CHAPTER XVII
It was towards the end of January, 1891, that I left Hudson's Hope for Edmonton, a distance of six hundred 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 of a boat-brigade on the Nile; and if all the Canadian contingent had been of his stamp instead of the Winnipeg 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 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 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 represented, 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.