In the course of some twenty-four hours’ run from McMurray the traveller finds evidences that he is approaching the mouth of the river. The stream increases to double or treble the width it is above McMurray. The banks become lower. Willows take the place of the poplar and spruce. Islands on every hand seem almost to block the passage. Then drowned land and great marshes, the home of wild fowl innumerable, stretch away to the horizon and at last the waters of the Lake of the Hills, now Lake Athabaska, are seen glistening to the east, while hills of red granite stretch far away to the north and below these along the shore, the whitewashed buildings of Fort Chippewyan appear.
Copyright Ernest Brown
FORT CHIPPEWYAN ON ATHABASKA LAKE
By reference to my diary, I find that it was July 4 that we reached Chippewyan, and I remember rising before four o’clock, so eager was I to catch the first glimpse of the lake. We had been for nearly a month following down a river through a wilderness, where the range of our vision was limited by the high banks on either side, and it was like entering a larger world and was really restful when we beheld a great expanse of blue water extending off to the east as far as the eye could reach. But here, too, was “loneliness unbroken.” Another of those excessively hot days, too, that had pursued us for some time, was again with us. The lake was as smooth as glass, but the most powerful telescope revealed nothing of life on its surface, save a few wild fowl, perfectly secure, for no fowler was in sight.
Lake Athabaska is about 200 miles in length from Chippewyan on the west to Fond du Lac on the east, while its average width is probably about twenty miles.
The appearance of Chippewyan was quite picturesque as we approached it from the south.
The Hudson Bay Company’s buildings are in the form of a quadrangle and appear very attractive from a distance. Those of the Roman Catholic Mission are quite imposing but lose some of their effect through being painted a very dull colour.
We only remained at Chippewyan about twelve hours and then started for the entrance of Slave River and Great Slave Lake. The distance from the mouth of Athabaska River to the entrance of Slave River is only eight or ten miles.
For the first ten miles after entering the Slave, the channel, or rather the one we took, winds in and out between islands and submerged land, covered with grass. These drowned lands and marshes extend apparently a long distance west, between the Athabaska and Peace River, which latter stream joins the Slave about twenty miles down the latter from the Lake. This is a hunter’s paradise, and when the railway reaches McMurray the wild goose will soon find its present security disturbed by the sportsman from the south.