shallow water. Every lodge was full of 
 meat and grease in various forms, and there would be 
 a cargo for the boat to take back to the fort. Pierre 
 the Fool, who was camped here, was in great form, 
 and at once presented us with a bunch of smoked 
 tongues and a bladder of marrow grease. He gave us 
 a great deal of information about the country eastward 
 of Clinton Golden Lake, and in a much more intelligent 
 manner than the usual Indian method of constant 
 repetition ; he told us there were fewer lakes in that 
 direction than in any other part of the Barren Ground 
 that he had visited, but he was always obliged to take 
 a small canoe with him, to cross a big stream running 
 in a southerly direction, three days' easy travel from 
 Clinton Golden Lake. Once, when he had pushed out 
 farther than usual, he had seen smoke in the distance, 
 and came upon a camp that the Esquimaux from 
 Hudson's Bay had just left ; they had been cutting 
 \\ ood for their sleighs in a clump of well-grown pines,
 
 CHAP. xin. OF NORTHERN CANADA 205 
 
 and Pierre, who shares the dread which every Yellow 
 Knife has of the Coast tribes, had been afraid to 
 follow them. From the fact of his having seen the 
 pine-trees, which are said not to extend far from the 
 salt water of Hudson's Bay, he must have been within 
 a short distance of the coast. 
 
 On the day after our arrival in the encampment a 
 general movement was made ; the lodges were thrown 
 down, and the women and dogs received heavy loads 
 to carry to the Great Slave Lake. Lockhart's River 
 on leaving Artillery Lake becomes a wild torrent, 
 falling several hundred feet in twenty miles, and is 
 quite useless for navigation, so we had to make use of 
 a chain of lakes, eight in number, lying to the south of 
 the stream. This is by far the prettiest part of the 
 country that I saw in the North, and it was looking its 
 best under the bright sunshine that continued till we 
 reached the fort. Scattering timber, spruce and birch, 
 clothed the sloping banks down to the sandy shores of 
 the lakes ; berries of many kinds grew in profusion ; 
 the portages were short and down hill ; and caribou 
 were walking the ridges and swimming the lakes in 
 every direction. A perfect northern fairyland it was, 
 and it seemed hard to believe that winter and want 
 could ever penetrate here ; but on the shore of a 
 lovely blue lake Pierre the Fool pointed out a spot 
 where the last horrors of death and cannibalism had 
 been enacted within his memory. Sometimes a column 
 of smoke would be seen ahead, and we paddled by a 
 lodge where the fat sleepy children were revelling in 
 the abundance of grease. Late on the second day
 
 206 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xm. 
 
 a white object on the shore attracted general attention : 
 ' It is a wolf, a white caribou ; no, a man, a man in 
 a white shirt, it must be one of the boat's crew ' ; and 
 so it proved to be. The white shirt was a libel, but 
 the clean canvas jumper quite deserved the admiration 
 it had received, especially in contrast with our own 
 rags. The boat had arrived from Fort Resolution in 
 charge of Franois Mandville, another brother of 
 Michel the fort interpreter. Franyois had been 
 alarmed at not finding us at the meeting-place, and 
 had immediately dispatched four of the crew in a 
 large canoe, with a supply of tea, tobacco, and flour, to 
 ascend the river in hopes of finding us. But the 
 relief party had come across the fresh tracks of caribou 
 in the first portage ; it was long since they had tasted 
 meat, so the canoe was put down in the woods, and the 
 ' big masters,' who were supposed to be lost in the 
 Barren Ground, were forgotten. The man we met had 
 come on to see some relations who were camped 
 among the lakes, and, as he was discovered to be 
 possessed of tobacco, we made him share up, and sat 
 on the beach enjoying the first smoke for many days, 
 and hearing the accounts of what little events had 
 happened during a short summer on the Great Slave 
 Lake. But it was getting late, and we still had the 
 longest portage to make. At the end of the last lake 
 we abandoned the canoe that had done me such good 
 service on two long journeys, and with loads on our 
 backs followed the well-worn trail that the Indians 
 have used from time immemorial as a route to their 
 hunting-grounds. A natural pass with a steep descent
 
 CHAP. xiii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 207 
 
 led between the rough broken hills on each side, and 
 a three-mile walk brought us within sight of the waters 
 of the big lake. Below us, close by the edge of the 
 bay, there were already several lodges planted, and 
 over a white tent floated the old red ensign bearing in 
 the corner the letters H. B. C. so welt known through- 
 out the whole dominion of Canada. A shot from the 
 last ridge aroused the encampment, and soon a general 
 fusilade took place ; a fleet of canoes, running with 
 blankets set to a fair wind far across the bay, took up 
 the firing and headed for the shore, while every Indian 
 within sound of gun-shot hurried to hear the news and 
 join in the trading which was sure to take place on 
 our arrival. 
 
 Here we found everything that a man in the wilds 
 longs for, flour, bacon, tea, tobacco, sugar, a packet of 
 letters from England written many months before, 
 and a bottle of brandy, the first ' fire-water ' that had 
 come our way for a year. Women and dogs heavily 
 loaded with bales of meat and bladders of grease kept 
 dropping in from across the portage ; a dance was set 
 on foot and kept up all night round the huge camp 
 fires, while the tall pine-trees looked down on a scene 
 of feasting and revelry such as had probably never 
 been known on the shores of this pleasant bay. 
 
 Poor Saltatha, who had been very bad for the last 
 week, crawled into our lodge late at night, and threw 
 himself down on a blanket in a state of utter exhaustion. 
 In spite of the best law in Canada, which forbids a 
 white man to give an Indian any intoxicating drink, 
 under penalty of a $200 fine, I determined to try if
 
 2o8 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xin. 
 
 brandy could do him any good. Saltatha had never 
 tasted the strong water, but had heard much of its 
 wonderful qualities, and made no objection to trying 
 the cure. I gave him a small dose, but it had a 
 wonderful effect ; his eyes became round and big, and 
 once again he started the dismal chant that he had 
 been so fond of during our musk-ox hunt last winter. 
 He was hopelessly drunk, and, when he was seized 
 with a violent fit of coughing and his head fell on the 
 blanket like a dead man's, I thought I had made 
 a sad mess of my doctoring. Early in the morning 
 I got up to see if he was dead, and was relieved to 
 find him much better and keen for some more brandy, 
 which I refused ; he had had very pleasant dreams he 
 said, and the pain had gone from his chest to his head. 
 From that time he improved in health, his strength 
 came back rapidly, and when I left the fort a week 
 later, he looked as well as ever. 
 
 Two days were spent in trading for the meat which 
 kept coming in, and during this time we sent out 
 a hunting-party to kill fresh meat, which we hoped 
 would keep till we reached the fort if we made a good 
 passage. At Resolution times were very hard ; few 
 fish were being caught, and the return of the boat was 
 anxiously expected. Many caribou were killed, and 
 our ship was well loaded with fresh meat, besides over 
 three thousand pounds of dried meat, two hundred 
 pounds of grease, bunches of tongues, coils of babiche 
 and sinew, and a little fur that had been killed 
 during the spring. 
 
 The Indians all left on the evening of the second
 
 CHAP. xni. OF NORTHERN CANADA 209 
 
 day, and early the following morning we put to sea in 
 a flat calm. Before leaving we went through the 
 ceremony of cutting a lop-stick, as is the fashion of 
 the North, to commemorate our expedition. A con- 
 spicuous pine was chosen, a man sent aloft to lop off 
 the lower branches, while Mackinlay and myself cut 
 our names on the trunk ; then everybody discharged 
 their guns at the tree, and the performance was ended. 
 Often in the lonely waterways of the Northern country 
 one sees a lop-stick showing far ahead on the bank, and 
 reads a name celebrated in the annals of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company or in the history of Arctic exploration. 
 These lop-sticks are easily distinguished landmarks, 
 well known to the voyageurs, and many an appointment 
 has been kept at Campbell's, Macdougal's, or Macfar- 
 lane's tree. In giving directions to a stranger it is 
 hopeless to describe the points and bends of a monoto- 
 nous river highway, but a lop-stick does the duty of a 
 signpost and at once settles the question of locality. 
 
 Two hundred miles of the Great Slave Lake lay 
 between us and the fort, but a steady wind came from 
 the north, and the shallow-draught York boat ran in 
 front of it so well that on the fourth night we camped 
 on the Mission Island within a couple of miles of Fort 
 Resolution. A worse boat for the navigation of the 
 lake could hardly be imagined. A huge square sail, 
 set on a mast shipped right amidships, does good 
 work so long as the wind is abaft the beam ; but when 
 a head-wind springs up, too strong to row against, it is 
 a case of hauling ashore on the beach, as no anchor is 
 carried. Steep cliffs on a lee shore have to be care- 
 
 p
 
 2io THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xm. 
 
 fully avoided, for it is impossible to propel such a 
 vessel to windward in a heavy sea. On the present 
 occasion, however, we were in great luck, and I never 
 remember a more pleasant voyage in a sailing-boat. 
 A run up the English Channel in a well-found yacht, 
 with fair wind and sunshine, is enjoyable enough ; but 
 there are seldom any blankets to lie about in on deck, 
 and there is always some stray peak or jib-halliard 
 that wants pulling on, besides continual threats of 
 setting or stowing a topsail, which prevents your 
 settling down into a comfortable position. Here we 
 had nothing to worry us ; the wind blew fair, and we 
 lay in our blankets, smoking and looking at the land, 
 as the boat glided along the narrow blue lanes, among 
 islands that the foot of white man had never pressed. 
 Four times a day we put ashore to boil the kettle, and 
 at night slept by the side of a huge fire in the thick 
 pine-woods; darkness lasted many hours now, and 
 prevented navigation among the countless islands and 
 outlying rocks. On the fourth day we crossed the 
 grand traverse, and, leaving the He de Pierre after 
 nightfall, ran for Mission Island with a strong wind 
 blowing in from the open lake. Crossing the mouth 
 of the big river was rather risky work in the dark, as 
 the sandy battures ran far off to sea and the waves 
 were breaking heavily in the shallow water; the 
 sounding-pole gave only four feet in one place, but we 
 ran across without touching, and at midnight camped 
 at the back of Mission Island. 
 
 The sun was just rising on Sunday, August the 
 24th, when we ran the boat on the beach in front of
 
 CHAP. xin. OF NORTHERN CANADA 211 
 
 Fort Resolution, and a glance at the faces that gathered 
 round told us that living had been none too good, and 
 that a man is sometimes better off among the caribou 
 than depending upon an uncertain fishery for a liveli- 
 hood. With all thanks to priest and parson, Indian 
 and half-breed, for the kind welcome they gave us, 
 I noticed many an eye glancing furtively at our rich 
 cargo from the land of plenty ; and the rejoicings that 
 day maybe attributed equally to joy at our safe arrival 
 and to the influence of a feast of fresh meat after many 
 weeks of short allowance. 
 
 I could afford to make only a short stay at Reso- 
 lution, as the season was far advanced, and I had to 
 start at once to avoid the chance of being caught by 
 the winter during my long journey. Of the three 
 routes that might enable me to do this I should have 
 preferred the ascent of the Liard River, which falls into 
 the Mackenzie at Fort Simpson. From its head- 
 waters at Dease Lake, in the once celebrated mining 
 district of Cassiar, the Pacific Coast is reached at Fort 
 Wrangel in Southern Alaska without difficulty ; but 
 the Liard itself is full of terrors, even for the hardy 
 voyageurs of the North, and although Mr. Camsell 
 offered every inducement to men to accompany me he 
 was unable to get together a crew. Formerly the 
 Company had an establishment at Fort Halket on the 
 west branch of the Liard, but the difficulties of convey- 
 ing supplies, and the frequent occurrence of starvation, 
 made it a hard post to maintain ; finally a boat's crew 
 were drowned by a capsize in one of the worst rapids, 
 and the fort was abandoned. The Athabasca I had 
 
 P 2
 
 212 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xm. 
 
 seen, and not caring to go over old ground I decided 
 on ascending the Peace River to its head-waters in 
 the neighbourhood of Macleod's Lake on the west side 
 of the Rocky Mountains, and, crossing the small divide, 
 to run down the Fraser River to Quesnelle, a small 
 town on the southern edge of the Caribou Gold Fields 
 of Northern British Columbia. 
 
 The Wrigley had made her last up-stream voyage 
 for the year, and was daily expected from Fort Smith. 
 I was thus obliged to depend on canoe travelling to 
 reach Chipeweyan on the Athabasca Lake, some three 
 hundred miles distant ; if we had arrived at the fort ten 
 days earlier I could have saved much valuable time by 
 making this part of my journey by steamer. 
 
 Taking advantage of frequent experience that it is 
 better to leave a fort overnight, even if camp be made 
 within a couple of miles, than to trust to an early start 
 in the morning, it was after sundown on the 26th when 
 I said good-bye to Resolution, not without a feeling of 
 regret, and the hope of seeing at some future time the 
 place where I had been so well treated. There are 
 few spots in the world in which one can live for a year 
 without making some friends, and when I left this 
 lonely trading-post there were many faces on the 
 beach that I should like to see again. Saltatha was 
 the last man to shake hands with me as I stepped into 
 the canoe ; he tried to extract a promise from me to 
 come back the next summer for another expedition in 
 the Barren Ground, and was much disappointed when 
 I told him that I certainly could not return for two 
 years, and perhaps not even then. No need to feel
 
 CHAP. xiii. OF NORTHERN CANADA . 213 
 
 pity for the people left behind, although I was going 
 to civilization and all the good things that this word 
 comprises. A man who has spent much time under 
 the influence of the charm which the North exercises 
 over everybody wants nothing better than to be 
 allowed to finish his life in the peace and quietness 
 which reign by the shores of the Great Slave Lake. 
 Ask the priest, when you meet him struggling against 
 a head-wind and driving snow on his way to some 
 Indian encampment, whether he ever sighs for his 
 sunny France. ' No,' he will tell you ; ' here I have 
 everything I want and nothing to distract my thoughts; 
 I enjoy perfect health, and I feel no desire to go back 
 to the worries of the great world.' So it is with the 
 fur-trader; the mysterious charm has a firm hold on 
 him, and if he is in charge of a post where provisions 
 are fairly plentiful and the Indians not troublesome 
 he has a happy life indeed. I was sorry to have 
 missed seeing the Mackenzie River, La Grande 
 Riviere en Bas, as they call it at Fort Resolution, but 
 to do this meant spending another winter and another 
 summer in the country, and I could not afford the 
 time. 
 
 The first evening out from the fort we camped near 
 the mouth of the Slave River, on the same spot where 
 I had spent a night with King Beaulieu and his family 
 more than a year before. My crew now consisted of 
 Murdo Mackay and three half-breeds, while Mac- 
 kinlay, who had proved such a trusty companion during 
 our summer journey, was to accompany me till we met 
 the steamer. This happened the next morning, and
 
 214 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xm. 
 
 after an hour of hurried questions and answers, and 
 farewells to men who seemed more like old friends 
 than comparative strangers whom I had met once the 
 year before, The Wrigley put her head down-stream, 
 and we continued our voyage through the wilderness 
 of pines, cotton-wood, and willow. 
 
 Pierre Beaulieu was captain and guide of the canoe, 
 and a right good traveller he proved to be ; no lying 
 snug in your blankets in the early morning, but break- 
 fast in black darkness, and the paddles or tracking-line 
 in full swing at the first sign of the coming day. 
 Sometimes he would put ashore and start us off through 
 the woods, with canoe and cargo on our backs, to drop 
 on the river again at the end of the portage, and find 
 that we had saved many miles of laborious up-stream 
 work by cutting across a bend of the river. The 
 tracking till we reached Fort Smith was bad, as the 
 banks were usually soft muddy sand, while the land- 
 slips had sent so many trees into the river that it was 
 often easier to paddle against the stream than to pass 
 the line round the obstruction. Ducks and geese were 
 plentiful enough, but Mackinlay had been liberal in the 
 matter of provisions for our voyage, so we only took 
 the most tempting shots, but if it had been necessary 
 we could have made our own living without difficulty. 
 Early on the sixth day we came in sight of Fort Smith, 
 and found Mr. Flett in charge, with the house much 
 improved and made fairly comfortable in readiness for 
 the winter ; but there was no time to be spared, and 
 the next day saw us driving across the portage in 
 a waggon to take a fresh crew to Chipeweyan. No
 
 CHAP. xin. OF NORTHERN CANADA 215 
 
 canoe was available, but Jose Beaulieu, another of 
 King's numerous brothers, lent us a skiff, which an- 
 swered the purpose well enough. Mr. Flett took the 
 opportunity of going up to headquarters, and enlivened 
 the journey with many stories of over forty years' 
 experience in the North. Among the new crew was 
 a deaf and dumb half-breed, a capital worker and 
 always good-tempered, in spite of the cold drenching 
 rain that continued till we reached Chipeweyan ; some 
 of his conversations by signs were very amusing, and 
 one could almost wish that all these boatmen were 
 deaf and dumb to avoid the constant chatter which 
 they keep up round the camp-fire when they know that 
 you understand them. One day we made a splendid 
 run in front of a gale of north wind, but nearly came to 
 grief through our steersman's recklessness in trying to 
 force the boat over a rapid under canvas ; she took 
 a sheer in the swirl of an eddy, and the sail jibbed with 
 such violence that we were within an inch of a capsize. 
 Provisions ran short on the last day, but just as we 
 were talking of camping early and going after duck for 
 supper a little black bear turned up on the bank; 
 I was lucky enough to kill it, and we enjoyed a royal 
 feast of fat bear's meat instead of a night's starvation. 
 On the fourth day we entered the Athabasca Lake, 
 and forced our way to the fort against a strong head- 
 wind ; it was another Sunday arrival, and we did not 
 show to advantage in comparison with the bright 
 dresses and gaudy belts and moccasins of the dwellers 
 at the chief post of the Athabasca district. A little 
 snow was whitening the ground, the goose-hunt was at
 
 2 i6 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP. xm. 
 
 its height, and the array of nets showed plainly enough 
 that it was time to make preparation for the Fall 
 fishing. Dr. Mackay was away inspecting Fort Ver- 
 million on the Lower Peace River, and would not be 
 back for several days. An unexpected difficulty now 
 turned up ; there was no crew forthcoming for the next 
 part of my journey, and everybody advised me to take 
 the ordinary route by the Athabasca River. However, 
 two of my Fort Smith crew, Jose 7 and Dummy, finally 
 agreed to go to Vermillion, although neither of them 
 had been there before, and Murdo, who was very 
 anxious to accompany me across the mountains, ob- 
 tained leave to come with me till we should meet Dr. 
 Mackay on Peace River; if he could get extended 
 leave from the head officer of the District he was to 
 come right through.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BY this time it was well on in September, and eight 
 hundred miles had to be travelled to reach the Rocky 
 Mountains, and when these were sighted there were 
 still two hundred miles to Macleod's Lake, the farthest 
 point I could reasonably hope to reach by open water. 
 The first night we camped in the Quatre Fourches, 
 the channel connecting the lake with the main stream 
 of Peace River. The banks were thickly peopled 
 with Indians and half-breeds, drying whitefish which 
 were being taken in marvellous numbers; white and 
 grey wavies and ducks of many kinds were flying over- 
 head in large flocks, and rising in front of the canoe at 
 every bend of the stream ; plovers and other wading 
 birds were screaming over the marshes, and I noticed 
 a good many snipe ; but who would fire a charge of 
 ammunition at such a wretched little mouthful when 
 geese were plentiful ? Without going out of our way 
 to hunt, we could have loaded the canoe with wild- 
 fowl, but of course only killed as many as we required 
 for food. 
 
 At the end of the Quatre Fourches we passed into 
 the main stream of Peace River, and, with a sharp
 
 2i8 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xiv. 
 
 westward turn, commenced our ascent of the easiest of 
 all the Northern waterways. From its junction with 
 the Slave River to the first range of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, with only the obstruction of the shute some forty 
 miles below Fort Vermillion, its course is navigable 
 throughout for a light-draught steamer, and, but for 
 this shute, would be an invaluable route for supplying 
 the Hudson's Bay Company's upper river-posts. 
 
 The lower reaches of the river present exactly the 
 same appearance as the country we had passed through 
 in ascending the Slave River; a broad stream with 
 low sandy banks, densely timbered, with often a huge 
 sand-bar, the resting-place of many geese, stretching 
 far out into the stream. We were rather handicapped 
 by not knowing the river, and missing the best tracking; 
 an old hand would have known all the correct cross- 
 ings to take advantage of an easy bank to track from, 
 or an eddy to paddle in. Nor could we well risk the 
 short cuts, as a promising channel would often end in 
 dry sand instead of running through into the river, or 
 turn out to be the mouth of a tributary stream. After 
 our usual halt for dinner on the third day we saw 
 a canoe coming down stream, and, crossing over, found 
 that it was Dr. Mackay on his way from Vermillion ; 
 both canoes put ashore, and we had the usual cup of 
 tea and an hour's yarn together. The Doctor was 
 anxious to get back to Chipeweyan, to begin his Fall 
 fishing and make every possible preparation for keeping 
 up the food-supply for the winter ; I had no time to 
 spare either, and darkness must have found us camping 
 many miles apart. These stray meetings in the wil-
 
 CHAP. xiv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 219 
 
 derness are always a pleasant recollection, and on first 
 returning to civilization one is surprised at the manner 
 in which people pass each other with a nod, till one 
 realises the fact that there are too many people about 
 for a more lengthy salute. Murdo obtained leave to 
 come with me across the mountains, .subject to the 
 condition that he was to return in the spring if he 
 received orders to that effect from headquarters at 
 Winnipeg. 
 
