"The noisy strife
And bitter carpings cease.
Here is the lap of life,
Here are the lips of peace."
—C.G.D. Roberts.
For fresh woods and pastures new this Friday, June 26th! Our little "bunch" breaks up. Mr. Brabant and Mrs. Harding, of the Hudson's Bay Company contingent, go on in the Grahame to Smith's Landing, and with them the two detachments of the R.N.W.M.P. As we shake hands with the police party, we wonder what Fate has in store for each of us. Breaking off at Fort Resolution, Great Slave Lake, and trending eastward by canoe over unchartered ways, will they reach salt water on Hudson Bay as they hope?
For our two selves, great good fortune is ours. The Canadian Government Indian Treaty party, consisting of Mr. Conroy in command, Mr. Laird as secretary, Dr. Donald, and Mr. Mooney in charge of the commissariat, with Constable Gairdner, R.N.W.M.P., as Escort, has just come down the Peace. To-day they pay treaty in Chipewyan, and this afternoon start for far Fond du Lac, at the eastern extremity of Lake Athabasca. The little H.B. tug Primrose will tow them and their outfit in a York-boat and a scow, and the captain has been persuaded to allow us, too, to take our blankets and come along, sleeping on the deck. The Primrose from stem to stern is not big enough to swing a cat in, but who wants to swing a cat? It is blue Lake Athabasca that we long to see; no white woman has yet traversed it to its eastern extremity and we would go if we had to work our passage at the sweeps of the scow.
Lake Athabasca in Winter