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.

[Illustration:  Lake Athabasca in Winter]

Athabasca Lake (whose name means “In Muskeg Abounding"), is two hundred miles long, with thirty-five miles at its greatest width.  It lies in a general easterly and westerly direction.  No survey has been made of the lake; its height above ocean level is seven hundred feet, and it covers perhaps three thousand square miles.  Its chief feeder is the Athabasca River, down which we have come from the south.  This stream, assisted by the Peace, is fast filling up with detritus the western portion of Lake Athabasca.  There is a marked contrast between the upper and lower coasts of the lake.  The north shore consists of Laurentian gneiss with a sparse wood growth; the south bank for the most part is low, the formation being a cretaceous sandstone.  Ice holds fast this beautiful sheet for six months every year.  As we puff along the surface of its incomparable blue it is hard to realise that, although the Peace and Athabasca Rivers open their icy mouths about May-day, parts ot the lake are not free for travel until mid-May.  The lake freezes fast at Fort Chipewyan some time in November.  Lying on the deck of the tug, we look down and take inventory of our odd tow.  Just behind comes the scow.  It holds wood for the engine, a long sled, a canoe, a “skift,” all this year’s trading supplies for Fond du Lac, and half a dozen chained husky dogs.  Trailing the scow is a York-boat carrying the treaty party and Mr. Harris.

It is late in the afternoon when we pull out from Chipewyan, but the sun is still heaven-high, with the offshore air a tonic.  At seven o’clock Colin Fraser’s boat passes us with Bishop Grouard standing upright at the prow.  This stately figure, clear-cut against the sky-line, may well stand as the type of the pioneer Church of the Northland.  On the little deck we can use the camera with facility at ten in the evening, and the typewriter all night.  The light manifestation is a marvel and wooes us from sleep.  Have we not all the tame nights of the after-days for slumber?  Here we lose the moon and those friendly stars which at Pelican Portage dipped almost to meet our hands.  No more are we to see them until the Arctic has been reached and we have turned southward many, many hundreds of miles.