 The same evening we hauled up an insignificant 
 rapid, caused by a contraction in the channel ; a lime- 
 stone formation, with many fossils, shows up here for 
 a few miles of the river's course, and is noticeable 
 again at the shutes and in several spots along the 
 river. We broke the canoe rather badly in mounting 
 this rapid, and during the rest of our journey to Ver- 
 million had to bale out frequently. Day after day we 
 followed the winding course of the river, which bends 
 and doubles on itself through the flat country, and at 
 last made out a landmark in the Caribou Mountains, 
 lying to the north and stretching in that direction as 
 far as we could see : an inviting range of hills, clear of 
 timber on the slope, and their round summits sparsely 
 dotted with pines ; a favourite hunting-ground for the 
 Indians of Vermillion, but none of the white men of 
 whom I made inquiry seemed to have any knowledge 
 of the extent or nature of this solitary range, rising so 
 conspicuously from the dead level of muskeg and pine 
 forest. 
 
 Just as we were starting on the tenth morning a 
 light puff of west wind brought us the first sound of
 
 220 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xiv. 
 
 a distant roar that we knew must be caused by the 
 shute, and a couple of hours' tracking brought us to 
 a small Company's trading-post, known as Little Red 
 River, from a stream bearing that name which here 
 joins the Peace River from the south. The establish- 
 ment was deserted, although it was to be kept open 
 during the winter ; so we passed on and soon came in 
 sight of a low white wall of water extending across the 
 whole width of the river. Dr. Mackay had told me to 
 make the portage close under the fall on the south 
 side, or we should have been at a loss to find the only 
 place where it is possible to take the canoe out of the 
 water. In a strong running current, with the spray 
 falling over her bow, we put alongside a ledge of rock 
 six feet above us, and two men, standing on a sub- 
 merged ledge, not without difficulty passed everything 
 up to the others above ; the distance to carry was very 
 short, and we were soon afloat again above the fall. 
 The shute is not more than eight feet in height, but is 
 of course a complete barrier to navigation. I think 
 the scene from the south bank is one of the most 
 beautiful in the whole course of the loveliest of rivers. 
 It was a bright afternoon when we made the portage, 
 and the white broken water of the cascade showed in 
 strong contrast to the broad blue stretches above and 
 below; several rocky, pine-covered islands stand on the 
 brink of the overfall, as if to give a chance to any 
 unlucky traveller who may approach too near the 
 danger ; fully three-quarters of a mile away on the far 
 side stands the gloomy forest of black pines, relieved 
 by a glimpse of the open side-hills of the Caribou
 
 CHAP. xiv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 221 
 
 Mountains. Another small portage was necessary a 
 mile or two above ; but from the spot where we 
 camped that night we never had to lift canoe or skiff 
 out of the water till we reached the foot-hills of the 
 Rocky Mountains. 
 
 The next day we passed a couple of Cree lodges, 
 and finding moose-meat plentiful made the most of 
 our opportunity, as a gale of wind sprang up right 
 ahead and prevented travel. 
 
 It was not till sundown on the eleventh day from 
 Chipeweyan that we completed our journey of two 
 hundred and eighty miles, and put ashore at the 
 Company's trading-post at Fort Vermillion. Here 
 the appearance of the country suddenly changes ; 
 stretches of open prairie dotted with small poplars 
 take the place of the pine-woods, and the sand-bars 
 in the river begin to give way to gravel, and the banks 
 rise higher and higher as one journeys up-stream. We 
 reached Vermillion late in September, in the full glory 
 of the autumn ; the sharp morning frosts had coloured 
 the poplar leaves with the brightest golden tints, and 
 the blue haze of an Indian summer hung over prairie 
 and wood. Away on the Great Slave Lake a half- 
 breed had told me of the beauties of Vermillion as 
 a farming country, and had explained that all the good 
 things of the world grew there freely, so that I was 
 prepared for the sight of wheat and barley fields, which 
 had this year produced a more abundant harvest than 
 usual ; potatoes and other vegetables were growing 
 luxuriously, cattle and horses were fattening on the 
 rich prairie grass, and it seemed that there was little
 
 222 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xiv. 
 
 to be gained by leaving such a fertile spot in the face 
 of the winter that would soon be upon us. 
 
 Vermillion is also an important fur-post, and pro- 
 bably to-day the best in the North for beaver and 
 marten ; but there are several free-traders on the 
 Peace River, and the Company have to carry on their 
 business with the extra difficulty of competition, which 
 always raises the price of fur. It is all very well to say 
 that no Company should have the monopoly of trading 
 over so vast a territory, but after all the Indians are 
 little benefited by the appearance of the free-traders. 
 The Hudson's Bay Company have always treated the 
 Indians fairly and leniently, taking the greatest care 
 only to import articles absolutely necessary to the 
 welfare of the natives. Guns, ammunition, blankets, 
 capotes, dress-stuff for the women, and tea and tobacco, 
 have always been the principal contents of the store ; 
 and these are sold at absurdly low prices, when the 
 cost of the long and risky transport is considered. 
 The Indians' love of gaudy colours was always in- 
 dulged, but the goods were of the best material. 
 Then came the free-trader with a stock of bright cheap 
 clothing, a variety of dazzling tinsel, or perhaps a keg 
 of molasses, which attracted the eye and palate of the 
 wily hunter, so that he would give up his rich furs for 
 the worthless trash, only to find himself short of all 
 the necessaries for maintaining life in the woods when 
 the snow began to fall again. No amount of experi- 
 ence enables him to resist the temptation ; but the long 
 enduring Hudson's Bay Company always listens to his 
 tale of woe and helps him out of his difficulties,
 
 CHAP. xiv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 223 
 
 accepting his promise, ever readily given and as readily 
 broken, to hand in his fur in the following spring to 
 the officer in charge of the post. Whenever the often- 
 told story of a band of Indians caught by the horrors 
 of starvation reaches the fort, the Company sends to 
 the rescue, and every winter saves many a man from 
 death, while the free-trader, having taken as much fur 
 as he can out of the country during a short summer's 
 trip, is living at ease on the confines of civilization. The 
 days are long gone by when a prime silver fox could 
 be bought for a cotton pockethandkerchief, but still 
 the rumours brought from this little known Northern 
 country attract the venturesome trader, usually to his 
 own loss, and always to the upsetting of the Company's 
 wise system of dealing with the Indians. 
 
 Vermillion has a comparatively large population, 
 outside the numerous employes of the country. Both 
 the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches have 
 missions here, and several half-breeds have taken up 
 an irregular method of stock-raising and small farming 
 to help out the uncertain living afforded by fur-trap- 
 ping. Mr. Lawrence, a practical hard-working farmer 
 from Eastern Canada, has been successful with a farm 
 three miles above the fort ; but for many years to 
 come there is not the slightest reason for that emigra- 
 tion of farmers to Peace River which wild enthusiasts 
 clamour for. So much talk about this scheme has 
 lately appeared in the Canadian newspapers, mostly, 
 no doubt, as one of the political cries which find such 
 favour with the statesmen of Ottawa, that I cannot 
 allow this opportunity to pass without a word of
 
 224 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xiv. 
 
 warning to any intending settler. I made careful 
 inquiries and observations along the whole length of 
 Peace River, and I do not for a moment deny that in 
 some parts of its course crops of wheat and barley may 
 be raised in favourable seasons, as the well-managed 
 farms of Mr. Lawrence, at Vermillion, and Mr. Brick, 
 higher up at Smoky River, fully attest ; but these 
 farms, and all the spots in which grain ripens, are in 
 close proximity to the bed of the river, and here the 
 amount of arable land is limited. Climb the steep 
 banks and take a glance over the millions of fertile 
 acres which the philanthropic politician wishes to see 
 cultivated ; notice the frost on a summer's morning, 
 and make the attempt, as has often been made already, 
 to raise a crop on this elevated plateau. In ten years' 
 time this may be a cattle-country, although the hay- 
 swamps are insufficient to ensure enough feed for the 
 long winter ; but let us have an end of this talk of 
 sending poor settlers to starve in a land unable to 
 supply food to the Indian, who is accustomed to a life 
 of continual struggle with a relentless nature. 
 
 Mr. Wilson entertained me royally at the fort, but 
 here again was the same trouble that I had found at 
 Chipeweyan ; no crew was procurable, and there was a 
 journey of three hundred and fifty miles to Dunvegan 
 before I had any chance of getting men. Jose* and 
 Dummy, who had both worked right well up to now, 
 considered they were far enough away from their 
 beloved Fort Smith ; and Jose" had an extra attraction 
 in Dummy's sister, who was waiting his return to make 
 him happy for ever, but was not very reliable in case
 
 CHAP. xiv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 225 
 
 of a more prepossessing admirer coming to the fore. 
 Jose" made a touching speech at parting : ' God made 
 the mountains, the lakes, and the big rivers,' he said. 
 ' What is better than drifting down Peace River singing 
 hymns ? You are going up-stream to cross the big 
 mountains back to your own country ; I am going 
 down-stream to marry Dummy's sister ; I shall think 
 of you many times.' Dummy smiled and nodded 
 affectionately, and the pair shot out into the river with 
 my canoe, leaving me on the bank with only Murdo for 
 my crew and no means of conveyance. 
 
 Now if I could have got a small dug-out wooden 
 canoe, and pottered away up-stream with Murdo, 
 tracking in turns, we should have got on very well ; 
 but unfortunately there was nothing but a large and 
 somewhat clumsy skiff available, and this we finally 
 had to take. The evening before we were to start I 
 received a visit from a man whom I shall allude to as 
 John. Long before in merry England he had seen 
 better times, and was evidently intended by nature for 
 a sedentary life, or any other kind of life than the 
 physical activity necessary to accomplish quickly and 
 successfully a boating-trip up a swift-running river ; in 
 reality he was powerful enough, and but for his extra- 
 ordinary laziness might have earned a good living any- 
 where. John told me he wished to leave Peace River 
 and cross the mountains to Quesnelle, and would be 
 glad to render me every assistance in his power if I 
 would let him take advantage of this chance to get out 
 of the country. In spite of the warnings of Mr. Wilson 
 and everybody else who knew John's character, I went 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xiv. 
 
 on the theory that when one is shorthanded any kind 
 of a man is better than no man, but was speedily dis- 
 abused of this idea after leaving the fort. He turned 
 sulky when he found that I would stand no shirking, 
 and was painfully slow on the tracking-line, awkward in 
 letting go or tying a knot, and, although he had been 
 five years at boating, absolutely without knowledge of 
 the duties of bowsman or steersman. In addition to 
 this he was just as useless in camp, and conceived a 
 violent hatred to Murdo, who fully reciprocated the 
 feeling. Once, on being heartily cursed while he was 
 tracking, John threatened to desert and go back to 
 Vermillion, but when we ran the skiff ashore and 
 offered to help him build a raft and to give him a 
 week's rations, he hastily withdrew his proposition. I 
 hoped to be able to leave him at some fort en route, 
 but I found John was too well known, and no one 
 would accept the horrible responsibility of keeping him 
 for a winter on any terms. A man like this takes all 
 the pleasure out of a journey when good temper is the 
 almost invariable rule, and everybody takes his share 
 of the tracking and wading, the paddling and poling, as 
 part of the ordinary day's work. 
 
 At this time of year, when the water is at its lowest, 
 tracking is a comparatively easy matter, and taking 
 half-hour spells at a sharp walk we made good day's 
 journeys, although we should have done much better 
 with a canoe. It was a hard time for moccasins, but 
 we could get them at every fort we passed ; sometimes 
 we found an Indian encampment on the bank, and a 
 small present of tea and tobacco to the women ensured
 
 CHAP. xiv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 227 
 
 neat patches over the gaping holes in the moose-skin 
 soles. 
 
 The fourth day out from Vermillion we reached the 
 mouth of Battle River coming in from the north, and 
 found a small trading-post with a French half-breed in 
 charge. He told us that the Indians had been killing 
 a great many moose, and that he had already bought 
 the dried meat of sixteen as a start towards his winter 
 stock of provisions ; black bear too were numerous on 
 Battle River, and there were reports of grizzly having 
 been seen. This would probably be one of the best 
 points from which to enter the unknown country 
 between Peace River and the Great Slave Lake. 
 
 I never remember to have seen in any part of 
 Canada such a fine autumn as we enjoyed between 
 Vermillion and the Rockies ; there was hardly a day's 
 rain the whole time, and, although a sharp white frost 
 usually made a cold camp, the days were bright and at 
 times almost too hot for tracking. Often we saw the 
 fresh tracks of moose and bear, but never happened to 
 see an animal of any kind, and as we could afford no 
 time for hunting did not fire a single shot at big game ; 
 geese and ducks we could have killed every day if there 
 had been any necessity for doing so. 
 
 Fifteen days of continuous travel from Vermillion 
 took us to the junction of Smoky River, the principal 
 tributary of the Peace, flowing towards the south-west 
 not far from some of the head-waters of the Athabasca. 
 This junction is rather an important point, as it is close 
 to the end of the waggon-road to the Lesser Slave 
 Lake, lying seventy-five miles to the south. Here the 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xiv. 
 
 trading-goods brought overland are loaded on to scows 
 and boats, to be sent down-stream to Vermillion and 
 up-stream to Dunvegan, St. John's, and Hudson's Hope. 
 A little above are Mr. Brick's mission and the farm 
 that I have already spoken of, besides a settlement of 
 nalf-breeds, more hunters than farmers, well known as 
 the laziest and most worthless gang on the whole 
 length of Peace River. Many efforts have been made 
 to get these people to pay more attention to their 
 potato-patches as the game is getting killed out, but all 
 in vain ; sometimes they will fence in a piece of ground 
 and plant seed, but will take no further trouble with 
 the crop, and generally use their fence-rails for firewood 
 during the next winter. Luckily whitefish are very 
 plentiful in the Lesser Slave Lake within two days' 
 journey, or starvation would certainly play havoc at 
 Smoky River. 
 
 I enjoyed a long talk with Mr. Brick in his pleasant 
 home in the wilds, where we spent a night ; he kindly 
 furnished me with supplies that I was short of, and 
 three days afterwards we arrived at Dunvegan, another 
 celebrated fur-post, situated on the north bank of the 
 river at the foot of a high bluff known as the Cap. 
 Here again was abundant evidence of the fertility of 
 the soil in the crops harvested by the Company and the 
 missionaries. Across the river, twenty miles away, is 
 the Company's cattle-rancfo, where the oxen used on 
 the waggon-road are raised and a fair amount of beef 
 is annually killed. Some thoroughbred stock has been 
 imported and should prove successful, but of course 
 there is no paying market for a large amount of cattle,
 
 CHAP. xiv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 229 
 
 although there are plenty of hungry people who would 
 be glad of a chance to eat beef. 
 
 At Dunvegan, besides Mr. Round who was in charge 
 of the fort, I met Mr. Ewen Macdonald, the chief of 
 Peace River District, with headquarters at Lesser 
 Slave Lake. He had just finished his inspection of 
 the upper river-posts, and had left Hudson's Hope, 
 the last establishment east of the mountains, a few days 
 previously ; he reported that the snow was already low 
 down on the foot-hills, and advised me strongly to give 
 up my attempt to cross the Rockies so late in the 
 autumn. He told me, however, that a free-trader was 
 expected in from the west side of the mountains, and 
 if I was lucky enough to meet him I should probably 
 be able to secure the service of some of his crew who 
 would be returning to Quesnelle. 
 
 Above Dunvegan the valley of the river contracts, 
 the banks rise for several hundred feet in height, and 
 the strength of the current increases. The hundred 
 and twenty miles to St. John's took us seven days and 
 a half to travel, and in many places we had to keep two 
 men on the line to stem the strong water ; the tracking 
 too was bad, as the banks had fallen in several spots, 
 and John, who had been up and down the river three 
 times before, proved a very poor pilot. The weather 
 was colder, and a sheet of ice formed over the back 
 waters and close to the bank out of the current. 
 
 At St. John's we found Mr. Gunn busy with a band 
 of Indians who were taking their winter supplies, and 
 I had a chance of hearing their accounts of the wilder- 
 ness to the north in the direction of the Liard River ;
 
 230 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xiv. 
 
 they described it as a muskeg country abounding in 
 game and fur, but a hard district to reach, as the 
 streams are too rapid for canoes and the swamps too 
 soft for horses to cross. They occasionally fall in with 
 a small band of buffalo, but have never seen them in 
 large numbers. Sometimes by ascending Half-way 
 River, a stream adjoining Peace River twenty-five 
 miles above St. John's, they meet the Indians from 
 Fort Nelson on the south branch of the Liard. 
 
 We had now passed out of the Cree-speaking belt 
 and the language became that of the Beaver Indians, 
 a far inferior language to Cree, resembling in sound 
 and in many of the words some of the dialects of the 
 Chipeweyan tongue. Mr. Gunn had learned to speak 
 Beaver fluently, and was now going up to Hudson's 
 Hope to interpret ; he was a great help to us both as 
 pilot and on the line, and with two men always 
 tracking we took little notice of the strong stream 
 which we found throughout the fifty miles to the next 
 fort. 
 
 Snow was falling heavily when we left St. John's, 
 
 and it looked as if the winter had set in, but next day 
 
 
 
 the ground was bare again, and a west wind from 
 across the mountains blew warm as a summer's breeze. 
 We camped for a night at the mouth of Half-way 
 River, heading towards the north through a wide open 
 bay which seems to invite exploration. A considerable 
 quantity of gold dust has been taken out of some of 
 the gravel-bars along this part of Peace River, and 
 Half-way River is supposed to be a paradise for 
 the miner and hunter, but I could not hear of any
 
 CHAP. xiv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 231 
 
 white man having ever penetrated far up this valley. 
 On the afternoon of Sunday, October 26th, on round- 
 ing a bend in the river, we caught our first glimpse of 
 the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains that I had 
 travelled so far to reach ; but the sublime is often 
 mixed with the ludicrous, and when John in his admi- 
 ration of the scenery slipped off a narrow ledge of 
 shale along which he was tracking and fell with an 
 oath into the river, the snowy peaks were forgotten in 
 the joy that always greets other people's misfortunes 
 in this sort of travelling. 
 
 A short distance below Hudson's Hope we passed 
 a remarkable group of high basaltic islands, differing 
 entirely from anything in the neighbourhood, and 
 affording a strong contrast to the low gravelly islands 
 so numerous in the course of this river. In the after- 
 noon of the 27th we unloaded the skiff and hauled her 
 up on the beach in front of the fort, to lie there till 
 anybody might want to run her down-stream the fol- 
 lowing spring. 
 
 Hudson's Hope is a small unpretentious establish- 
 ment, standing on the south side of Peace River, a 
 mile below the wild canon by which this great stream 
 forces its way through the most easterly range of the 
 Rocky Mountains. The Indians were all encamped 
 in their moose-skin lodges on the flat close to the fort 
 waiting for the trade to begin, and I was surprised to 
 hear how few representatives of the once numerous 
 tribe of Beavers are left. It is the same at St. John's 
 and Dunvegan, and the total Indian population of the 
 upper Peace River cannot exceed three hundred, an
 
 232 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xiv. 
 
 immense falling off since Sir Alexander Mackenzie 
 first crossed the mountains by this route. The biggest 
 lodge was occupied by Baptiste Testerwich, a half- 
 breed Iroquois, descended from the Iroquois crew left 
 here many years ago by Sir George Simpson, formerly 
 Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Baptiste had 
 a house at Moberley's Lake twelve miles to the south, 
 and is well known as the most successful and most 
 enduring of moose-hunters. A remarkable point about 
 .the man is his hardiness and indifference to cold ; in 
 the dead of winter he wears no socks in his moccasins, 
 which to any other man would mean a certainty of 
 frozen feet, and the Indians say that his feet are so 
 hot that the snow melts in his tracks in the coldest 
 weather. 
 
 Once again arose the trouble about guides to take us 
 to Macleod's Lake. John had been there before, but 
 I had already seen too much of his piloting to trust 
 myself in his hands, and was quite sure that he would 
 lose his way if there was the least possibility of doing so. 
 The free-trader from across the mountains had not 
 yet arrived, and as it was getting late in the year there 
 was a chance of his being frozen in before he reached 
 Hudson's Hope. Besides the Peace River route there 
 is the Pine River Pass, farther to the southward, head- 
 ing almost directly to Macleod's Lake. A party of 
 surveyors once came through this pass several years 
 ago, and the Indians use it habitually in the summer; 
 but none of the Beavers would volunteer to guide us 
 through at this time of the year, as a heavy snowfall 
 might be expected immediately.
 
