[Illustration:  Interior of St. David’s Cathedral]

Entering the little church we see the neat font sent here by Mrs. Bompas, “In dear memory of Lucy May Owindia, baptised in this Church, January, 1879.”  Owindia was one of the many red waifs that the good Bishop and Mrs. Bompas took into their big hearts.  Her story is a sad one.  Along the beach at Simpson, Friday, an Indian, in a burst of ungovernable temper murdered his wife and fled, leaving their one baby to perish.  It was not until next day that the little one was found, unconscious and dying.  The Bishop and Mrs. Bompas took the child into their loving care.  To the name Owindia, which means The Weeping One, was added the modern Lucy May, and the little girlie twined herself closely round the hearts of her protectors.  When the time seemed ripe, Owindia was taken back to England to school, but the wee red plant would not flourish in that soil.  She sickened and died.  Hence the memorial and the inscription we read this July day.  Much history of militant energy, much of endurance, and countless chapters of benevolence did the good Bishop write into the history of the North before, off on the Yukon side in 1906, “God’s finger touched him and he slept.”

Missionaries of the present day are not without their troubles.  Mrs. Day tells of potato-whiskey making in some illicit still back in the mosquito-woods, the results of which she fears; and, even as we speak, an Indian lunatic pokes his head through the palings of the potato-patch.  From far back in Fort Nelson, British Columbia, and from Fort Liard, the Hudson’s Bay men have come to make their reports to Mr. Brabant at Simpson.  They brought their wives and babies with them, brought also a quantity of beautiful porcupine-quill work, Fort Liard being one of the few places in the North where this art flourishes.  Tomorrow they will start back, tacking against the stream, as the imported brides are doing before them.

To dive into the journals of the past, of which the loft above the offices here at Simpson is full, is even more interesting than talking with the people of the present.  We take 1837, the year which saw the accession in England of the young and well-beloved Queen, and from these musty books unearth a running commentary of what is doing in Fort Simpson in that year.

“1837, January 1.  The people were brought into the Hall, and enjoyed their meal with great appetites, being also treated to a glass of wine and a fathom of tobacco and a pipe.  Wind East.”

“1837, February 11.  Rabbits are numerous, but the ladies of the Establishment make no great effort in snaring them.”

“1837, February 14.  Late last night arrived a woman, Thawyase, and a boy, the family of the late Thoesty.  They have all come to take refuge here as they are starving.  The woman at dusk decoyed old Jack away to camp in the woods—­and the old fellow has found a mate.”