THE G BAY LING 27 



timber line, down to Lake Linderman, long and narrow, like a gigantic 

 rock-bound ditch of the giants. Down the long shore of Lake Bennett, 

 through scrub and swamp, birch and brambles. No wonder so many 

 took to the ice, rotten though it be in early summer. No wonder so 

 many tried to make rafts of logs, when the wind blew in the right 

 direction. On and on clown the straight shore of gusty Lake Bennett, 

 two days' march it may be. Then you come to Caribou Crossing. 

 The caribou is the native reindeer, and here in the interval between 

 Lake Bennett and Lake Tagish, with Lake Marsh beyond, is the only 

 place for 500 miles where a herd of caribou can cross the Yukon Biver. 

 Let us cross it quickly, too, for the water is very cold, and deeper than 

 a man or a caribou likes to wade. Here at Caribou Crossing lived and 

 worked for a generation Father Bumpus, of blessed memory, bishop of 

 the Yukon. And here still lives his charming wife, born to the soft 

 skies of England and the gentle ways of English society, but here a 

 power for good in the wilderness to which she gave her life. It seems 

 to me that if the Church of England were all-wise, it would some time 

 send his grace, the archbishop of Canterbury, to exchange places for a 

 year with the bishop of Yukon. The bishop of the boundless hills 

 would learn something in Canterbury, no doubt, but consider what the 

 archbishop of Canterbury would learn were the seat of his diocese for a 

 year at Caribou Crossing. 



From the Caribou Crossing the river curves through the fir woods 

 to the right — for we are below timber line again. Then it sways for- 

 ward, running through a couple of lakes into a swift gorge — the famed 

 and fated White Horse Bapids — below which it widens out into the 

 immense Lake Labarge, which runs to the northward as far as the eye 

 can see, and a good deal farther. Some men — about one in ten, per- 

 haps — preferred to take their chances in running the White Horse 

 Bapids, rather than to carry their belongings over the Caribou Hills. 

 Some of these — one in two, perhaps — got through safely. The rest 

 went to swell the romance, the terror, the tragedy of the gold of the 

 Klondyke and the White Pass of the Yukon. 



But the Caribou Crossing is full of fish, and some of these — lake 

 trout, cisco, pike, ling, sculpin — take the hook when it is properly 

 baited. You can stand on the little wharf in front of the Bishop's 

 House, or on the bank in Skookum Jim's dooryard and cast for gray- 

 ling and the grayling will respond. Better than this, you can cross 

 the river and go a couple of miles across the field and around a bayou 

 where the wood begins. In the little forest you will find a roaring 

 brook and at the foot of a cascade you will find the grayling as eager 

 as you are, and. if you are contented with a reasonable basket, you will 

 fish awhile, then lie down on the heather and take for yourself some- 

 thing better than many fishes — that which Wordsworth called the 

 " harvest of the quiet eye." 