 CHAP. xiv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 233 
 
 I decided to wait a few days for the trader, and we 
 had a very festive time at Hudson's Hope ; a ball was 
 given every night, and the moose-dance, rabbit-dance, 
 and duck-dance were kept up till the small hours. A 
 ball is not an expensive entertainment at an out-of-the- 
 way trading-post ; no invitations are necessary, but a 
 scrape of the fiddle at the door of the master's house 
 fills the ball-room in a few minutes. If the master is 
 in a liberal state of mind, a cup of tea is provided for 
 his guests, but in any case the river is close, and if 
 anyone is thirsty there is plenty of water. On the 
 third night the ceremonies were interrupted by the 
 sound of a gunshot on the opposite bank, and an 
 Indian came across with the news that the trader 
 had arrived at the west end of the canon with two 
 small scows, and that some of his crew were going 
 back to Quesnelle. 
 
 Baptiste lent me a horse on the following day, and I 
 rode over to interview the new arrivals. A fair trail, 
 twelve miles in length on the north side of the river, 
 leads to the navigable water above the canon, while 
 the stream runs a circuitous course of probably thirty 
 miles. I could get little information as to the nature 
 of this canon; even the Indians seem to avoid it, and, 
 though accounts of it have been written, nobody ap- 
 pears to have thoroughly explored this exceptionally 
 rough piece of country. I went down a few miles from 
 the west end, but found the bluffs so steep that I could 
 seldom get a view of the water, and could form no idea 
 of the character of the rapids and waterfalls. There is 
 some quiet place in the middle of the canon where the
 
 234 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xiv. 
 
 Indians cross on the ice, but beyond this they could tell 
 me little about it. 
 
 Right in the centre of the gap by which the trail 
 crosses stands the Bull's Head, a solitary mountain 
 well known to travellers coming from the west, as it 
 can be seen many miles away, and in full view to the 
 south is a huge flat-topped mountain, covered with 
 perpetual snow and fit to rank with any of the giants 
 of the main range. The trail reaches a considerable 
 elevation above the river level, and from the summit 
 the upper waters of the Peace are seen winding away 
 to the west, through a broad valley flanked by hills of 
 ever increasing height, as far as the eye can reach. 
 Close to the river the slopes are open or thinly 
 timbered with pine and poplar, but the big mountains 
 are clothed nearly to their summits with the dense, 
 almost impassable, forest growth which is such a 
 common feature in the scenery as the Pacific Coast 
 is approached. 
 
 At the far end of the portage, on the bank of the 
 river, stand a rough shanty and trading-store. Here 
 I made the acquaintance of Twelvefoot Davis, who 
 acquired this name, not from any peculiarity of stature, 
 but from a small though valuable mining claim of 
 which he had been the lucky possessor in the early 
 days of British Columbia. A typical man of his class 
 is Davis, and his story is that of many a man who has 
 spent his life just in advance of civilization. Born in 
 the Eastern States of America, a 'Forty-niner in Cali- 
 fornia, and a pioneer of the Caribou Diggings discovered 
 far up the Fraser River in 'Sixty-one, he had eventually
 
 CHAP. xiv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 235 
 
 taken to fur-trading, which has ever such an attraction 
 for the wandering spirit of the miner. Here among 
 the mountains and rivers where formerly he sought the 
 yellow dust he carries on his roaming life. There is 
 a strong kinship between the two enterprises ; the 
 same uncertainty exists, and in each case the mythical 
 stake is always just ahead. No failure ever damps 
 the ardour of miner or fur-trader, or puts a stop to 
 his pleasant dreams of monster nuggets and silver 
 foxes. 
 
 Davis was making all possible haste in packing his 
 cargo across the portage with horses ; an Indian and 
 a half-breed were going back to Quesnelle, and would 
 gladly enter my service as guides. A small stock of 
 goods was to be left at the west end of the portage, 
 and Thomas Barrow, the only white man who had 
 come down with Davis, was to remain in charge of the 
 trading-post during the winter.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ON November 5th I camped at the head of the 
 canon with my crew, Murdo, John, Charlie, a half- 
 breed from Quesnelle, and Pat, a full-blooded Siccanee 
 from Fraser Lake, ready to make a start up-stream the 
 following morning with a long narrow canoe dug out 
 of a cotton-wood log. But in the night the weather 
 changed ; snow fell heavily, a severe frost set in, and 
 ice was forming rapidly along the banks. Baptiste, 
 the Iroquois, who had come across the portage to see 
 us off, had brought me a dozen pair of the best moose- 
 skin moccasins from his daughters, who were beyond 
 compare the belles of Hudson's Hope. Baptiste had 
 spent many years of his life in this part of the country, 
 and I was quite ready to listen to his opinion on the 
 chances of getting through to Macleod's Lake. He 
 would not hear of our starting with a canoe under the 
 changed conditions of weather : it was the winter ; the 
 ice would catch us in less than three days, and we 
 should be lucky if we could get back on foot through 
 the deep snow. His advice was to wait a fortnight 
 till the river set fast, and occupy ourselves in making 
 hand-sleighs, while he would make us five pairs of
 
 CHAP. xv. NORTHERN CANADA. 237 
 
 snow-shoes, and then we might walk the two hundred 
 miles to Macleod's Lake in comfort. Accordingly I 
 gave orders for the lodge, which we still had with us, 
 to be pitched in a clump of poplars a short distance 
 above Barrow's house, and we busied ourselves with 
 cutting birch and bending sleighs in readiness for our 
 trip. 
 
 The cold snap continued for several days, but very 
 little ice was running, although the eddies and back- 
 waters were frozen up ; then the weather grew milder 
 again, and I could see that we had missed our chance. 
 It was past the middle of November, and the river, by 
 all accounts, is usually frozen solid at this time of year; 
 it seemed too risky to start out so late to try and make 
 a passage with open water. Meantime we were taking 
 things easily when, as it turned out, we should have 
 been travelling ; there was not much to shoot beyond 
 wood-grouse and rabbits, but with these we could keep 
 the pot going, and time went, pleasantly enough in 
 short expeditions into the surrounding hills. 
 
 And now a warm Chinook wind came sweeping 
 across from the Pacific, and licked up the snow from 
 the ground, while the ice broke away from the banks 
 and drifted down in little floes to be ground to 
 pieces in the canon. I could bear the inactivity no 
 longer, and, with a recklessness that I had plenty of op- 
 portunity to repent later on, gave orders on November 
 25th for the canoe to be got ready on the morrow to 
 start up-stream and take the. chances of being caught 
 by the ice in the main range of the Rocky Mountains. 
 I consulted Charlie and Pat about the route, and they
 
 238 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xv. 
 
 both said they could make no mistake in finding the 
 way to the Hudson's Bay Fort on Macleod's Lake, as 
 they had just come down the river, and Charlie had 
 made the journey the year before ; if we could succeed 
 in getting to the junction of the Findlay and Parsnip, 
 just beyond the big mountains, before the ice caught 
 us, there could be no difficulty in reaching the fort on 
 foot in about four days' travel. 
 
 At the risk of being verbose and boring any reader 
 who has struggled thus far through the record of my 
 wanderings in the North, I must now enter somewhat 
 fully into the details of travel, and describe minutely 
 the events that happened during the next month, in 
 order to answer once for all the numerous questions 
 that I have been asked as to what took place on that 
 terrible winter journey in the Rocky Mountains. 
 When I reached civilization again, and found that 
 part of the story had leaked out, I received plenty of 
 gratuitous advice as to what I should have done and 
 where I should have gone, from people who had never 
 themselves been in a like predicament, and had no 
 further knowledge of hardship than perhaps having 
 had to pay a long price for a second-rate dinner. I 
 discovered that the easiest method of satisfying them 
 was to let them tell the tale of my adventures in their 
 own way, and assent readily to their convincing proofs 
 that if they had been there all would have gone well. 
 I admit freely that it was a stupid act to leave a supply- 
 post so late in the year, unprovided as we were with 
 the necessary outfit for winter travelling; but think I 
 was justified in trusting to the local knowledge of my
 
 CHAP. xv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 239 
 
 native guides to bring our party in safety to Macleod's 
 Lake after we were forced to abandon the canoe. 
 
 Walter Macdonald, a son of Mr. Ewen Macdonald 
 of Lesser Slave Lake, and Tom Barrow both gave me 
 every assistance in their power to provision my crew 
 for what is usually an eight or nine days' journey. 
 Meat was not to be had, and there was little chance 
 of finding big game along the course of the river, but 
 a hundred pounds of flour, a few pounds of beans and 
 rice, and a small sack of potatoes, besides plenty of 
 tea and tobacco, would surely last us this short journey, 
 and, even if we found it impossible to travel quickly, 
 a few days of short rations could easily be endured. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon of Wednesday, November 
 26th, when I started the canoe off, and the sun was 
 down before I had settled up accounts and said good- 
 bye to the friends whom I did not expect to meet 
 again for many a long day. The moon was full, and 
 I had no difficulty in finding my way six miles through 
 the woods to an old miner's cabin at which we had 
 arranged to camp for the night. At the first streak of 
 dawn we were off again, travelling our best with two 
 and sometimes three men on the line ; the current was 
 strong, but the tracking on the gravel-bars perfect. 
 That night there was a heavy snowstorm, while the 
 ground froze hard and caused many a nasty fall on the 
 slippery stones during the next two days. On Satur- 
 day morning cakes of soft ice began to run, but we 
 found that most of them were brought down by a large 
 tributary coming from the north, and above its mouth 
 the river was comparatively clear of ice. The
 
 2 4 o THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xv. 
 
 same afternoon we reached the entrance to the main 
 range of mountains, and under the first peak of the 
 chain tracked up a strong rush of water with a heavy 
 sea at its foot, commonly known as the Polpar Rapid, 
 a curious corruption of la Rapide qui ne parle pas, so 
 named by the old voyageurs from the absence of the 
 roar of waters which usually gives ample warning of 
 the proximity of a rapid. Part of the cargo we 
 portaged to keep it dry, and above the strong water 
 lay a quiet stretch of river, winding away in the 
 gloomy black chasm between the huge mountains, 
 which in many places takes the form of a sheer bluff 
 hanging over the stream. 
 
 We camped just above the Polpar, and another 
 night's snow made the tracking worse than ever ; often 
 it was necessary to put the line aboard and take to 
 the paddles, to struggle round some steep point upon 
 which a coating of frozen snow made it impossible to 
 stand. Ice was running in large pans and steering 
 was difficult, but we got on fairly well, and were far in 
 the heart of the mountains when we camped on Sun- 
 day night under one of the steepest and most for- 
 bidding peaks that I ever remember to have seen in 
 any part of the Rockies. 
 
 Monday was really cold, and our difficulties in- 
 creased ; the tow-line was sheeted with ice and three 
 times its ordinary weight, while the channel was in 
 many places almost blocked ; poles and paddles had to 
 be handled with numbed fingers, and our moccasins 
 from constant wading turned into heavy lumps of ice ; 
 but we pushed on, and at nightfall had passed the
 
 CHAP. xv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 241 
 
 mountains and emerged into a more inviting country. 
 It was evident, however, that canoe-work was nearly 
 over for the year, but we determined to make one 
 more attempt, as the junction of the Findlay and 
 Parsnip was not far ahead, and there was just a chance 
 that the ice was coming from the Findlay and we might 
 find the Parsnip, up which our course lay, clear 
 enough for navigation. On Tuesday we made the 
 most dangerous day's travel that I ever experienced in 
 a canoe ; the river was far too full of ice to handle 
 even a ' dug-out ' with safety, and we had to make 
 many crossings in the swift current among the running 
 floes. I made it a point that everybody should keep 
 on the same side of the river to assure our all being 
 together in case of accident, and we had several 
 narrow escapes from being nipped. At dinner-time 
 we came in sight of the broken water of the Findlay 
 Rapid, and found the big eddy on the south side of 
 the river completely blocked with ice. We went 
 through the risky manoeuvre of skirting the edge of 
 the eddy with the floes whirling round us in the strong 
 running water, and, finding a solid spot, hauled the 
 canoe over the ice to the shore, making a half-mile 
 portage to the foot of the rapid. A very close shave 
 of capsizing filled the canoe with water; but the second 
 attempt at tracking through the swift current and 
 blocks of ice was more successful, and, as the short 
 day was drawing to its close, we were paddling under 
 a high bluff which prevented our using the tracking- 
 line. Here darkness caught us, and our position 
 was perilous in the extreme ; the current was 
 
 R
 
 2 4 2 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xv. 
 
 so strong that our best pace was required to stem it 
 at all, and many times we had to drift back to avoid 
 collision with the ice that was grinding past us. A 
 couple of hours' hard work brought us to the first 
 spot at which we could effect a landing, but it was no 
 easy matter to carry the cargo up the frozen bank ; 
 we secured the canoe as well as we could, and found 
 ourselves on a small flat covered with willows and 
 abundance of firewood. Towards midnight the grind- 
 ing of the ice became less noticeable and before day- 
 light ceased entirely ; the river above us had set fast 
 and further water-travel was impossible. When morn- 
 ing broke we saw the Findlay branch completely 
 jambed with ice stretching away to the north-west, 
 and the Parsnip bending sharply to the south pre- 
 sented a similar appearance. 
 
 A glance at our position is not out of place, and a 
 good map might have saved us from the serious 
 trouble we afterwards experienced. 
 
 Far away in the mountains of British Columbia, in 
 a country little known to the white man and at no 
 great distance from the Pacific Ocean, the Findlay 
 River has its source, while the Parsnip rises close 
 under the Rocky Mountains on their west side, and, 
 skirting the foot-hills, joins the Findlay at the spot 
 where we now encamped. Below the junction the 
 stream, already of considerable size and known as the 
 Peace River, pours through the black rent in the back- 
 bone of the North American continent many thousands 
 of feet below the summits of the mountains, and takes 
 its course towards the Arctic Ocean at the mouth of
 
 CHAP. xv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 243 
 
 the great Mackenzie. The most extraordinary feature 
 in this reversion of the laws of Nature is the extreme 
 tranquillity of the stream in passing through the main 
 range, for with the exception of the Findlay and Polpar 
 Rapid, one at either end of the pass, there is no diffi- 
 culty in navigating a canoe. In passing the eastern 
 range above Hudson's Hope the canon is rough to the 
 last degree, and one would expect to find the same 
 thing among the higher mountains. A third branch, 
 the Omineca, once a celebrated mining-camp, joins 
 the Findlay, but is a much smaller stream. To reach 
 Fort Macleod we had to follow the Parsnip and turn 
 up a tributary branch known as Macleod's River, 
 draining Macleod's Lake into the Parsnip. 
 
 I had another long conversation with Charlie and 
 Pat as to the best plan of action, and pointed out to 
 them that if there was the least doubt about finding 
 the lake we might still get back to Hudson's Hope, as 
 by the aid of a few portages over ice-jambs one can 
 travel down-stream in company with the floes long after 
 it has become impossible to force a passage against 
 them, and when we reached the east end of the pass it 
 would be easy to walk through the level country. But 
 both the guides laughed at the idea of their getting lost, 
 and again reminded me of the fact that only a few weeks 
 before they had come from Macleod. If we could cross 
 the Parsnip, they said, we had only to follow the west 
 bank till we came to the Little River, and then half a 
 day would take us to the fort ; in four days from now, 
 or five at the latest, we should reach the end of our 
 journey. The morning of December 4th was spent in 
 
 R 2
 
 244 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xv. 
 
 making a scaffold on which to store my rather bulky 
 cargo, which of course had to be left with the intention 
 of returning from Fort Macleod with a dog-sleigh. 
 After dinner we started on foot, every man carrying 
 his blanket and a small load of provisions, kettles, and 
 necessaries of various kinds. I decided to take no 
 gun, as I only had a dozen shot-cartridges left, and a 
 gun is always an impediment in walking through the 
 woods, although there is a good old saying in the 
 North that men should not part with their guns till 
 the women throw away their babies. 
 
 One thing that I thought might cause some trouble 
 was the fact of our having no snow-shoes, and the 
 snow would soon be deep enough to require them. 
 We took all our beans and rice, but left about thirty 
 pounds of flour in a sack on the scaffold, thinking it 
 needlessly heavy to carry, and that it was better to 
 run short for a day or two than overload ourselves and 
 prevent rapid travelling. 
 
 The ice was piled up high on the banks, and we 
 began badly by climbing over a steep hill covered with 
 such heavy timber that the pace was slow, and it was 
 night when we came out on the bank of the Parsnip 
 not more than four miles from our last camp. The 
 next day we did rather better, but, getting among burnt 
 timber and deep snow, had many heavy falls. In the 
 evening we found a jamb in the river, and, making 
 rather a risky crossing with the chance of our ice- 
 bridge breaking up at any moment, camped on the 
 Macleod side, thinking that we were now surely safe 
 enough, and the worst thing that could happen might
 
 CHAP. xv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 245 
 
 be a little starvation before we reached the fort. Then 
 came two days of fair travelling, sometimes on the ice 
 and sometimes in the woods, but the latter were so 
 thick that it was hard to get through them at all. 
 
 I have never seen a river freeze in the remarkable 
 manner that the Parsnip set fast this summer. The 
 first jamb had probably taken place at the junction of 
 the Findlay ; the water had backed up till it stood 
 at a higher level than the summer floods, and the 
 gravel beach was deeply submerged. There was 
 no appearance of shore-ice, as the constant rise and 
 fall in the water prevented a gradual freezing ; jambs 
 would form and break up again, and huge blocks 
 of ice were forced on each other in every conceivable 
 position. Often too the ice was flooded, and it was 
 already cold enough to freeze wet feet ; the backwaters 
 were full, and the ice on them usually under water 
 or hanging from the banks without support ; the shores 
 were fringed with a tangled mass of willows, heavily 
 laden with snow and their roots often standing in 
 water, while behind, rising to the summit of rough 
 broken hills, was the dense pine-growth of the great 
 sub-Arctic forest. 
 
 John caused a good deal of delay by not keeping 
 up, and I did not like to leave him far behind, as 
 he was clumsy on the ice, and there were many 
 treacherous spots where black running water showed 
 in strong contrast to the snow, and the gurgle of 
 a swift current suggested an unpleasant ending to the 
 unlucky man who should break through. Everybody 
 carried an axe or a stick to sound the ice, and,
 
 246 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xv. 
 
 excepting near the banks where the water had fallen 
 away from the ice, there were no mishaps. Further 
 delay was caused by our frequently having to light 
 a fire to dry moccasins and keep our feet from 
 freezing. 
 
 On the fourth night after abandoning the canoe 
 we camped close to a coffin hung between two trees, 
 as is the fashion of the Siccanees in dealing with their 
 dead ; the guide recognised this coffin, and told me we 
 should certainly be at the fort in two days. Beans 
 and rice were finished, but we had flour enough left 
 for another day, and this we baked into bread to save 
 trouble in cooking later on, and on the following day 
 made a fair journey considering the bad state of 
 the ice. 
 
 The next morning, after eating our last bite of 
 bread, we were going to try for the fort, and to lighten 
 our load left behind the kettles, for which we had 
 no more use, while some of us were rash enough to 
 leave our blankets ; we expected to be back with the 
 dog-sleigh in a few days, and could then pick up 
 everything. 
 
 The water had risen again in the night and the 
 ice was useless for travelling on, so on the guide's 
 advice we left the river on the west bank, and 
 climbing the rough hills walked along the ridge in 
 a south-westerly direction, expecting every hour to fall 
 upon the little river running out of Macleod's Lake. 
 When night caught us we were still in the woods, and, 
 although there was no supper and snow was falling 
 softly, a bright fire and the prospect of reaching the fort
 
 CHAP. xv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 247 
 
 in the morning kept us in good spirits enough. I was 
 one of the unfortunates without a blanket, and was 
 glad to see daylight come again and with it a cessation 
 of the snowstorm. During the last few days rabbit- 
 tracks had been frequently seen in the snow and 
 grouse were plentiful, but we had no means of securing 
 game of any kind. 
 
 To make as sure as possible of getting food the 
 next day, I sent Murdo and Charlie ahead without 
 loads to make the best of their way to the fort, while 
 Pat and myself would stay by John, who was already 
 in difficulties, and carry the packs. 
 
 Starting without breakfast is the worst part of these 
 starving times. The walking for the first two hours 
 was very hard, through a thick growth of young pines 
 rising among the blackened stumps and fallen logs 
 of a burnt forest, up and down steep gullies, with the 
 snow from the branches pouring down our necks, and 
 our loads often bringing us up with a sudden jerk 
 as they stuck between two little trees. John soon 
 gave up his pack, and left it hanging on a bough, 
 where it remains probably till the present day. About 
 mid-day we came to the end of the ridge and looked 
 up the wide valley of the Parsnip. Far below us we 
 could trace its windings, and branching away to the 
 mountains in the west was a stream that Pat instantly 
 declared to be Macleod's River. Towards sundown 
 we lit a fire on a high bank above the stream, and 
 John in a fatuous manner remarked that he recognised 
 the place where he had camped with a boat's crew 
 some years before. We followed the fresh tracks of
 
 248 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xv. 
 
 our advanced party, and turning our backs on the 
 Parsnip walked on good shore-ice till darkness com- 
 pelled us to camp. I was rather surprised to find that 
 the river was not frozen up and had much more 
 current than I had expected, but, as both John and Pat 
 were quite certain that all was right, I had not the 
 least doubt that we had at last reached Macleod's 
 River and should arrive at the fort in good time the 
 next day. 
 
