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 geographical 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.
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 explorer 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.
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 foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains.
London, 1891.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| Ready for Tracking | [Frontispiece] |
| PAGE | |
| The Old Hudson Bay Post at Edmonton | [2] |
| The Hudson Bay Fort at Edmonton | [6] |
| The "Grahame" Towing Freight-scows on Lake Athabasca | [16] |
| Patching a Birch-bark on the Slave River | [26] |
| King Beaulieu | [32] |
| A Dead White Wolf | [57] |
| The Indians Driving Caribou | [89] |
| Making Camp | [102] |
| Taking the Post Dogs for Exercise | [142] |
| Skins in the Post Store-room | [142] |
| Dog-rib Powwow at Fort Resolution | [167] |
| A Group of Dog-ribs | [167] |
| Starting up the Peace River | [233] |
| Junction of the Peace and Smoky Rivers | [248] |
| The Arrival of the Dog Train | [295] |
| Edmonton | [298] |
MAP | |
| A Sketch Map to illustrate Mr. Warburton | |
| Pike's journeys to the Barren Ground of | |
| Northern Canada | To face p. [302] |