 Another sleepless night gave me plenty of time for 
 reflection while John was comfortably rolled up in a 
 blanket that I had been carrying all day. Four 
 months had passed, and many a hundred miles of lake 
 and river travelled, since David had seen the first star 
 on that summer's night far away in the Barren 
 Ground ; now I thought my journey was nearly over, 
 for two hundred miles on snow-shoes from Fort 
 Macleod to Quesnelle, and three hundred miles of 
 waggon-road from Quesnelle to the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway, counted as nothing. It was true that we 
 had not tasted food for two days, and rations had 
 been short for some time past ; but it was by no means 
 my first experience of starvation, and to-morrow even- 
 ing at the latest we should be in the midst of luxury 
 once more. It was satisfactory to think that we had 
 succeeded in forcing our way through the Rocky 
 Mountains in the face of the winter, and were every 
 day approaching a country made temperate by the 
 breezes of the Pacific ; already the cedars, to be found 
 only on the west side of the main range, were showing 
 among the pines.
 
 CHAP. xv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 249 
 
 With the first grey light in the east I roused my 
 companions, and we started on shore-ice at a good 
 pace with the prospect of breakfast ahead. Pat broke 
 through shortly after leaving camp, and, as he was 
 afraid of freezing his feet, we lit a fire to dry his 
 moccasins, and the sun was up when we set out again. 
 A couple of hours later we saw a thin blue column 
 of smoke rising straight up into the sky, and a nearer 
 approach showed that it came from the chimney of 
 a cabin hidden in the woods ; a cheering sight at first, 
 but directly we reached the trail leading up from the 
 river I knew that something was wrong, and some- 
 thing wrong at such a time meant something very 
 wrong indeed. 
 
 I had spent too much of my life among the woods 
 and mountains to be unable to read the easy writing 
 in the snow; two tracks leading up the river late 
 overnight, and the same two tracks quite fresh 
 coming down-stream and turning up the trail. Murdo 
 and Charlie must be in the cabin, and could not have 
 reached the fort ; if they had been coming back with 
 supplies they would never have put ashore with 
 starving men so close up. Pushing open the rough 
 door we found them sitting one on each side of a small 
 fire of cedar-chips that were just crackling into a blaze. 
 ' Have you been to the fort, Murdo ? ' I asked, need- 
 lessly enough. ' No.' ' Why not ? What is the 
 matter ? ' ' Charlie says it is the wrong river ; we 
 are lost, like d d fools.' 
 
 Murdo had described the situation concisely enough, 
 and I fully realised the awful position we were in ; lost
 
 250 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xv. 
 
 and starving in the mountains with no guns to procure 
 food, no snow-shoes with which to travel over the 
 increasing depth of snow, and no clothes to withstand 
 the cold of mid-winter which was already upon us. 
 
 There was still a hope, for Charlie was not quite 
 ready to admit that he was mistaken. Our advance 
 party had turned back on seeing a rapid, and even 
 now could not give me any accurate description of this 
 obstacle to navigation ; if it was so bad that a scow 
 could not run down, it was obvious that this could not 
 be Macleod's River, for I knew that no portage was 
 necessary to reach the lake. Pat was still sure that 
 he had recognised many places this morning, but could 
 not say anything about the log-cabin ; it stood back 
 from the river, and there was a chance that people, 
 passing quickly down-stream, might have missed 
 seeing it when the foliage was thick on the willows. 
 The best plan seemed to first make sure about the 
 rapid, so we started up-stream to inspect it. I was 
 very doubtful of any good result coming from this 
 move, when I saw that the strength of the current 
 increased, and the mountains on each side of the 
 stream grew higher and steeper. Soon we passed 
 a newly-built beaver-house, which certainly was a 
 strange object on the side of a travelled river, and 
 in a couple of hours reached the rapid. Surely this 
 was enough to make anyone turn back ; a heavy shute 
 of broken water down which no scow could ever run 
 without being smashed to pieces ; even Pat now 
 acknowledged that he was hopelessly lost. A valu- 
 able day had been wasted, and the sun was down
 
 CHAP. xv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 251 
 
 before we came again to the cabin, where we decided 
 on spending the night. Three days we had been 
 starving, and it was fully time to take the first steps 
 by which men in our desperate position seek to 
 maintain life as long as possible. A thorough search 
 in the shanty produced nothing of value but an old 
 lard-tin which would serve as a kettle ; there were 
 many empty boxes, labelled with enticing names and 
 pictures of canned fruit and of fat cattle that had been 
 converted into ' Armour's Preserved Beef ' at Kansas 
 City, Missouri ; a large number of rotten sacks, marked 
 ' Oregon Flour Patent Roller Process/ showed that 
 someone had spent a winter here, and an iron bottle 
 containing a little quicksilver proved that he had 
 been a miner by occupation. A board, with a notice 
 in pencil that two men, whose names I forget, had 
 arrived here from Sandy Bar in a day and a half, 
 conveyed no meaning to us. 
 
 Among the necessary articles that we had been 
 carrying was a large piece of dressed moose-skin for 
 mending moccasins, and this seemed the most edible 
 thing we could find ; five small strips, three inches 
 in length and an inch broad, were cut off and put into 
 the lard-tin to boil for supper. We discovered 
 Labrador tea growing in the woods, and made a brew 
 with the leaves as soon as we thought the moose-skin 
 was soft enough to eat. Rabbit-snares were made by 
 unravelling a piece of string and set in the runs, but 
 after trying this plan on several nights not a rabbit 
 was caught, though we sometimes had the mortification 
 of finding a broken snare. After supper of moose-
 
 252 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xv. 
 
 skin and Labrador tea we felt in better spirits, and 
 with a good fire and a pipe of tobacco discussed our 
 position seriously enough. 
 
 Euclid, when he found himself incapable of proving 
 that any particular angle or line was the exact size 
 that he desired, had a habit of supposing it to be 
 of some other magnitude, and by enlarging upon 
 the absurdity of this supposition so completely puzzled 
 the aspiring student that he was glad to admit any 
 statement that the inventor of the proposition suggested. 
 This does well enough on paper, but starving men have 
 no time to put this plan to the test of practice, and 
 when they find that a river is not the one they supposed 
 it to be are at a loss to tell what stream it really is. 
 
 Charlie, Pat, and John, who had all been to 
 Macleod's Lake before, told me frequently that they 
 had never heard of any river coming into the Parsnip 
 on the west side between the Findlay and Macleod's 
 River. Now, in a boating journey the talk is always 
 of points and rivers, and the mouth of any tributary is 
 always commented upon, so it seemed unlikely that 
 they should have passed by this large stream without 
 noticing it ; nor had they heard of any miner's cabin, 
 which must certainly have been spoken of in a country 
 where houses are scarce. There was a possibility that 
 we had come too far and missed the mouth of 
 Macleod's River, for we had sometimes travelled on 
 the east side of the Parsnip to take advantage of 
 better ice or a thinner growth of timber, and I had 
 heard David say that the Little River was not easy 
 for a stranger to find. In any case it was better to
 
 CHAP. xv. OF NORTHERN CANADA 253 
 
 retrace our steps to the mouth of the stream that we 
 had been following, to see if our guides could recognise 
 any landmark, for the hills were conspicuous and some- 
 times of remarkable shape. 
 
 At daylight on December loth we left the cabin and 
 made tracks down-stream, taking with us the lard-tin 
 in which we had boiled more moose-skin for breakfast. 
 So far we had lost no strength and, with the exception 
 of John, who was always behind, were going strong 
 and well. It was late in the afternoon when we 
 reached the river and once again stood on the bank of 
 the Parsnip. Across on the east side rose a high-cut 
 bank of yellow clay, a mark that any one should recog- 
 nise who had ever seen it before ; but Charlie and 
 Pat both put on a hopeless blank expression when 
 I asked them if they knew the place. No, they said, 
 they had never seen it before in their lives. Six 
 weeks before they had passed right under that cut 
 bank in a scow, and less than forty miles up-stream 
 would have taken us to the fort if we had only known 
 it. These men were a half-breed and an Indian, 
 supposed to be gifted with that extraordinary instinct 
 of finding their way in all circumstances which is 
 denied to the white man. John was just as much 
 to blame, although it was some years ago that he 
 travelled down the Parsnip ; long afterwards, when all 
 the trouble was over, he confided to me, as an excuse 
 for his ignorance, that he had been very drunk when 
 he left Macleod and was unable to make any accurate 
 observations as to courses and distances. 
 
 There was nothing to be done but turn down the
 
 254 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP. xv. 
 
 Parsnip again and keep a bright look-out for the mouth 
 of the little river, in case we had passed it. The ice 
 was too much flooded to walk on, and we camped high 
 up on the mountain-side in heavy falling snow. An- 
 other misfortune befell us here ; the bottom of the lard- 
 tin was burnt out during the process of melting snow, 
 and we had to give up the small comfort of moose-skin 
 and wild tea. Murdo and myself spent a wretched 
 night cowering over the fire with the snow falling 
 down our backs, for we were still without blankets ; 
 daylight saw us struggling through the thick growth of 
 young pines and an increased depth of snow, till at 
 noon, when everybody was thoroughly exhausted and 
 John had nearly given up all hope, we found ourselves 
 stopped on the side-hill by a series of bluffs which no 
 one felt equal to scaling. Fifteen hundred feet below 
 us lay the river, and as a desperate alternative we 
 descended the mountain, with many bruises from 
 stumbling over logs hidden by the snow, to find that 
 the water had fallen in the night, and the ice, though 
 rough in the extreme, was dry enough to travel on. 
 After the night had closed down over the forest we 
 reached the place where the kettles and blankets had 
 been left, and things looked a little brighter with the 
 prospect of tea and a night's sleep ; but we knew now 
 that Fort Macleod must lie behind us, although there 
 was little inducement to make another attempt to 
 reach it with such untrustworthy guides. Our only 
 chance of life was to reach the entrance of the Peace 
 River Pass, where thirty pounds of flour lay on a 
 rough scaffold exposed to the mercy of the wolverines!
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SNOW fell again in the night and increased our 
 difficulties. For a day and a half we forced our way, 
 sometimes on rough ice and sometimes through the 
 thick willow bushes, with frequent rests as exhaustion 
 overtook us, till we again saw the Siccanee coffin hung 
 in the trees. Here we found the flour-sack that had 
 been thrown away on our up-stream journey, and 
 scraped off perhaps half a pound of flour which had 
 stuck to the sack when wet. At the same time a 
 mouse was caught in the snow, and, with no further 
 preparation than singeing off the hair, was cut into 
 strips and boiled with the flour into a thin soup. 
 Every man carried a tin cup in his belt, so a careful 
 distribution of the precious soup was made, and the 
 last pipe of tobacco smoked ; we certainly derived a 
 little strength from this unexpected supply, and our 
 spirits improved greatly for a short time. 
 
 The weather now turned colder and its increased 
 severity told on us heavily, for our clothes were torn 
 to rags by pushing through the woods, and a starving 
 man through loss of flesh always feels the cold more 
 severely than a man in good condition. We often had
 
 256 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xvi. 
 
 to light a fire to prevent our feet from freezing when 
 wet from walking on flooded ice or breaking through 
 near the shore. The river was still open in places and 
 continually altering its level. John was always far 
 behind, and I expected to see him drop at any time ; 
 but he had the advantage of starting fatter than the 
 rest of us, and took good care of himself, always 
 hanging in the rear and coming into camp when the 
 labour of throwing out the snow and getting wood was 
 accomplished. Never once during the whole of this 
 march did he go ahead to break a trail through the 
 snow, which is of course the most fatiguing work of 
 all. 
 
 A little before sundown on December i;th, the 
 tenth day without eating anything but small scraps 
 of moose-skin and the soup at the coffin-camp, we 
 staggered among huge blocks of ice, passed the junc- 
 tion of the Findlay, and soon afterwards arrived at the 
 cache. It was an anxious moment as I crawled up 
 the frozen bank and waded through the snow to the 
 scaffold; no wolverine tracks were to be seen, and the 
 flour was lying untouched. Camp was made, a kettle 
 of thick paste boiled, and a cupful eaten every half- 
 hour to prevent any ill effects from straining the 
 weakened organs of the digestion. 
 
 But we were by no means out of our difficulties yet. 
 Thirty pounds of flour, without meat, is the ordinary 
 amount that would be given to five men for two days, 
 without taking into account the fact that we had been 
 starving for a long time and were now reduced to 
 skeletons. Before us was the main range of the Rocky
 
 CHAP. xvi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 257 
 
 Mountains ; the snow would be drifted deep in the 
 narrow pass, and travel would be slow, if indeed we 
 got through at all. Another serious trouble was the 
 state of our moccasins ; as they wore out we had eaten 
 them, and were now wearing rough apologies for 
 shoes which we had made out of the moose-skin that 
 was quickly getting very small under the constant 
 demands made upon it for various purposes. 
 
 In the morning I measured the flour very carefully 
 with a cup into different loads, so that I might be able 
 to keep account of the quantity that was used, and, 
 taking a gun and what few cartridges were left, we 
 started for Tom Barrow's cabin, which we hoped to be 
 able to reach in three or four days if the ice should 
 prove good. In this we were terribly disappointed, 
 for at the end of the second day, after wading through 
 deep snow, and frequently putting ashore to light a 
 fire on account of the intense cold, we camped but a 
 short distance below the Findlay Rapid. John's feet 
 were frozen already, and all of us were touched in 
 the face ; there was always great difficulty in lighting 
 a match with numbed fingers, but birch-bark was 
 plentiful, and being readily inflammable was nearly 
 sure to blaze up at once. Our only remaining axe 
 was almost useless from having been carelessly left for 
 a night in the fire. Much of the snow had drifted off 
 the ice and was lying three and four feet deep on the 
 banks, increasing the labour of making camp and 
 picking up firewood, for we were too weak to do any 
 effectual chopping even if our axe had been in good 
 condition. Without snow-shoes it was impossible to 
 
 s
 
 258 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xvi. 
 
 walk through the forest in the hope of finding grouse ; 
 and, after one or two efforts, the exertion of wading 
 waist-deep through snow that reached to the belt was 
 found too great, and the attempt was abandoned. 
 
 On the third day a blizzard swept through the pass, 
 completely obscuring the opposite bank of the river, 
 which was here quite narrow. We attempted to travel 
 against it, but found our faces were frozen before going 
 a quarter of a mile. Murdo and myself had always to 
 light the matches, as the other men suffered more 
 from the cold than we did; I knew that my hands 
 were already useless, and that if we continued to force 
 our way against the storm there would be little chance 
 of starting a fire further on. I gave orders to turn 
 back for the camp, and we spent the short day in 
 keeping up the fire that was still burning. Besides 
 the drift, a gust of wind would often send down the 
 masses of snow that had gathered on the branches, 
 putting out our little blaze and filling up the hole that 
 we had dug in the snow, while the boughs themselves 
 often fell dangerously close to the camp. The allow- 
 ance of flour was cut down to two cupfuls among five 
 men, and this was eaten in the form of paste, which we 
 found more satisfying than bread. The Labrador tea 
 was buried deep under the snow, and from this time no 
 more was obtained. 
 
 The shortening of rations produced grumbling in 
 the camp, especially from John, who declared that it 
 was better to eat well while the little flour lasted, to 
 gain strength to take us to the trading-post. Murdo 
 was more sensible in this respect, but was beginning
 
 CHAP. xvi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 259 
 
 to lose the full use of his head, and, besides the strong 
 aversion he had always shown to John, now developed 
 a passionate hatred to Charlie and Pat, whom rightly 
 enough he held responsible for our position. This ill- 
 feeling among the various members of our party was 
 increased tenfold by an episode which took place on 
 the following day. The morning was very cold but 
 with less wind, and, although our faces froze again, we 
 pushed on for an hour or two and then made a fire on 
 the bank. Here we left the Indian and half-breed 
 drying their moccasins, and continued travelling down 
 stream to make a camp for the mid-day halt, knowing 
 that the others could catch us up easily with the 
 advantage of our road through the snow ; this they 
 did just as our fire was blazing up. I asked Charlie 
 for his flour, as so far we had not used any from his 
 load, but when he produced it there was not more than 
 a cupful left in the bag. I had given him five pounds 
 of flour to carry, and at once knew that our guides, 
 who had caused all the trouble, had now been guilty 
 of stealing food, when our lives depended on the 
 scanty store that we had picked up at the cache. For 
 this offence, at such a time, there is but one punish- 
 ment : a man on the point of starving to death cares 
 little whether you cut off the dollar a day that he is 
 earning or not; a blow struck would have fired the 
 train of discontent that was ready to explode ; the 
 only course open to me, if the offenders were to be 
 punished at all, was to put an end to them both with 
 the shot-gun that I carried. For a long time I debated 
 this question while a few spoonfuls of flour were 
 
 s 2, .
 
 260 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xvi. 
 
 boiled for dinner, and finally decided to let matters 
 take their course ; there were still seven or eight 
 pounds of flour left, and by further reduction of 
 rations we might keep ourselves alive for a few more 
 days ; the weather might be warmer, the ice less rough, 
 and the snowfall lighter if we could reach the far end 
 of the pass, but at present things looked very black 
 indeed. Flesh and strength were failing rapidly ; this 
 loss of provisions would tell heavily, and travelling 
 through the gloomy pass under the high mountains 
 was more laborious than words can describe. It was 
 no good refusing to give the thieves their share of 
 rations, as this might induce them to strike a blow in 
 the night, and deal us the death that they themselves 
 deserved ; but the question might still have to be 
 decided, in case of a man dropping, whether his life 
 should be sacrificed and the offenders allowed to go 
 free. If affairs came to the point which everything 
 seemed to indicate, there could now be no fair 
 drawing of lots to see who should die that the 
 survivors might support themselves by the last re- 
 source of all. 
 
 The weather continued cold, and frozen feet caused 
 many delays ; there was no chance here to treat a 
 frost-bite by the tender methods of thawing with snow 
 and rubbing with oil that are practised in civilization, 
 but feet were thrust into a blazing fire and allowed to 
 blister as they would. John and Charlie suffered 
 greatly from this cause, and their pain in walking was 
 much increased. These delays were serious, for 
 although the Peace River Pass lies as far to the south
 
 CHAP. xvi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 261 
 
 as the 56th parallel of latitude the days were at their 
 shortest. 
 
 For three more days we continued wading through 
 the snowdrifts, and crawling over rough ice, continu- 
 ally changing our leader, till on December 24th we 
 were stopped by another blizzard, and forced to lie in 
 camp all day. Rations were by this time cut down to 
 a spoonful of flour in the morning and a strip of 
 moose-skin at night for each man. Not more than a 
 pound of flour was left, and the storm, far too fierce 
 for such wretched skeletons to face, might continue for 
 several days. Our situation seemed utterly hopeless 
 as we crouched over the fire that was with difficulty 
 maintained, and apparently the end had come. There 
 was none of the kindly sympathy for companions in 
 misfortune which men who share a common danger 
 should have : a mutual distrust was prevalent ; hatred 
 and the wolfish madness of hunger ruled the camp ; 
 and to this day I cannot understand how it was that 
 the fatal spark was never struck, and no tragedy of 
 murder and cannibalism enacted on the banks of that 
 ice-bound river without witnesses save the great silent 
 mountains and the God who made them. 
 
 Christmas Day brought rather better weather, 
 although snow was still falling quietly, and, finding 
 open water in the river with shore-ice on which the 
 snow was not so deep as usual, there was a great 
 improvement in our case. An accident, however, 
 occurred which nearly put an end to two of the party. 
 Charlie and Pat, who were leading at the time, 
 ventured too near the edge of the open water and
 
 262 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xvi. 
 
 broke through, not only to the knees or waist, as had 
 so often happened, but over their heads in deep water 
 with a strong current, and we had some trouble in 
 pulling them out. It was very important that we 
 should make a fire at once, as the temperature was 
 many degrees below zero, and the men drenched to 
 the skin began to freeze directly. The accident had 
 taken place under a long steep bluff, and from where 
 we stood no firewood was to be seen on our side of 
 the river within a couple of miles. By the greatest 
 good fortune, on turning a point we found a huge tree 
 that had fallen over the cliff and lay on the beach 
 smashed up into firewood, as if it had been prepared 
 specially for our use. A blaze was soon started, and 
 the two half-drowned men left to dry themselves. 
 The most unfortunate part of the affair was the wetting 
 of the matches which they carried. I had divided 
 these precious articles among the men in case of acci- 
 dents of this kind, for without fire we should have had 
 no chance of saving our lives; as it turned out we 
 never ran short of matches and never once missed 
 making fire, although there was often trouble in pro- 
 curing wood ; we were far too weak to handle a big 
 log, but usually found a dead cotton-wood tree, from 
 which the bark is easily pulled and makes the best of 
 fires. 
 
 In the afternoon we passed the Polpar Rapid, which 
 was completely frozen up, and emerging from the pass 
 caught the first sight of the sun, that had been hidden 
 from us for many days by the high mountains. The 
 ice below the rapid continued fairly good till nightfall,
 
 CHAP. xvi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 263 
 
 when we were forced to camp, although the moon was 
 full and we tried to travel by her light. But although it 
 was easy enough to see close ahead, it was impossible 
 to pick out the line of the best ice, and the labour of 
 travelling was increased by having to force our way 
 through drifts and piled-up ice that we might have 
 avoided in daylight. 
 
 Soon after leaving camp on the following morning 
 a grouse was killed, and I think even this little 
 nourishment helped us a great deal to accomplish our 
 task of reaching the trading-post ; this was the only 
 grouse we had seen since we left the cache, although 
 on the up-stream journey birds had been plentiful 
 enough. The ice was still rough at times, but in 
 some places the river was open and good shore-ice 
 made the walking easy ; the weather was much 
 warmer, with bright sunshine, and there was no 
 danger of freezing our feet. At dark camp was made 
 within a day's travel of Barrow's house, if only we had 
 strength enough to reach it. 
 
 The long night passed away, and just before day- 
 light we were staggering among the blocks of ice 
 in a scattered line. There was always difficulty in 
 starting from the camp, for there was a certain amount 
 of comfort in lying in our blankets, and nobody was 
 anxious to try whether he could still stand upright 
 or not. Our inclination during the worst time was to 
 lie down and make no further effort, but after walking 
 half an hour we usually found ourselves in better 
 spirits. Soon after coming out on the ice, I looked 
 back to see how John was travelling, and noticed that
 
 264 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xvi. 
 
 he was down. Charlie, who had been behind with 
 him, came up and said that John could travel no 
 longer and intended to stay where he was. I stopped 
 all the men, but Charlie tried to push by me and said 
 that he would not wait for anyone. For the first time 
 I had to use threats to ensure my orders being carried 
 out, and taking the gun from my shoulder let Charlie 
 plainly see that I meant to shoot him if he did not 
 obey. This quickly brought him to his senses, and 
 John came up very slowly. He wanted someone 
 to stay with him and trust to the others sending back 
 provisions, but I would not listen to this proposal. 
 I told him that it was only want of courage that 
 prevented him making any further effort ; he was as 
 strong as the rest of us, and, if he would try, could 
 keep up quite easily ; if he would come on till we 
 reached the place where we had had dinner on the 
 second day out with the canoe, we would make him 
 a camp and leave all our blankets, so that he might 
 have a chance of keeping himself alive till relief came. 
 On rounding a point we saw open water ahead, and 
 John, although far behind, went far better on the 
 smooth ice, and eventually came in not more than an 
 hour after us. At noon the Bull's Head was in sight, 
 and we could see the line of hills at the foot of which 
 Barrow's house lay. The pace was fast for men in 
 our condition, but we kept up a steady walk, leaving 
 our blankets when there seemed a certainty of reaching 
 the house that night. The sun was down when we 
 passed the old shanty in which we had camped for 
 a night on the way up, and by moonlight we travelled
 
 CHAP. xvi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 265 
 
 on, following close to the edge of the open water and 
 taking little precaution to test the strength of the ice. 
 Soon the roar of the canon was heard, and at seven 
 o'clock we crawled up the steep bank and stood in 
 front of the cabin. I pushed open the door, and shall 
 never forget the expression of horror that came over 
 the faces of the occupants when they recognised us. 
 We had become used to the hungry eyes and wasted 
 forms, as our misery had come on us gradually, but 
 to a man who had seen us starting out thirty-two days 
 before in full health the change in our appearance 
 must have been terrible. There was no doubt that 
 we were very near the point of death. For my 
 own part I felt a dull aching in the left side of my 
 head ; I was blind in the left eye and deaf in the 
 left ear ; there was a sharp pain on each side just 
 below the ribs ; but my legs, though not well under 
 control, were still strong. We had all completely lost 
 the use of our voices, and suffered greatly from the 
 cracking of the skin on hands and feet, which always 
 results from starving in cold weather ; to say that we 
 were thin conveys no idea of our miserable condition. 
 It is needless to go into the details of our recovery ; 
 but under Barrow's careful nursing, and restrictions as 
 to the quantity of food allowed, we all came back 
 to health, although for some days our lives were 
 hanging in the balance. 
 
 I can never sufficiently thank Tom Barrow for his 
 kind behaviour on this occasion. Of course, every- 
 body is sorry for starving people ; but it is rather 
 a strain on this sympathy to have to look after five
 
 266 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xvi. 
 
 men so near to death in a small cabin among the 
 Rocky Mountains, with such slender supplies as had 
 been left for a winter s rations for two people. With- 
 out a murmur he shared his blankets and his pro- 
 visions, although he knew that there was a good 
 chance of starving himself in the spring. 
 
 Barrow told us directly where we had made our 
 mistake. The river we had turned up was Nation 
 River, and the log-cabin had been occupied some 
 years before by a party of miners, but very little gold 
 had been taken out. Some distance up Nation River 
 was the old trail to the Omineca mining-camp ; but 
 of course we should not have known what trail it was 
 if we had found it. The mouth of the Nation River 
 and the yellow cut bank Barrow remembered perfectly, 
 and said there had been much talk about these land- 
 marks on the way down ; it seems inexplicable that 
 three men, who had been over the route before, 
 should have made the mistake that so nearly cost 
 us our lives. If we had followed up the Parsnip 
 beyond the mouth of Nation River we should have 
 reached Macleod's Lake on December i2th at latest 
 with only a few days' starvation, and avoided all the 
 misery that continued till the 2yth of that month. 
 
 In a week communication was opened with Hudson's 
 Hope, and Walter Macdonald did everything he could 
 to help us ; but the same thing had happened to him. 
 A band of Beaver Indians had been caught by starva- 
 tion at the mouth of the Pine River Pass, and had 
 suffered the same experiences as ourselves. Many 
 had been left by the way, but I think there were no
 
 CHAP. xvi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 267 
 
 deaths, as provisions were sent out so soon as the 
 news reached Baptiste at Moberley's Lake. 
 
 At the end of a fortnight everybody was well 
 enough to travel ; and to ease the strain on provisions 
 I sent Murdo, John, and Charlie to Lesser Slave Lake, 
 where they could get fish to support them, and spare 
 the resources of the upper river posts. But even now 
 these men could not travel together, although they 
 had full rations and nothing to quarrel about. Murdo 
 reached the Lesser Slave Lake alone, John arriving 
 several days later, and I found Charlie at Dunvegan, 
 where he had already distinguished himself by robbing 
 from the priest's trading-store. A thorough black- 
 guard was Charlie, and it would have been little loss 
 to the world in general if he had left his bones under 
 the snow in the Peace River Pass ; he had begun 
 his voyage badly by stealing fifty dollars from his 
 mother at Quesnelle, and there were several other 
 offences for which the police had hunted him away 
 from the borders of civilization. Pat was to stay for 
 the winter with Barrow, and as soon as Baptiste had 
 made us snow-shoes we pottered about in the woods 
 together, hunting grouse and rabbits, and had soon 
 entirely recovered our strength. 
 
 I have never heard any satisfactory explanation 
 of the gradual increase and sudden dying out of the 
 rabbits and lynx, which takes place every seven years 
 throughout the North. Starting from the few sur- 
 vivors of the last epidemic, the numbers increase 
 slowly every season, till in the sixth year the whole 
 country is so overrun with them that a man can travel
 
 268 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xvi. 
 
 anywhere with no further provision than shot-gun and 
 snares. Then the disease breaks out, dead bodies are 
 found all through the woods, and scarcely a living 
 rabbit or lynx is to be seen. The autumn of 1885 
 I spent on the head-waters of the Athabasca, at the 
 east end of the Tete Jaune Pass ; the rabbits 
 were then at their height and as plentiful as I ever 
 saw them in England. 1892 will be the next big 
 rabbit-year ; but after that famine is sure to be rife on 
 Peace River, as it is harder every year to kill moose, 
 and for the last two or three years the rabbit-snares 
 have kept many an Indian from starvation. This 
 rabbit-question is an important one to consider before 
 starting on an exploration trip in the Peace River 
 country, as in the good seasons there is no danger 
 of running short of provisions. 
 
 One day, as we were setting snares together, Pat 
 told me the story of the stolen flour. They had 
 stayed behind to dry their moccasins, and Charlie had 
 explained to Pat that I was keeping the flour for 
 the use of the white men, and that their only chance 
 of getting any was to help themselves ; Pat had 
 objected at first, but afterwards gave way when he saw 
 Charlie cooking the flour, and they had eaten about 
 four pounds between them. Judging from Charlie's 
 character I am inclined to believe the story, as Pat in 
 all other respects had behaved well under the pressure 
 of hardship, and had always done more than his share 
 of work in making camp and breaking the trail. 
 
 While staying at Hudson's Hope, Macdonald and I 
 walked over to Moberley's Lake, twelve miles to the
 
 CHAP. xvi. OF NORTHERN CANADA 269 
 
 south, to pay old Baptiste a visit. The house stands 
 within view of the big peaks of the Rockies close 
 to the edge of the lake, but the appearance of the 
 country is rather spoilt by the abundant traces of 
 forest fires that have taken place of late years. The 
 lake is a beautiful sheet of water, ten miles in length, 
 drained by the Pine River, which falls into the Peace 
 a short distance above Fort St. John. Baptiste has 
 a fruitful potato-patch, and his women were catching 
 plenty of rabbits ; there was moose-pemmican, too, 
 and dried meat, for the Fall hunt had been successful. 
 The Iroquois gave me a pair of snow-shoes orna- 
 mented with tassels of coloured wool, as well as a pair 
 of beaded moccasins which he made me promise not 
 to eat, and came with us to the fort to see us off.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 IT was towards the end of January, 1891, that I left 
 Hudson's Hope for Edmonton, a distance of six hun- 
 dred miles, giving up all further attempt to reach 
 Macleod's Lake. A son of Mr. Brick, of Smoky 
 River, turned up just before I started, and promised to 
 go with Pat to my cache at the junction of the Findlay 
 and Parsnip when the days grew long in spring. The 
 rough ice would then be covered with deep snow, and 
 with snow-shoes and hand-sleighs it would be easy to 
 bring away the guns, journals, and many other articles 
 that I had been obliged to abandon. 
 
 Two days and a half took me to St. John's, and 
 after a week's stay there a dog-train, carrying the 
 winter packet, arrived, and I took this chance of getting 
 to Dunvegan. Alick Kennedy, one of the very best 
 half-breed voyageurs in Canada, was in charge of the 
 packet. The distances this man has been known to run 
 in a day would hardly be credited in a land where people 
 travel by railways and steamboats : moreover, he is a 
 pleasant companion to travel with ; his conversation is 
 interesting, and entirely free from the boasting which 
 most of the half-breeds indulge in. Alick was captain
 
 CHAP. xvii. NORTHERN CANADA 271 
 
 of a boat-brigade on the Nile; and if all the Canadian 
 contingent had been of his stamp instead of the Winni- 
 peg loafers, who were too worthless to get employment 
 in their own country, a different story might have been 
 told of the behaviour of the voyageurs on the march to 
 Khartoum. 
 
 Five days took us to Dunvegan, where I again met 
 Mr. Macdonald, and travelled with him to the Lesser 
 Slave Lake. From Dunvegan we made the portage 
 straight to Smoky River, crossing a pretty prairie 
 country and camping a night at Old Wives' Lake, 
 where Mr. Brick winters some of his cattle. With a 
 splendid track along the waggon-road, we made the 
 ninety miles to the Lesser Slave Lake in two days, 
 and, judging from the number of people and houses, 
 we seemed to have reached civilization already. 
 Besides the Hudson's Bay establishment, the missions 
 and the buildings of the free-traders, many half-breeds 
 have houses scattered along the lake, and devote part 
 of their attention to raising horses and cattle, though 
 of course whitefish are the main support of life. A 
 favourite haunt for wildfowl is this lake in spring and 
 autumn, but big game and fur have been nearly killed 
 out by the large population, and most of the Indian trade 
 is done at the out-posts nearer to the hunting-grounds. 
 
 I spent several days at the fort, being well treated 
 as usual, and February was nearly finished when I 
 started with Mr. Frank Hardistay on my last journey 
 with dogs. The Lesser Slave Lake is about seventy 
 miles in length, and covering this distance easily in 
 two days we travelled down the Little Slave River
 
 272 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xvn. 
 
 which leaves the east end of the lake. A good deal of 
 labour has been expended in blasting rocks out of the 
 channel of this river, to enable the steamer from the 
 Athabasca landing to reach the lake, and so avoid 
 the expense of building boats and engaging crews to 
 transport the Peace River cargo, but so far these 
 efforts have proved unsuccessful. 
 
 I think we followed the course of this stream about 
 twenty miles, then dived into the thick pine-forest on 
 the east bank, and making a twelve-mile portage came 
 out on the Athabasca River, seventy miles above the 
 landing at the end of the waggon-road from Edmonton. 
 The Athabasca has here the same monotonous look that 
 one becomes so tired of in its lower reaches. When 
 a point was rounded another point exactly similar 
 showed three or four miles ahead, and this continued 
 till we reached the landing, in clear cold weather, on 
 March 3rd ; three days later our dogs, bearing the 
 smartest of dog-cloths and with sleigh-bells ringing 
 merrily, rattled into Edmonton, and the wild free life 
 of the last twenty months was over. 
 
 The excitement that the arrival of a stranger never 
 fails to create at a lonely Northern fort is rather apt to 
 give that stranger an exaggerated idea of his own 
 importance ; but when I reached Edmonton I at once 
 realised that there are many people in the world who 
 have ideas beyond musk-ox and caribou, dog-sleighs 
 and snow-shoes. An election was at its height to 
 decide who should have the honour of representing 
 the territory of Alberta at Ottawa. Edmonton had 
 been drinking, although it is supposed to keep strictly
 
 CHAP. xvii. OF NORTHERN CANADA 273 
 
 to the rules of the Prohibition Act, and before I had 
 been an hour in the town I found myself in the midst 
 of a free fight. I was unfortunate in not knowing the 
 names of the candidates, or what policy they repre- 
 sented, and as I could give no clear account as to 
 what I had done with my vote, I was roughly used by 
 both sides and was glad to escape to the less boisterous 
 hospitality of the Hudson's Bay Fort. 
 
 There were still two hundred miles of snow-covered 
 prairie to be crossed to reach Calgary, but with horses 
 to drag our sleigh, and a house to sleep in every 
 night, there could be little hardship in the journey. 
 At the crossing of the Red Deer we saw the iron 
 rails that had already pushed far out towards Ed- 
 monton, but work had ceased for the winter and 
 no trains were running. As we travelled south the 
 snow became less every day, till we were forced to 
 change our runners for wheels when still sixty miles 
 from Calgary. Late in the evening of March i5th 
 the whistle of a locomotive told me, more plainly than 
 anything I had yet heard, that it was time to pull 
 myself together and take up the commonplace life of 
 civilization ; a few more miles of level country, down 
 a steep pitch or two, across the frozen stream of the 
 Elbow, and close ahead the lights of Calgary were 
 blinking over the prairie. 
 
 I am writing these concluding lines in a fashionable 
 garret off St. James's Street. Close at hand are all 
 the luxuries that only ultra-civilization can give, and 
 these luxuries are to be obtained by the simple 
 
 T
 
 274 THE BARREN GROUND CHAP. xvn. 
 
 method of handing over an adequate number of coins 
 of the realm ; there is no necessity to shoulder your 
 gun and tramp many weary miles on snow-shoes 
 before you get even a sight of your dinner in its raw 
 state. But surely we carry this civilization too far, 
 and are in danger of warping our natural instincts 
 by too close observance of the rules that some 
 mysterious force obliges us to follow when we herd 
 together in big cities. Very emblematical of this 
 warping process are the shiny black boots into which 
 we squeeze our feet when we throw away the moccasin 
 of freedom ; as they gall and pinch the unaccustomed 
 foot, so does the dread of our friends' opinion gall and 
 pinch our minds till they become narrow, out of shape, 
 and unable to discriminate between reality and sem- 
 blance. A dweller in cities is too wrapped up in the 
 works of man to have much respect left for the works 
 of God, and to him the loneliness of forest and 
 mountain, lake and river, must ever appear but a 
 weary desolation. But there are many sportsmen who 
 love to be alone with Nature and the animals far from 
 their fellow-men, and as this book is intended solely for 
 the sportsman, a few words of advice to anyone who is 
 anxious to hunt the musk-ox may not be out of place. 
 I am not quite sure that Fort Resolution is the best 
 point to start from. Fort Rae, on the north arm of 
 the Great Slave Lake, lies nearer the Barren Ground, 
 and the Dog-Ribs are said to be more amenable to 
 reason than the Yellow Knives, while the distance 
 to travel through a woodless country is shorter. Fort 
 Good Hope, on the Lower Mackenzie, would be
 
 CHAP. xvn. OF NORTHERN CANADA 275 
 
 another good spot to make headquarters ; but there 
 is less certainty of finding the caribou in that neigh- 
 bourhood, and without the caribou there is little chance 
 of reaching the musk-ox. It is not the slightest use 
 starting from a post with the theory that musk-ox can 
 be killed in so many days, and that, by taking a load 
 of provisions sufficient to last for the same length of 
 time, a successful hunt will be made. The only plan 
 is to work your way up slowly, to stay among the 
 caribou in the autumn, and kill and cache meat when- 
 ever an opportunity offers, ready for a rush on the 
 first snow. Remember, too, when provisions get 
 scarce, as they certainly will at some time or other, 
 the country ahead is as big as the country behind, 
 and the best chance lies in pushing on. To turn back 
 may prove fatal, when another day's travel may put 
 you in a land of plenty. It is possible to reach the 
 hunting-ground and return to Fort Resolution with 
 a canoe in the summer, but the robes are then worth- 
 less, and the whole sport savours too much of covert- 
 shooting in July. Make quite sure before you start 
 that you are determined to push on through every- 
 thing, as even the Great Slave Lake is far to go on an 
 unsuccessful errand. Here, in London, in front of a 
 good fire at the club and under the influence of a good 
 dinner, it is easy enough to kill musk-ox and make 
 long night-marches on snow-shoes by the flashes of 
 the Northern Lights ; but the test of practice takes off 
 some of the enjoyment. 
 
 A year has slipped away since our winter journey 
 through the Peace River Pass. Young Brick kept 
 
 T 2
 
 276 NORTHERN CANADA CHAP. XVH. 
 
 his promise of getting the cache right well, and a 
 couple of months ago my journals arrived in England, 
 so that I have been able to put together this rough 
 record of my Northern travels. On looking back one 
 remembers only the good times, when meat was 
 plentiful and a huge fire lit up the snow on the spruce 
 trees ; misery and starvation are forgotten as soon as 
 they are over, and even now, in the midst of the 
 luxury of civilization, at times I have a longing to 
 pitch my lodge once more at the edge of the Barren 
 Ground, to see the musk-ox standing on the snowdrift 
 and the fat caribou falling to the crack of the rifle, to 
 hear the ptarmigan crowing among the little pines 
 as the sun goes down over a frozen lake and the glory 
 of an Arctic night commences. 
 
 To the man who is not a lover of Nature in all her 
 moods the Barren Ground must always be a howling, 
 desolate wilderness ; but for my part, I can understand 
 the feeling that prompted Saltatha's answer to the 
 worthy priest, who was explaining to him the beauties 
 of Heaven. ' My iather, you have spoken well ; you 
 have told me that Heaven is very beautiful ; tell me 
 now one thing more. Is it more beautiful than the 
 country of the musk-ox in summer, when sometimes 
 the mist blows over the lakes, and sometimes the 
 water is blue, afi^ the loons cry very often ? That is 
 beautiful ; and if Heaven is still more beautiful, my 
 heart will be glad, and I shall be content to rest there 
 till I am very old.'
 
 DOMINION" or CAJ
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 I AM much indebted to Professor Dawson, of the Dominion 
 Geological Survey Department, for his kind permission to 
 publish the following paper on the Unexplored Regions of 
 Canada. It shows more plainly than any words of mine 
 could tell how much yet remains to be done before this great 
 portion of the British Empire is known as it ought to be. 
 
 ON SOME OF THE LARGER UNEXPLORED 
 REGIONS OF CANADA. 
 
 (By G. M. DAWSON, D.S., Assoc. R.S.M., F.G.S., F.R.S.C.) 
 
 If on reading the title of the paper which I had promised 
 to contribute to the Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club, any one 
 should have supposed it to be my intention to endeavour to 
 describe or forecast the character of the unexplored areas 
 mentioned, I must, in the first place, disclaim any such inten- 
 tion. The very existence of large regions of which little or 
 nothing is known, is of course stimulating to a fertile imagina- 
 tion, ready to picture to itself undiscovered ' golden cities a 
 thousand leagues deep in Cathay/ but such unscientific use of 
 the imagination is far removed from the position of sober 
 seriousness, in which I ask your attention to the facts which 
 I have to present. 
 
 Fortunately, or unfortunately, as we may happen to regard 
 it, the tendency of our time is all in the direction of laying 
 bare to inspection and open to exploitation all parts, however 
 remote, of this comparatively small world in which we live, 
 and though the explorer himself may be impelled by a certain 
 romanticism in overcoming difficulties or even dangers met
 
 278 THE BARREN GROUND APPEND, i. 
 
 with in the execution of his task, his steps are surely and 
 closely followed by the trader, the lumberer, or the agri- 
 culturist, and not long after these comes the builder of rail- 
 ways with his iron road. It is, therefore, rather from the 
 point of view of practical utility than from any other, that an 
 appeal must be made to the public or to the Government for 
 the further extension of explorations, and my main purpose 
 in addressing you to-night is to make such an appeal, and to 
 show cause, if possible, for the exploration of such considerable 
 portions of Canada as still remain almost or altogether un- 
 mapped. 
 
 What I have to say, in fact, on this subject resolves itself 
 chiefly into remarks on the map exhibited here, upon which 
 the unexplored areas to which I am about to refer are clearly 
 depicted in such a manner, I believe, as almost to speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 It is very commonly supposed, even in Canada, but to a 
 greater extent elsewhere, that all parts of the Dominion are 
 now so well known that exploration, in the true sense of the 
 term, may be considered as a thing of the past. This depends 
 largely upon the fact that the maps of the country generally 
 examined are upon a very small scale, and that upon such 
 maps no vast areas yet remain upon which rivers, lakes, moun- 
 tains, .or other features are not depicted. If, however, we 
 take the trouble to enquire more closely into this, and 
 consult perhaps one of the geographers whose maps we have 
 examined, asking such awkward questions as may occur to us 
 on the sources of information for this region or that, we may 
 probably by him be referred to another and older map, and so 
 on till we find in the end that the whole topographical fabric 
 of large parts of all these maps rests upon information of the 
 vaguest kind. 
 
 Of most of the large areas marked upon the map here 
 shown, this is absolutely true, and the interests of knowledge 
 with respect to these would be better subserved if such areas 
 were left entirely blank, or, at least, if all the geographical 
 features drawn upon them appeared in broken lines, in such a
 
 APPEND, i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 279 
 
 way as to show that none of them are certain. In other 
 regions, the main geographical outlines, such as the courses 
 of the larger rivers, are indicated approximately, with such 
 accuracy as may be possible from accounts or itineraries 
 derived from travellers or from officers of the Hudson's Bay 
 Company ; or from the descriptions or rough sketches of 
 Indians or other persons by whom the region has been 
 traversed, but who have been unprovided with instruments 
 of any kind and whose knowledge of the country has been 
 incidentally obtained. 
 
 There is, in the case of such partially explored regions, 
 more excuse for the delineation of the main features on our 
 maps, as these may be useful in imparting general information 
 of a more or less inexact kind. We can scarcely, however, 
 admit that such regions have been explored in any true sense 
 of that term, while they are certainly unsurveyed, and very 
 little confidence can be placed in maps of this kind as guides 
 in travel. When, ten years ago, I struck across from Fort 
 Macleod, on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, with the 
 purpose of reaching Fort Dunvegan on the Peace, through a 
 country densely forested and without trails or tracks of any 
 kind, I had so much confidence in the existing maps of that 
 region as to assume that Dunvegan was at least approxi- 
 mately correct in position on them. As often as possible I 
 took observations for latitude, and each night worked out our 
 position by latitude and departure, till at a certain point 
 I was about to turn off to the north of the line previously 
 followed with the confident anticipation of finding Dunvegan. 
 Just here, very fortunately, we fell in with some Indians, and 
 though our means of communicating with them were very 
 imperfect, we gathered enough to lead us to accept the 
 guidance of one of them, who promised to lead us to the fort, 
 but took an entirely different direction from that I had pro- 
 posed taking. He was right, but Dunvegan proved to be, as 
 shown on the maps, nearly forty miles west of its real posi- 
 tion. Fortunately no very great importance attached to our 
 reaching Dunvegan on a given day, but none the less, this
 
 2 8o THE BARREN GROUND APPEND, i. 
 
 practical experience proved to me very conclusively the 
 desirability of showing features in broken lines, or otherwise 
 indicating their uncertainty when they have not been properly 
 fixed. 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that most of the travellers 
 ordinarily to be found in these unexplored regions, being 
 Indians or hunters, traders and others travelling under the 
 guidance of Indians, do not depend on the latitudes and lon- 
 gitudes of places, or on the respective bearings of one place 
 from another. The Indians follow routes with which they 
 have been familiar since childhood, or, when beyond the 
 boundaries of their own particular region of country, go by 
 land-marks, such as mountains, lakes, and rivers, which have 
 been described to them by their neighbours. Their memory 
 in this respect is remarkable ; but it must be remembered that 
 among their principal subjects of conversation when sitting 
 about the camp-fire are the distances in day's journeys from 
 place to place, the routes which they have followed or have 
 known others to follow, the difficulties to be encountered on 
 these, the points at which food of different kinds may be 
 obtained, and the features which strike them as being remark- 
 able in the country traversed. Returning, however, from this 
 digression, which began with the statement that accurate 
 maps of such regions as are at present merely traversed by 
 traders and Indians, are not imperative from the point of 
 view of such travellers, it may with confidence be affirmed 
 that such maps and explorations upon which they are based 
 are absolutely essential to civilized society, to show in the 
 first place what the natural resources of these regions are and 
 how they may be utilized, in the second by what highways 
 such regions may be most easily reached. 
 
 A glance at the map will show, that while many of the 
 larger unexplored areas may be affirmed to lie to the north of 
 the limit of profitable agriculture, considerable regions situated 
 to the south of this limit still await examination. Large dis- 
 tricts, again, in which no farmer will ever voluntarily settle, 
 may afford timber which the world will be glad to get when
 
 APPEND, i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 281 
 
 the white pine of our nearer forests shall become more nearly 
 exhausted, while, with respect to mineral resources, it is 
 probable that in the grand aggregate the value of those which 
 exist in the unexplored regions will be found, area for area, 
 to be equal to those of the known regions, comparing each 
 particular geological formation with its nearest representative. 
 On the grounds alone, therefore, of geographical knowledge, 
 and* of the discovery and definition of the reserves of the 
 country in timber and minerals, the exploration of all these 
 unknown or little-known regions may be amply justified. 
 
 Taking a line drawn north and south in the longitude of 
 the Red River Valley, which is, as nearly as may be, the centre 
 of Canada from east to west, it may confidently be stated that 
 by far the larger part of the country in which agricultural 
 settlement is possible lies to the west, while the great bulk of 
 the actual population lies to the east of this line. Looking 
 to this grand fundamental fact, I believe it may safely be 
 affirmed that some members of this audience will live to see 
 the day when these conditions with respect to population will 
 be boldly reversed, and in which the greater number of our 
 representatives in Parliament gathering here will come from 
 this great western region. 
 
 This disposition of the cultivable land depends partly upon 
 the physical characteristics of the country, and in part on its 
 climatic conditions. Beyond Winnipeg, and stretching there- 
 from to the west and north-west, is the great area of prairie, 
 plain, and plateau, which, wider near the forty-ninth parallel 
 than elsewhere on the continent, runs on in one form or other, 
 though with diminishing width, to the Arctic Ocean. This 
 is, generally speaking, an alluvial region, and one of fertile 
 soils. Very fortunately, and as though by a beneficent pro- 
 vision of nature, the climatic features favour the utilization of 
 this belt. The summer isothermals, which carry with them 
 the possibility of ripening crops, trend far to the north. 
 
 Let us trace, for example, and as a rough and ready index 
 of the northern limit of practicable agriculture of any kind, 
 that isothermal line which represents a mean temperature of
 
 282 THE BARREN GROUND APPEND, i. 
 
 60 Fahrenheit in the month of July. Passing through the 
 southern part of Newfoundland and touching the island of 
 Anticosti, this line runs to the north end of Mistassini Lake, 
 and thence crosses Hudson's Bay, striking the west shore a 
 short distance north of York Factory. Thence it runs west- 
 ward, skirting the north end of Reindeer Lake, and then 
 bending to the north-west, crosses Great Slave Lake, and 
 touches the southern extremity of Great Bear Lake. From 
 this point it resumes a westward course and crosses the 
 Yukon River a considerable distance to the north of the 
 confluence of the Pelly and the Lewes, turning south again 
 almost on the east line of Alaska. We need not, however, 
 further follow its course, as owing to peculiar climatic 
 conditions on the West Coast, it ceases there to be any 
 criterion as to the conditions of agriculture. 
 
 The character of much of the western interior country is 
 such that its exploration and survey is comparatively easy, 
 and it will be observed that here the larger unknown regions 
 are to be found only far to the northward, leaving in the 
 more rugged and inhospitable eastern region vast islands of 
 unexplored country in much more southern latitudes. 
 
 It may be said, in fact, that comparatively little of the 
 region capable, so far as climate goes, of producing wheat is 
 now altogether unknown ; but it may be added, that 
 increasing as the world now is in population, its people 
 cannot much longer expect to find wheat-growing lands 
 unoccupied in large blocks. The time is within measurable 
 distance when lands with a fertile soil though more or less 
 rigorous climate, in which only barley, oats, hemp, flax, and 
 other hardy crops can be matured, will be in demand, and we 
 are far from having acquired even a good general knowledge 
 of these lands in Canada. 
 
 For many of the unexplored regions marked upon this 
 map, however, we can in reason appeal only to their possible 
 or presumable mineral wealth as an incentive to their ex- 
 ploration, and if some of them should prove wholly or in great 
 part barren when such exploration shall have been carried
 
 APPEND, i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 283 
 
 out, it will not be without utility to acquire even this negative 
 information, and write upon them in characters as large as 
 need be, ' No thoroughfare.' 
 
 I will now ask your further attention for a few moments 
 while I run over and make some remarks in detail on the 
 various unexplored areas as indicated on the map. It must 
 first, however, be explained in what manner the unexplored 
 areas referred to have been outlined. All lines, such as those 
 of rivers, chains of lakes, or other travelled routes, along which 
 reasonably satisfactory explorations have been made and of 
 which fairly accurate route-maps are in existence, are given an 
 approximate average width of about fifty miles, or twenty-five 
 miles on each side of the explorer's or surveyor's track. The 
 known lines are thus arbitrarily assumed to be wide belts of 
 explored country, and that which is referred to as unexplored 
 comprises merely the intervening tracts. By this mode of 
 definition the unexplored regions are reduced to minimum 
 dimensions. Neither are any comparatively small tracts of 
 country lying between explored routes included in my 
 enumeration, in which the least area mentioned is one of 
 7500 square miles ; nor are the Arctic islands, lying to the 
 north of the continent, referred to. Because of the empirical 
 mode in which the unexplored areas have thus been delineated, 
 it has not been attempted to estimate with more than 
 approximate accuracy the number of square miles contained 
 in each, my purpose being merely to render apparent the 
 great dimensions of these areas. 
 
 In enumerating these areas, I shall not refer to the various 
 explorations and lines of survey by which they are defined 
 and separated one from another, as this would involve 
 mention of nearly all the explorers who have traversed the 
 northern part of the continent. I shall, however, note such 
 excursions as have been made into or across the regions 
 which are characterized as unexplored. 
 
 Beginning, then, in the extreme north-west of the 
 Dominion, we find these areas to be as follows : 
 
 i. Area between the eastern boundary of Alaska, the
 
 284 THE BARREN GROUND APPEND, i. 
 
 Porcupine River and the Arctic Coast, 9500 square miles, or 
 somewhat smaller than Belgium. This area lies entirely 
 within the Arctic Circle. 
 
 2. Area west of the Lewes and Yukon Rivers and extending 
 to the boundary of Alaska, 32,000 square miles, or somewhat 
 larger than Ireland. This country includes the head-waters 
 of the White and probably of the Tanana Rivers, and, being 
 comparatively low and sheltered from the sea by one of the 
 highest mountain-ranges on the continent, the St. Elias Alps, 
 doubtless possesses some remarkable peculiarities of climate. 
 
 3. Area between the Lewes, Pelly, and Stikine Rivers and 
 to the east of the Coast Ranges, 27,000 square miles, or 
 nearly as large as Scotland. This has been penetrated only 
 by a few 'prospectors,' from whom, and from Indians, the 
 courses of rivers shown on my maps published in connection 
 with the Yukon Expedition Report are derived. It lies on 
 the direct line of the metalliferous belt of the Cordillera, and 
 its low lands are capable of producing hardy crops. 
 
 4. Area between the Pelly and Mackenzie Rivers, 100,000 
 square miles, or about twice the size of England. This 
 belongs partly to the Yukon Basin and partly to that of the 
 Mackenzie, and includes nearly 600 miles in length of the 
 main Rocky Mountain Range. Many years ago, Mr. A. K. 
 Isbister penetrated the northern part of this area for some 
 distance on the line of the Peel River 1 , but owing to the 
 manner in which he had to travel, but little accuracy can be 
 attributed to his sketch of that river. Abbe Petitot also 
 made a short journey into its northern part from the 
 Mackenzie River side, but, with these exceptions, no published 
 information exists respecting it. 
 
 5. Area between Great Bear Lake and the Arctic Coast, 
 50,000 square miles, or about equal to England in size. 
 Nearly all to the north of the Arctic Circle. 
 
 6. Area between Great Bear Lake, the Mackenzie, and the 
 
 1 Some account of Peel River, North America, by A. K. Isbister, Journ. Roy. 
 Geog. Soc., vol. xv, 1845, p. 332.
 
 APPEND, i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 285 
 
 western part of Great Slave Lake, 35,000 square miles, or 
 larger than Portugal. With respect to this region and that 
 last mentioned, it must be explained that I have felt some 
 doubt whether they should be characterized as unexplored 
 on the basis previously explained as that which is generally 
 applied. Between 1857 and 1865, Mr. R. Macfarlane, of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, carried out an intelligent and valuable 
 examination of part of the region north of Great Bear Lake, 
 some results of which have lately been published 1 , and in 
 both of these areas, between 1864 and 1871, the indefatigable 
 missionary, Abbe Petitot, made numerous journeys, of which 
 he subsequently published an account 2 . . As Petitot's instru- 
 ments consisted merely of a compass, and a watch which he 
 rated by the meridian passage of the sun, it must be 
 assumed that his mapping of the country does not possess 
 any great accuracy. His work, however, considering the 
 difficulties under which it was performed, is deserving of all 
 praise, and his several descriptions of the character of the 
 country traversed are most valuable. It does not appear 
 from his account of these regions that they are likely to prove 
 of great utility to civilized man, except as fur-preserves, or 
 possibly from the minerals which they may contain. He 
 writes : ' Ce pays est compose de contrees silencieuses comme 
 le tombeau, des plaines vastes comme des departements, des 
 steppes glaces plus affreux que ceux de la Siberie, de forets 
 chetives, rabougries comme on n'en voit que dans le voisinage 
 des glaciers du Nord.' 
 
 7. Area between Stikine and Liard Rivers to the north and 
 Skeena and Peace Rivers to the south, 81,000 square miles, or 
 more than twice as large as Newfoundland. This includes a 
 portion of the western Cordillera, and, between the Liard and 
 Peace Rivers, a large tract of the interior plateau region of the 
 continent, parts of which, there is reason to believe, consist of 
 good agricultural land. Its western extremity was crossed in 
 1866 and 1867 by the exploratory survey of the Western 
 
 1 Canadian Record of Science, Jan., 1890. 
 
 2 Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic, Tom. x, 1875.
 
 286 THE BARREN GROUND APPEND, i. 
 
 Union or Collins' Telegraph Company, then engaged in an 
 attempt to connect the North American and European 
 telegraph systems through Asia. No details of this part of 
 their exploration have, however, been published, and if we 
 may judge from other parts of their line, since checked, the 
 survey made was of too rough a character to possess much 
 geographical value. 
 
 8. Area between Peace, Athabasca, and Loon Rivers, 7500 
 square miles, or about half as large as Switzerland. 
 
 9. Area south-east of Athabasca Lake, 35,000 square 
 miles. This may be compared in extent to Portugal. 
 
 10. Area east of the Coppermine River and west of 
 Bathurst Inlet, 7500 square miles. This again may be com- 
 pared to half the area of Switzerland. 
 
 11. Area between the Arctic Coast and Back's River, 
 31,000 square miles, or about equal to Ireland. 
 
 12. Area surrounded by Back's River, Great Slave Lake, 
 Athabasca Lake, Hatchet and Reindeer Lakes, Churchill 
 River, and the west coast of Hudson's Bay, 178,000 square 
 miles. Much larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and 
 somewhat larger than Sweden. The lakes and rivers shown 
 in this great region depend entirely on the result of the 
 three journeys made by Hearne in 1769-1772 1 . Hearne 
 really wandered through parts of this region in company 
 with Indians whom he was unable to control, his ultimate 
 object (which he at length accomplished) being to reach the 
 Coppermine River, in order to ascertain for the Hudson's Bay 
 Company whether it was possible to utilize the native copper 
 found there. Not even roughly approximate accuracy can 
 be assigned to his geographical work. Referring to the 
 position of the mouth of the Coppermine, he writes : ' The 
 latitude may be depended upon to within 20 miles at the 
 utmost. 1 In reality it afterwards proved to be 200 miles too 
 far north. This country includes the great ' barren grounds ' 
 
 1 A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort, in Hudson's Bay, to the Northern 
 Ocean, 1796.
 
 APPEND, i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 287 
 
 of the continent, and is the principal winter resort of the 
 musk-ox as well as of great herds of caribou. Hearne's 
 general characterization of it is not very encouraging, but 
 certainly we shall know more about it. He writes : ' The 
 land throughout the whole tract of country is scarcely any- 
 thing but one solid mass of rocks and stones, and in most 
 parts very hilly, particularly to the westward, among the 
 woods.' The north-eastern extremity of this region was also 
 crossed by Lieut. Schwatka in the course of his remarkable 
 journey to King-William Land, but his geographical , results 
 possess little value l . 
 
 13. Area between Severn and Attawapishkat Rivers and 
 the coast of Hudson's Bay, 22,000 square miles, or larger than 
 Nova Scotia. Several lakes and rivers are shown upon the 
 maps in this region in practically identical form since Arrow- 
 smith's map of 1850, but I have been unable to ascertain the 
 origin of the information. 
 
 14. Area between Trout Lake, Lac Seul, and the Albany 
 River, 15,000 square miles, or about half the size of Scotland. 
 
 15. Area to the south and east of James Bay, 35,000 
 square miles, which also may be compared to the area of 
 Portugal. This region is the nearest of those which still 
 remain unexplored to large centres of population. It is 
 probable that much of it consists of low land which may 
 afford merchantable timber. 
 
 1 6. Area comprising almost the entire interior of the 
 Labrador peninsula or North-east Territory, 289,000 square 
 miles. This is more than equal to twice the area of Great 
 Britain and Ireland, with an added area equal to that of 
 Newfoundland. Several lines of exploration and survey have 
 been carried for a certain distance into the interior of this 
 great peninsula, among which may be mentioned those of 
 Professor Hind, Mr. A. P. Low, and Mr. R. F. Holme 2 . The 
 
 1 Sch-watkcts Search, by H. W. Gilder. 
 
 3 Explorations in Labrador, 1863; Annual Report Geol. Surv. Can., 1887-88, 
 Part. J; Proc. Royal Geog. Soc., 1888; Ott. Nat., Vol. iv.
 
 2 88 THE BARREN GROUND APPEND, i. 
 
 limits of the unexplored area have been drawn so as to 
 exclude all these. The area regarded as still unexplored 
 has, however, it is true, been traversed in several directions 
 at different times by officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, 
 particularly on routes leading from the vicinity of Mingan on 
 the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the head of Hamilton Inlet, and 
 thence to Ungava Bay. These routes have also, according 
 to Mr. Holme, been travelled by a missionary, Pere Lacasse ; 
 but the only published information which I have been able 
 to find is contained in a book written by J. M c Lean l , and in 
 a brief account of a journey by Rev. E. J. Peck 2 . Mr. 
 M c Lean made several journeys and established trading-posts 
 between Ungava and Hamilton Inlet in the years 1838-1841, 
 while Mr. Peck crossed from Little Whale River, on Hudson 
 Bay, to Ungava in 1 884. Something may be gathered as to 
 the general nature of the country along certain lines from 
 the accounts given by these gentlemen, but there is little of 
 a really satisfactory character, while neither has made any 
 attempt to fix positions or delineate the features of the 
 region on the map. In all probability this entire region 
 consists of a rocky plateau or hilly tract of rounded archaean 
 rocks, highest on the north-east side and to the south, and 
 sloping gradually down to low land towards Ungava Bay. 
 It is known to be more or less wooded, and in some places 
 with timber of fair growth ; but if it should be possessed of 
 any real value, this may probably lie in its metalliferous 
 deposits. In this tract of country particularly there is reason 
 to hope that ores like those of Tilt Cove, in Newfoundland, 
 or those of Sudbury, in Ontario, may occur. 
 
 To sum up briefly, in conclusion, what has been said as 
 to the larger unexplored areas of Canada, it may be stated 
 that, while the entire area of the Dominion is computed at 
 3,470,257 square miles, about 954,000 square miles of the 
 
 1 Notes of a Twenty-five years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory. London, 
 1849. 
 
 1 Church Missionary Intelligencer, June 1886; Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc., 1887, 
 p. 192.
 
 APPEND, i. OF NORTHERN CANADA 289 
 
 continent alone, exclusive of the inhospitable detached Arctic 
 portions, is for all practical purposes entirely unknown. In 
 this estimate the area of the unexplored country is reduced to 
 a minimum by the mode of definition employed. Probably 
 we should be much nearer the mark in assuming it as about 
 one million square miles, or between one-third and one-fourth 
 of the whole. Till this great aggregate of unknown territory 
 shall have been subjected to examination, or at least till it 
 has been broken up and traversed in many directions by 
 exploratory and survey lines, we must all feel that it stands 
 as a certain reproach to our want of enterprise and of a 
 justifiable curiosity. In order, however, to properly ascertain 
 and make known the natural resources of the great tracts 
 lying beyond the borders of civilization, such explorations 
 and surveys as are undertaken must be of a truly scientific 
 character. The explorer or surveyor must possess some 
 knowledge of geology and botany, as well as such scientific 
 training as may enable him to make intelligent and accurate 
 observations of any natural features or phenomena with which 
 he may come in contact. He must not consider that his 
 duty consists merely in the perfunctory measuring of lines 
 and the delineation of rivers, lakes, and mountains. An 
 explorer or surveyor properly equipped for his work need 
 never return empty-handed. Should he be obliged to report 
 that some particular district possesses no economic value 
 whatever, besides that of serving as a receiver of rain and 
 a reservoir to feed certain river- systems, his notes should 
 contain scientific observations on geology, botany, climatology, 
 and similar subjects, which may alone be sufficient to justify 
 the expenditure incurred. 
 
 U
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 I HAVE to thank the authorities at Kew for the following 
 list of a small collection of flowering plants that I found 
 growing in the Barren Ground, chiefly in the neighbourhood 
 of the head-waters of the Great Fish River. 
 
 Draba nivalis, Liljebl.? 
 
 Oxytropis campestris, L. (yellow and purple varieties). 
 
 Potentilla nivea, L. 
 
 Dryas integrifolia, L. 
 
 Saxifraga tricnspidata, Retz. 
 
 Epilobium latifoliiim, L. 
 
 Arnica angnstifolia, Vahl. 
 
 Taraxacum falustre, DC. 
 
 Vaccinium tdiginosum, L. 
 
 Cassiope tetragona, L. 
 
 Andromeda polif olia> L. 
 
 Phyllodoce taxifolia, Salisb. (Menziesia cxrnlea, Wahl.). 
 
 Lednm palnstre, L. 
 
 Loiselcnna procumbens, Desv. 
 
 Rhododendron lapponicum, L. 
 
 Kalmia glauca, L. 
 
 Diapensia lapponica, L. 
 
 Pedictdaris hirsnta, L. 
 
 Pedictdaris lapponica, L.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ALASKA, Southern, 211. 
 
 Alberta, its prairies remembered, 
 1 80 ; an election of its representa- 
 tive, 272. 
 
 America, the Eastern States of, 
 
 234- 
 Anderson, Mr. ; his route referred 
 
 to, vi, 34, 59, 138, 139, 157, 170, 
 
 179, 197. 
 
 Arnavatn, in Iceland, 40. 
 Arctic exploration, its records, 44. 
 Arctic flowers, 172. 
 Arctic fox, shot at, 37. 
 Arctic hare, described, 63, 64. 
 Arctic Ocean or Sea, v, 4, n, 19, 
 
 59, 60, 61, 164, 1 88, 196, 242 ; the 
 
 best route to, 203. 
 Arctic regions, no extraordinary 
 
 thickness of clothes required in 
 
 them, 96. 
 Arrowsmith's map, compared with 
 
 that issued by the Dominion 
 
 Government, 198. 
 Artillery Lake, 202, 203, 205. 
 Athabasca district, 59, 215 ; its 
 
 limits, II. 
 Athabasca Lake, 13, 15, 64, 212, 
 
 215 ; reached by Mr. Pike, 12 ; 
 
 its produce, 13. 
 Athabasca River, v, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 
 
 1 6, 34, 211, 268; the landing, 
 
 4, 272. 
 Aylmer Lake, or the Lake of the 
 
 Big Cliffs, 59, 164, 165, 166, 175, 
 
 195, 198, 203. 
 
 BACK, Sir George, vi, 34, 138, 166, 
 
 170, 197 ; his map, 184. 
 Back's, or the Great Fish, River, see 
 
 Great Fish River. 
 Baptiste, little, see Beaulieu, Bap- 
 
 tiste. 
 Baptiste Testerwick, a half-breed 
 
 Iroquois, 232, 233, 236, 267, 269 ; 
 
 his daughters, the ' belles ' of Hud- 
 son's Hope, 236. 
 
 Barren Ground, the, v, vi, 13, 14, 18, 
 22, 33, 45> 5i> 54, 59> 60, 70, 74, 
 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 89, 91, 94, 
 101, 106, 112, 116, 118, 125, 131, 
 153, 154, 160, 162, 163, 180, 191, 
 202, 206, 212, 248, 274, 276; Mr. 
 Pike's various expeditions to it, 
 18-71, 91-117, 151-209; Mr. 
 Pike's advice to future travellers 
 there, 23 ; its mosses and lichens, 
 40; it produces one species of 
 Cervuice, 44; its birds, 161 ; ex- 
 ploration in it is ceasing, 170; its 
 animals, 182, 183 ; Mr. Pike longs 
 to return to it, 276 ; a list of its 
 flowers, 291. 
 
 Barrow, Thomas, 235, 239, 265, 266, 
 267 ; his house or cabin, 237, 257, 
 263, 264. 
 
 Bathurst Inlet, no, 175, 181, 187, 
 191. 
 
 Battle River reached, 227. 
 
 Beaulieu, Baptiste, a son of King 
 Beaulieu, 31, 82. 
 
 Beaulieu, Fran$ois, a son of King 
 Beaulieu, 21, 37, 40, 57, 73, 86, 
 89, 124, 125, 127, 129. 
 
 Beaulieu, Jose, brother of King 
 Beaulieu, 215. 
 
 Beaulieu, Jos, a son of King 
 Beaulieu, 21, 57, 84, 85, 125, 216; 
 his love-affairs, 224, 225. 
 
 Beaulieu, King, a French half-breed 
 and guide, 18, 30, 35, 38, 57, 61, 
 62, 66, 67, 75, 76, 83, 86, 88, 90, 
 93, 94, 117, 123, 124, 152, 213; 
 his character, 18, 22; his father 
 and sons, 21 ; he calls the snow 
 le convert du don Dieu, 58 ; a 
 lake is called after him, 58 ; his 
 cleverness, 68 ; his opinions and 
 anecdotes, 77-81 ; he refuses to 
 
 U 2
 
 292 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 join the second musk-ox hunt, 
 89. 
 
 Beaulieu, Paul, a son of King 
 Beaulieu, 21, 37, 40, 57, 65, 73, 
 85, 86, 89, 93, 95, 100, 102, 108, 
 119. 
 
 Beaulieu, Pierre, a brother of King 
 Beaulieu, 135, 136, 214. 
 
 Beaulieus, the, 31, 60, 71, 123, 124, 
 126; their character, 22; they 
 are not agreeable to live with, 
 116; the final settlement with 
 them, 134, 135 ; they apparently try 
 to damage Mr. Pike's chances of 
 success, 154. 
 
 Beaulieus, the young, the sons of 
 King Beaulieu, 21,35. 
 
 Beaver tribe dying out, 231. 
 
 Beavers, their actions mould geo- 
 graphy, 142 ; an account of the 
 other animals found in their coun- 
 try, 143- 
 
 Beaver Indians, their language, 230. 
 
 Beechey Lake, 175, 187, 1 88. 
 
 Biche, Lake La, 6. 
 
 Big Lake, 120. 
 
 Big River, the usual native name 
 for the Slave River, 24. 
 
 Blackfeet, the, 3, 121. 
 
 Blue hills in the distance tempt one 
 to push on, 190. 
 
 Bloody Faljs, the, 139. 
 
 Boiler Rapid, the, 9. 
 
 Boiling, the favourite method of 
 cooking, 52. 
 
 British Columbia, see Columbia. 
 
 Brick, Mr., a farmer of Smoky 
 River, 224, 271 ; his mission, 228 ; 
 his son, 270, 275. 
 
 Buffalo bands, 143 ; a hunt for, 
 141-146. 
 
 Bull-dogs, 'a cross between a bee 
 and a blue-bottle,' an annoyance 
 to the horses, 3. 
 
 Bull's Head, the, 234, 264. 
 
 CALGARY, ix, 2, 10, 273 ; left in 
 June, 1 889, I. 
 
 California, 234. 
 
 Camp, a good, 37, 115. 
 
 Campbell, Mr., 209. 
 
 Camsell Lake, 40, 43, 57, 71, 74, 
 117. 
 
 Camsell, Mr., in charge of the Mac- 
 kenzie River district, 19, 20, 211. 
 
 Canada, Eastern, 12. 
 
 Cannicannick Berry used for to- 
 bacco, 29. 
 
 Canoe, a birch-bark, is a ' pretty 
 poetical thing,' 181. 
 
 Cap, the, 228. 
 
 Capot Blanc, an Indian, 128, 154, 
 157, 162, 166, 168, 170, 172, 173, 
 
 '75> 195- 
 Carcajou, the, is a cunning beast, 
 
 54- 
 
 Caribou, the, sometimes found near 
 the Fond du Lac, 13 ; Mr. Pike's 
 prospect of finding it, 30; he finds 
 some bands, 40, 60, 67, 70, 82, 99 ; 
 Et-then, Et-then! the cry on 
 the sight of it, 41 ; the methods 
 of cooking it, 41-43 ; it is the one 
 specimen of Cervidcz found in 
 the Barren Ground, 44 ; its differ- 
 ent species described, 44, 45 ; 
 killed by Esquimaux, 52 ; some 
 details of its appearance and 
 habits, 45-56; the methods of 
 freezing it, 63 ; it is killed by 
 women and boys, 71 ; the cry, 
 La Foule, La Fotde ! when a 
 band is in sight, 82 ; the most 
 remarkable passage of caribou 
 seen by Mr. Pike, 83. 
 
 Caribou diggings, 234. 
 
 Caribou-eaters, 18. 
 
 Caribou gold-fields, 212. 
 
 Caribou mountains, 219, 220. 
 
 Carquoss, an Indian, 175, 181. 
 
 Cassiar mining district, 211. 
 
 Catholics, all half-breeds are, 38. 
 
 Charlie, a half-breed from Ques- 
 nelle, 236, 237, 238, 243, 247, 249, 
 250, 252, 253, 259, 260, 261, 264, 
 268 ; his character, 267. 
 
 Chesterfield Inlet, 193. 
 
 Chinook wind, the, 237. 
 
 Chipeweyan Fort, the head-post of 
 the Athabasca district, 5, n, 137, 
 150, 212, 214, 215, 218, 221, 224 ; 
 its history and present life, 12-14; 
 trout-lines may be worked there, 
 13 ; the appearance of the coun- 
 try changes on leaving it, 1 5. 
 
 Chipeweyan language, 24, 230. 
 
 Christie's Bay, 28. 
 
 Civilisation is degenerating, 274. 
 
 Clark, Mr., arrives as Mr. Mackin- 
 lay's substitute, 149, 150.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 2 93 
 
 Clearwater River, the main route to 
 the North, 10, n. 
 
 Clinton Golden Lake, or the Lake 
 where the caribou swim among 
 the ice, 198, 201, 204 ; described, 
 199, 200. 
 
 Columbia, British, 212, 242. 
 
 Company, the, see Hudson's Bay 
 Company. 
 
 Cooking, the favourite method is 
 boiling, 52. 
 
 Cooper, Fenimore, 118. 
 
 Coppermine River, 60, 61, 62, 67, 
 loo, 101, 139; the Bloody Falls 
 of, 139. 
 
 Corbeau, Lac du, 40. 
 
 Country, the, its nature between 
 Calgary and Edmonton, 1,2; and 
 after leaving Chipeweyan, 15, 16. 
 
 Crees, the, 3, 121 ; their language 
 the medium of conversation on 
 the Athabasca, 10; their lodges 
 passed, 221. 
 
 Cree-speaking belt, 24 ; left by Mr. 
 Pike, 230. 
 
 Cries : that on the sight of caribou, 
 Et-then, Et-then! 41 ; on the 
 sight of a band of caribou, La 
 Foule, La Foule ! 82 ; to awake 
 a camp, He /eve, /eve, il faut 
 partir .' 1 1 1 ; that of Hi hi he, Ho 
 hi he, to bring out the stars, 1 13. 
 
 DAKOTA blizzard, brought to Mr. 
 Pike's mind by his experience of 
 wind, 81. 
 
 David, the Esquimaux, 148, 189, 
 192, 193, 248, 252 ; falls in love 
 with the daughter of King Beau- 
 lieu, 154; a keen hunter, 165; 
 his first summer outside the 
 Arctic circle, 190. 
 
 Davis, Twelvefoot, 234, 235. 
 
 Dease Lake, 211. 
 
 Deluge, King Beaulieu's story of 
 the, 79-81. 
 
 Dog-rib tribes, the, 30, 50, 56, 78, 
 83) 87, 179; a spot on their 
 history, 67 ; they gamble with 
 the Yellow-knives, 153 ; they are 
 more amenable than the Yellow- 
 knives, 274. 
 
 Dogs are a trouble in winter travel- 
 ling from their need of much 
 food, 136. 
 
 Dominion Day, a Canadian anni- 
 versary, 167. 
 
 Dominion government's map, 198. 
 
 Dunvegan, 224, 228, 229, 231, 267, 
 270, 271. 
 
 Dupire, Father, in charge of the 
 Catholic mission at Fort Resolu- 
 tion, 132, 137. 
 
 EDMONTON, 2, 270, 273; the start- 
 ing point for the territory of 
 Hudson's Bay Company, i ; an 
 election at, 272, 273. 
 
 Enemy, the, 74, 172. 
 
 Enemy, the Lake of the, 74, 116. 
 
 English is little spoken in the 
 north, 10. 
 
 English Channel, the, 210. 
 
 Enterprise Fort, 61. 
 
 Esquimaux, the, 171, 176, 179, 180, 
 187, 190, 193; they also kill the 
 caribou, 52; they are dreaded 
 by the Indians, 138, 139 ; pre- 
 sents for them, 150, 153, 192 ; 
 signs of their camp, 184-188. 
 
 Etitchula, the Indian, 123, 125. 
 
 Et-then, Et-then.' the cry on the 
 sight of the caribou, 41. 
 
 Euclid's methods, 252. 
 
 Expedition, the object of Mr. 
 Pike's, v, vi, 65 ; the ceremony of 
 commemorating one, 209. 
 
 FAT, Antoine, a blind Indian, 162. 
 
 Fat, Pierre, a blind Indian, 162 ; he 
 appreciates scenery, 164. 
 
 Findlay River, 238, 241, 243, 245, 
 252, 256, 270; its rapids, 241, 
 243, 257 ; its source, 242. 
 
 Flett, Mr., and his family, passen- 
 gers down the Athabasca, 4, 5 ; 
 in charge of Fort Smith, 214, 
 215. 
 
 Fond du Lac, n, 13, 14, 26, 29, 
 30, 35. 37, 53, 57, 58, 73, 84, 85, 
 89, 93, 96, 1 10, 119, 122, 123, 
 124, 125, 127, 129, 132, 136, 149, 
 150, 152, 153, 154, 156, 162; 
 described, 29, 30 ; women and 
 children left there, 31. 
 
 Fogs, effect of, 99. 
 
 Forest fires, i. 
 
 France is not sighed for by the 
 priest of an Indian encampment, 
 213.
 
 294 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Frangois, see Beaulieu, Frangois. 
 Fra.nc.ois the little, conducts a 
 
 buffalo hunt, 141-146; his wife, 
 
 147. 
 Franklin, Sir John, vi, 34, 72, 170, 
 
 188; his expedition, 59; his 
 
 wintering-place, 61. 
 Fraser Lake, 236. 
 Fraser River, 212, 234. 
 French-Canadians, their chansons 
 
 dying out, 9. 
 French patois of the Red River and 
 
 the North, 10, 24. 
 
 GOLD-DUST is to be found by the 
 
 Peace River, 230. 
 Good Hope, Fort, 274. 
 Government, motherly, defied, 3. 
 Grahame, the steamer, n, 15. 
 Grand Pays, the half-breeds' name 
 
 for the outside world, 76, 137. 
 Grand Traverse, the, 128, 129, 130. 
 Grand Rapids, not reached by the 
 
 steamer, 5 ; reached by Mr. 
 
 Pike, 6 ; a description of the 
 
 channel and its passage, 8-10. 
 Gras, Lac de, 60, 65, 99, loo, in, 
 
 161. 
 
 Grease longed for in the cold, 52. 
 Great Bear Lake, 64. 
 Great Fish or Back's River, 34, 59, 
 
 106, 138, 139, 148, 150, 154, 157, 
 
 166, 169, 170, 172, 187, 188, 203. 
 Great Slave Lake, see Slave Lake. 
 Great Slave River, see Slave River. 
 Gros Cap, 135. 
 Gunn, Mr., of St. John's, 229 ; he 
 
 knew Beaver Indian tongue, 230. 
 
 HALF-BREEDS are all Catholics, 38. 
 
 Half-way River, 230. 
 
 Halket Fort, 211. 
 
 Hanging Rock, the Lake of, 85. 
 
 Hardistay, Mr. Frank, 271. 
 
 Hay River, 143. 
 
 Hearne, Mr., vi, 34, 139; his Jour- 
 ney to the Northern Ocean, 47. 
 
 Hi hi he, Ho hi he ! the cry for the 
 stars, 113. 
 
 Ho leve, leve, il faut partir .' the 
 cry for arousing a camp, in. 
 
 Hood, vi. 
 
 Hospitality is in inverse proportion 
 to a man's means, 131. 
 
 Hudson's Bay, 45, 47, 204, 205. 
 
 Hudson's Bay Company, or The 
 Company, v, i, 3, 12, 47, 49, 
 76, 77, 91, 120, 143, 1 80, 192, 
 
 193, 2O7, 209, 211, 2 1 8, 220, 
 
 228, 232, 271 ; Mr. Pike's grati- 
 tude to the officers of, for their 
 hospitality, viii, 130, 131 ; one of 
 their early trading posts, 2 ; their 
 steamers are well-managed, 16 ; 
 they bring a certain amount of 
 civilisation, 23 ; their duffel 
 capotes, 49 ; their compressed tea 
 not good to smoke, 124 ; they are 
 fair to the Indians, 222, 223. 
 
 Hudson's Bay Fort on Macleod's 
 Lake, 238. 
 
 Hudson's Hope, 228, 229, 230, 243, 
 266, 268, 270; visited, 231-235. 
 
 ICELAND, 40. 
 
 Inconnu, a fish found only in the 
 Mackenzie River, 27. 
 
 ' Indian, the burnt,' his bad luck, 
 203. 
 
 Indians, the great northern territory 
 is their hunting-ground, I ; they 
 are more easily managed than 
 the half-breeds, 6 ; they are sent 
 from Locheaux to man the ' in- 
 land boats,' 6 ; they cannot find 
 their way in snow, 112 ; they are 
 very improvident, 120 seq. ; they 
 are peaceable bynature, 132; they 
 dread the Esquimaux, 139 ; their 
 women quarrel, 158 ; they imitate 
 birds very well, 157 ; some of 
 them show themselves much in- 
 terested in the skin of a seal, an 
 animal they had never seen, 185 ; 
 they have a stupid love of killing, 
 192 ; intoxicating drink may not 
 be given to them, 207. 
 
 Inland boats described, 6. 
 
 JOHN, 236, 245, 247, 248, 252, 253, 
 254, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 263, 
 267; he visits Mr. Pike, 225- 
 232 ; his character, 225, 226. 
 
 John, Saint, see Saint John. 
 
 Jose, see Beaulieu, Jose. 
 
 Jose, the brother-in-law of Zinto, 
 156, 158. 
 
 KENNEDY, Alick, a good voyageur, 
 270, 271.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 295 
 
 Khartoum, 271. 
 
 King, see Beaulieu, King. 
 
 King Lake, 58, 116. 
 
 LABRADOR tea, 39, 178, 251, 252, 
 258. 
 
 La Foule, la Foule ! the cry on 
 the sight of a caribou band, 82. 
 
 Languages, those of the North, 
 10 ; those beyond the Cree- 
 speaking belt on the Mackenzie, 
 24. 
 
 Lard, Lac du, 34. 
 
 Lawrence, Mr., a farmer of Ver- 
 million, 223. 
 
 Lesser Slave Lake, 4, 6, 227, 228, 
 229, 239, 267, 271. 
 
 Liard River, 142, 143, 211, 229, 230. 
 
 Little Buffalo River, 133, 144 ; it is 
 impregnated with sulphur, 144. 
 
 Little Red River, in Athabasca dis- 
 trict, ll; its beautiful scenery, 
 220. 
 
 Little River, 243, 252. 
 
 Little Slave River, 133, 271. 
 
 Locheaux language, 24. 
 
 Lockhart's house, 150. 
 
 Lockhart's or Outram River, 59, 65, 
 164, 165, 194, 196, 197, 205 ; dif- 
 ferent opinions of its route, 198. 
 
 Lockhart, Pierre, a guide, 150, 156. 
 
 Lower Peace River, 216. 
 
 Lynx and rabbits, their periodic 
 dying out, 267, 268. 
 
 MACDONALD, Ewen, the chief of 
 the Peace River district, 229. 
 
 Macdonald, Walter, son of Ewen 
 Macdonald, 239, 266, 268, 271. 
 
 Macdougall, 209. 
 
 Macfarlane, 209. 
 
 Mackay, Dr., in charge of the Atha- 
 basca district, il, 1 6, 17, 59, 220 ; 
 a visit from him, 137, 138; he 
 sends presents, 150; he is ab- 
 sent, 216 ; he is met by Mr. 
 Pike, 218. 
 
 Mackay, Lake, or the Lake of the 
 Hanging Rock, 59, 60, 65, 67, 70, 
 74, 82, 85,91, 98, 114, 163, 164, 
 202 ; described, 59. 
 
 Mackay, Mr., a Company's clerk, 
 6,7. 
 
 Mackay, Murdo, a servant at Fort 
 Resolution who accompanies Mr. 
 
 Pike, 133, 138, 148, 189, 213, 216, 
 219, 225, 226, 236, 247, 249, 254, 
 258, 267. 
 
 Mackenzie, Sir Alex., 12, 232. 
 
 Mackenzie River, or La Grande 
 Rivtire en as, v, 4, 9, 17, 1 8, 19, 
 34,45,46,47, 56, 130, 165, 211, 
 213, 243, 274 ; its origin, 15 ; the 
 languages spoken along its banks, 
 24. 
 
 Mackinlay, Mr., in charge of Fort 
 Resolution, 20, 132, 135, 148, 174, 
 177, 1 80, 189, 191, 195, 209, 213, 
 214 ; joins Mr. Pike in expedition 
 to the Barren Ground, 138. 
 
 Mackinlay, Mrs., 132. 
 
 Macleod, Fort, 243, 244, 248, 253, 
 254. 
 
 Macleod's Lake, 212, 217, 232, 236, 
 237, 239, 243, 246, 252, 266, 270; 
 Hudson's Bay Fort on it, 238. 
 
 Macleod's River, 243, 247, 250, 252. 
 
 MacMurray, Fort, 7 ; Mr. Pike 
 starts for it, 8 ; reaches it, 10 ; it 
 is the most southerly post of the 
 Athabasca district, 1 1 ; it is near 
 some natural tar deposits, 12. 
 
 Mandeville, Francois, the brother 
 of Michel Mandeville, 206. 
 
 Mandeville, Michel, the interpreter 
 at Fort Resolution, 133, 135, 138. 
 
 Mandeville, Moise, the brother of 
 Michel Mandeville, who joins 
 Mr. Pike, 138, 149, 154, 164, 169, 
 1 80, 181 ; is a good steersman, 
 182. 
 
 Maps, those of Mr. Pike are not 
 very accurate, vii. 
 
 Marble Island, 193. 
 
 Mario, the brother of Zinto, 89, 
 94, 102, 104, 105, 107, 122, 127, 
 154, 167, 175, 181. 
 
 Michel, a son-in-law of King Beau- 
 lieu, 31, 42, 57, 85, 86, 89, 96. 101, 
 
 119, 122, 127. 
 
 Misere, Point de, 62, 67, 72, 100. 
 Mission Island, 132, 209, 210. 
 Moberley's Lake, 267, 268. 
 Moise, see Mandeville, Moise. 
 Montaignais dialect of Chipeweyan 
 
 language, 24. 
 Moose Island, 132. 
 Mort, Lac de, 34, 84, 123. 
 Mouse chased for a caribou, 99. 
 Murdo, see Mackay, Murdo.
 
 296 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Muskeg country ends at the Point 
 of Rocks, 25. 
 
 Musk-ox, 64, 65 ; the object of Mr. 
 Pike's journey, v, vi ; to be 
 sought on the Barren Ground, 
 22 ; the first killed, 65 ; birds 
 seen during the hunt for them, 
 63 ; an expedition in search of 
 them, 57 seq. ; a band of them, 
 104 ; the method of slaughtering 
 them is unpleasant, 106 ; their 
 horns described, 109 ; a descrip- 
 tion of a hunt for them, 166-169 5 
 they are said to understand the 
 Yellow-knife language, 169 ; ad- 
 vice to hunters of them, 274, 275. 
 
 Musk-ox, the giant, 74. 
 
 Musk-ox Lake, 170, 171, 172, 173, 
 178, 194, 196. 
 
 Musk-ox Mountain, 173 ; it is the 
 limit of the Yellow-knives' hunt- 
 ing-ground, 171. 
 
 NATION River, 266. 
 
 Nelson Fort, 143, 230. 
 
 New Year's Day, an occasion of 
 trade, 127, 134. 
 
 Nile, the, 271. 
 
 Noel, an Indian, who joins Mr. 
 Pike's expedition, 89, 102, 103, 
 105, 166, 167, 175, 181, 188, 199. 
 
 Northern Packet, the, 137. 
 
 North-West Company, the, 12. 
 
 OLD WIVES' LAKE, 271. 
 
 Omineca, 243, 266. 
 
 Orkney Islands, 4. 
 
 Ottawa, 12, 223, 272. 
 
 Outram River, seeLockhart's River. 
 
 PACIFIC, Canadian Railway, 10, 
 
 248. 
 
 Pacific Coast, 191 ; routes to, 211. 
 Pacific Ocean, 242. 
 Paradox gun, its uses, 126. 
 Parsnip River, 238, 241, 243, 244, 
 
 247, 248, 252, 253, 254, 266, 270; 
 its source, 242 ; its method of 
 freezing, 245. 
 
 Pat, a Sicannee, 236, 237, 243, 247, 
 
 248, 249, 250, 252, 253, 259, 261, 
 267, 268, 270. 
 
 Paul, see Beaulieu, Paul. 
 
 Peace River, 4, 15, 142, 143, 191, 
 
 212, 217, 220, 222, 223, 22 5> 22 7> 
 
 228, 230, 231, 234, 242, 268, 269, 
 
 272 ; one of the easiest northern 
 waterways, 218; farmers should 
 not be tempted to it, 223-225 ; 
 gold-dust is found on its banks, 
 230. 
 
 Peace River, the Lower, 216. 
 
 Peace River Pass, 254, 260, 275. 
 
 Peel's River, a tributary of the Mac- 
 kenzie, 19, 149. 
 
 Peel's River Fort, 190. 
 
 Peter, an Indian, who joined Mr. 
 Pike's expedition, 89, 102, 105, 107. 
 
 Pike, Mr. Warburton : the object of 
 his journey is to see the musk-ox, 
 vi, vi ; his conveyance and outfit, 
 I ; he starts from Calgary for Ed- 
 monton, the entrance of the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company's territory, 
 I ; his French half-breed driver, 
 2, 3 ; he reaches Athabasca Land- 
 ing and starts down the river, 4 ; 
 he reaches the island at the head 
 of the Grand Rapids, 6 ; he starts 
 for MacMurray Fort, 8, and 
 reaches it, 10 ; he reaches Atha- 
 basca Lake, 12 ; he starts for Fort 
 Smith, on the Great Slave Lake, 
 15, and reaches it, 17 ; he makes 
 preparations for the actual jour- 
 ney to the Barren Ground, and 
 engages the Beaulieu family as 
 guides and servants, 1 8 ; he leaves 
 the Company's main route at Fort 
 Resolution, 22 ; he takes too few 
 provisions, 23 ; the details of his 
 outfit, his fleet, and his com- 
 panions, 23, 24 ; he picks up a 
 little of the Montaignais dialect, 
 24 ; he encamps in the delta of 
 the Slave River, 24, 25 ; he reaches 
 Fond du Lac, 29, where the wo- 
 men, children, and as much bag- 
 gage as possible are left behind, 
 31 ; he leaves the Great Slave 
 Lake, and contemplates the coun- 
 try he has just left and that to- 
 wards which he is journeying, 
 33 ; he takes a new route and 
 names new lakes, 34 ; a good 
 caribou hunt, 40 seq. ; he ap- 
 proaches the genuine Barren 
 Ground, 43 ; a chapter on the 
 caribou, 44-56 ; he makes an ex- 
 pedition from Lake Camsell in
 
 INDEX. 
 
 297 
 
 search of the musk-ox, 57 ; he 
 shoots his first musk-ox, 64, 65 ; 
 he concludes that it would be 
 reckless to push further North, 
 and turns back, 66 ; he reaches 
 Lake Camsell again, 71 ; plans 
 for the next musk-ox hunt, 73; 
 King Beaulieu's theories and 
 anecdotes, 75-81 ; a remarkable 
 passage of the caribou, 82-84 ! a 
 visit of the chief Zinto and his 
 followers, 86 ; arrangements for 
 the second musk-ox hunt, 89, 90 ; 
 he starts, 91 ; his first winter 
 camp in the Barren Ground, 93- 
 95 ; a description of the country, 
 97-101 ; he is in difficulties for 
 food, 101 ; the musk-ox come in 
 sight and are killed, 103-106 ; the 
 land of the musk-ox, 107 ; another 
 band of musk-ox killed, 108 ; 
 their horns described, 109 ; the 
 return road is lost in the snow, 
 112, but found the next morning, 
 113; he reaches Lake Camsell 
 again and goes on towards Fond 
 du Lac, 117; he visits Zinto's 
 camp, 1 1 8 seq. ; he sleeps at 
 Fond du Lac on his road to the 
 Great Slave Lake, 127 ; he is 
 joined by more Indians, 128, 129 ; 
 he reaches Fort Resolution and 
 comparative civilisation, 131 ; 
 some account of the Fort, 131- 
 134 ; he makes a small expedition 
 for caribou with Mackinlay, 135 ; 
 he makes plans for a summer trip 
 to the Barren Ground, 137 seq.; 
 he goes on a short buffalo hunt 
 with Mackinlay, 141-148; the dif- 
 ficulties in starting for the Barren 
 Ground, 148, 149 ; he leaves Fort 
 Resolution,! 51; he leaves the great 
 Slave Lake with Mackinlay and 
 some of the Indians, 160 ; a new 
 method of hunting the musk-ox, 
 1 66 ; he makes little expeditions, 
 one with Capot Blanc, 172 seq.; 
 a division of the party before 
 going further down the Great 
 Fish River, 174 ; Syene, the me- 
 dicine-man, prophesies, 175 seq. ; 
 two of the Indians desert, 181 ; 
 he turns up-stream, 187 ; he ex- 
 plores a new tributary, 188-191 ; 
 
 he leaves presents in a deserted 
 Esquimaux camp, 192; the return 
 journey, 198-209; he cannot stay 
 long at Fort Resolution, and 
 makes plans for his journey up- 
 stream, to cross the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, and if possible reach the 
 Pacific, 211 ; he decides between 
 the routes and starts, 212; he 
 enters Athabasca Lake, 215; he 
 camps at Quatre Fourches, 217 ; 
 he turns westward up the Peace 
 River, 218; he reaches Ver- 
 million Fort, 221 ; his difficulties 
 in getting a crew, 224 seq. ; he 
 reaches Dunvegan, 228, and St. 
 John's, 229 ; he leaves the Cree- 
 speaking belt and enters that of 
 the Beaver Indians, 230 ; his first 
 glimpse of the Rockies, 231 ; he 
 reaches Hudson's Hope, 231 ; he 
 camps at the head of the Canon, 
 236 ; a change in the wind pre- 
 vents his making use of sleighs, 
 237 ; he begins a more detailed ac- 
 count of his winter in the Rockies, 
 238 ; a dangerous journey to the 
 Findlay Rapids, 241, 242 ; a 
 glance at hisgeographical position , 
 242 ; he discovers that the road 
 is lost, 249 seq. ; a search for 
 food, 251 ; he begins to retrace 
 his way, 253 ; his decision con- 
 cerning the Indians who steal the 
 rations, 259, 260 ; he reaches Tom 
 Barrow's house, 265 ; he leaves 
 Hudson's Hope for Edmonton, 
 270, which he reaches during an 
 election, 272 ; he writes the last 
 words in St. James's Street, giv- 
 ing advice to musk-ox hunters 
 and longing for the Barren 
 Ground, 273 seq. 
 
 Pierre, see Beaulieu, Pierre. 
 
 Pierre, Blind, see Fat, Pierre. 
 
 Pierre the Fool, 200, 201, 205 ; his 
 description of the country east of 
 Clinton Golden Lake, 204. 
 
 Pierre, an Indian boy, the son of 
 little Francois, 146. 
 
 Pierre, He de, 129,152,210; a good 
 spot for fishing,' 25. 
 
 Pine River, 269. 
 
 Pine River Pass, 266. 
 
 Polpar Rapid, 240, 243, 262.
 
 298 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Portage, the Long, 1 1 ; the work of 
 portaging described, 16, 17. 
 
 ' Prairie, the bald-headed,' a term 
 of the cattle-men, 2. 
 
 Proverb of the North, a, 244. 
 
 Ptarmigan plentiful, 41. 
 
 Ptarmigan Lake, 201. 
 
 QUATRE FOURCHES, 15, 2I/. 
 
 Quesnelle, 212, 225, 229, 236, 248, 
 267. 
 
 RABBIT and lynx, their periodic 
 decease, 267, 268. 
 
 Rae, Dr., vi. 
 
 Rae, Fort, 87, 135, 153, a good 
 starting-point for the Barren 
 Ground, 274. 
 
 Raven, a superstition concerning 
 the, 62. 
 
 Red deer, the stream of, 2. 
 
 Reid, Mr., of Fort Province, told 
 King Beaulieu that the earth went 
 round the sun, 77. 
 
 Resolution, Fort, on the Great 
 Slave Lake, the northern limit 
 of the Athabasca district, n, 20, 
 22,47, 55, 89, 119, 137, 141, 149, 
 15, X 53, 17, 192, 206, 208, 209, 
 211, 212, 213; Mr. Pike returns 
 to it, 131 ; its history and present 
 life, 132, 133; it is not perhaps 
 the best starting-point for the 
 Barren Ground, 274, 275. 
 
 Richardson, vi. 
 
 Riel, Louis, his rebellion, 77. 
 
 Rocher, Lac du, 36, 37, 59, 67, 84, 
 117 ; it is a haunt of the caribou, 
 37 ; trout are caught in it, 37 ; 
 its products and geological struc- 
 ture, 39 ; it is like the desert of 
 Arnavatn in Iceland, 40. 
 
 Rocks, Point of, the end of the 
 Muskeg country, 25. 
 
 Rocky Mountains, the, v, ix, I, 131, 
 142, 191, 212, 217, 218, 221, 227, 
 229, 237, 242, 248, 256, 266, 269 ; 
 the first glimpse of, 231 ; Mr. 
 Pike's attempt to cross them, 
 212-249. 
 
 Round, Mr., in charge of Dun- 
 vegan, 229. 
 
 SAINT James's Street, 273. 
 
 Saint John, Fort, often called St. 
 
 John's, 143, 228, 229, 230, 231 
 269, 270. 
 
 Salt River, 18, 19. 
 
 Saltatha, an Indian who joins Mr. 
 Pike's expedition, 89, 100, 102, 
 103, 105, 106, no, in, 113, 154, 
 157, 177, 179, 181, 185, 186, 191, 
 199, 20 1, 207 ; his energy, 96, 
 175 ; his character, 106 ; his ill- 
 ness and its cure by brandy, 194, 
 208 ; his friendly parting with 
 Mr. Pike, 212 ; his answer to the 
 priest concerning the beauties of 
 heaven, 276. 
 
 Sandy Bay, 166, 251. 
 
 Saskatchewan River, 2, 4. 
 
 Shooting etiquette must be aban- 
 doned among the Indians, 145. 
 
 Sicannee fashion of burying, 246, 
 255. 
 
 Simpson, Fort, 21 1. 
 
 Simpson, Mr. Scott, in charge of 
 river transport, 5. 
 
 Simpson, Sir G., 232. 
 
 Simpson's group of islands, 26, 27. 
 
 Slave or Great Slave Lake, vii, 12, 
 14, 15, 19, 23, 34, 38, 39,41,45, 
 47, 59, 63, 77, 79, 81,119, 135, 142, 
 143, 157, 161, 162, 164, 175, 196, 
 
 197, 2OO, 2OI, 203, 2O5, 2O6, 209, 
 
 221, 227, 274, 275 ; Mr. Pike's 
 journey on, finished, 32 ; his last 
 view of, 33 ; the vegetation on its 
 banks, 28, 29 ; it is a charming 
 place to live on, 213. [There is 
 a Lesser Slave Lake, see ' Les- 
 ser.'] 
 
 Slave or Big River, 15, 24, 45, 130, 
 213, 218; its rapids, II ; de- 
 scribed, 19, 20; its wild-fowl, 25. 
 [There is also a Little Slave 
 River, see ' Little.'] 
 
 Slavi language, 24. 
 
 Sleighs of the North described, 91- 
 
 93- 
 Smith, Fort, in Athabasca district, 
 
 II, 19, 27,45, 133, 143, M4, J47, 
 149,212,214,216,224; Mr. Pike 
 starts for it, 15 ; the game near 
 it, 17 ; described, 17. 
 
 Smoking, the Company's com- 
 pressed tea not recommended, 
 124. 
 
 Smoky River, a tributary of the 
 Peace, 227, 228, 270, 271.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 299 
 
 Snow, called le convert du don Dieu 
 by Beaulieu, 58 ; prevents the 
 Indians from rinding their way, 
 
 112. 
 
 Snow-blindness, its cause and cures, 
 161. 
 
 Stars, supposed to be brought out 
 by the cry Hi hi he, Ho hi he, 
 
 "3- 
 
 Stewart, Mr., vi, 34, 59, 157, 170, 
 179. 
 
 Sunday wash, the, 73. 
 
 Superstitions, concerning the cari- 
 bou, 55 ; and miracles, 121, 122. 
 
 Syene, an Indian medicine-man, 
 J 39> J 54> 2O 3 > he prophesies, 
 175, 176. 
 
 Syene, Mrs., assists at the prophesy- 
 ing, 176. 
 
 TETE Jaune Pass, 268. 
 
 Tete Noire's House, 152. 
 
 Thomas, an Indian, the brother of 
 Zinto, 128 ; he is a good guide, 
 129. 
 
 Tobacco, is missed more than tea, 
 no, in; the various kinds in 
 use among the Indians, 29 ; it 
 may be made from Cannicannick 
 berry, 29. 
 
 VERMILLION, Fort, in Athabasca 
 district, II, 143, 216, 218, 219, 
 221, 226, 227, 228 ; described, 
 221-223. 
 
 WALLS of meat, as in a fairy tale, 
 
 7i. 
 Whisky Jack, the ways of the, 
 
 123. 
 William, an Indian who joined Mr. 
 
 Pike's expedition, 89, 102, 103, 
 
 105. 
 Willows pulled up for firewood, in. 
 
 Wilson, Mr., of Vermillion Fort, 
 224, 225. 
 
 Winnipeg, vii, 10, 132, 196, 271. 
 
 Wolves and wolverines, 53, 82 ; their 
 ways of stealing, 42, 117; they 
 hunt the caribou, 52, 53. 
 
 Women, given the heaviest loads, 
 36 ; their hard work and useful- 
 ness, 75 ; they are treated better 
 by half-breeds than by Indians, 
 
 75> 76. 
 
 Wood, Mr., in charge of the Atha- 
 basca landing, 4. 
 
 Wrangel Fort, 21 1. 
 
 Wrigley, the, a steamer on the 
 Mackenzie, 9, 18, 212, 214; her 
 make and work, 19. 
 
 YELLOW-KNIFE river, 34, 59. 
 
 Yellow-knife tribe, 30, 34, 45, 50, 
 56, 62, 67, 78, 79, 84, 88, 1 06, 
 139. I79>.i86, 193, 196; their 
 etiquette in hunts, 102 ; their 
 encampment, ligseq. ; the kind 
 of husband most desired among 
 them, 121 ; their dancing, 135 ; 
 their gambling with the Dog- 
 Ribs, 153; their stupidity and 
 cowardice outside their own 
 country, 180; their language, 
 195 ; they are less amenable than 
 the Dog-Ribs, 274. 
 
 York Boat, its peculiarities, 209, 
 210. 
 
 York factory, 47. 
 
 ZINTO, a chief of the Yellow-knives, 
 89, 118; his visit to Mr. Pike 
 and his speech, 86-88 ; his camp 
 and people, 118-122; he makes 
 promises of help, 139, 140; but 
 does not fulfil them, 149, 150, 
 153- 
 
 INDEX TO APPENDIX I 
 
 Alaska, 282. 
 Anticosti, 282. 
 
 Areas in the Dominion of Canada 
 unexplored, 283-289. 
 
 Canada, 282. 
 Dunvegan, 279. 
 
 Exploration still possible and use- 
 ful, 278. 
 
 Great Bear Lake, 282. 
 Great Slave Lake, 282. 
 
 Hudson's Bay, 282. 
 Hudson's Bay Company, 279.
 
 300 
 
 INDEX TO APPENDIX I. 
 
 Lewes, 282. 
 
 Macleod Fort, 279. 
 Maps proved wrong, 279. 
 Mistassini, 282. 
 
 Newfoundland, 282. 
 Pelly, 282. 
 
 Red River Valley, 281. 
 Reindeer Lake, 282. 
 Rocky Mountains, the, 279. 
 
 Winnipeg, 281. 
 
 York Factory, 282. 
 Yukon River, 282.
 
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