298 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 
into narrow crooked channels, every object indi- 
cating that some convulsion had disturbed the 
general order of nature at this place. We had 
- passed a portage above it, and after two long por- 
tages below it we encamped. Near the last was 
a small stream so strongly impregnated with sul- 
phur, as to taint the air to a great distance around 
it, We saw two brown bears on the hills in the 
course of the day. 
At daylight, on the 11th, we embarked. The 
hills continued on both sides to the mouth of the 
river, varying from eight hundred to one thousand 
feet in height. They declined to the banks in 
long green slopes, diversified by woody mounds 
and copses. The pines were not here in thick 
impenetrable masses, but perched aloft in single 
groups on the heights, or shrouded by the livelier 
hues of the poplar and willow. 
We passed the mouth of the Red Willow River 
on the south bank, flowing through a deep ravine. 
It is the continuation of the route by the Pembina, 
before mentioned. At noon we entered the ma- 
jestic Athabasca or Elk River. Its junction with 
the Clear Water River is called the Forks, Its 
banks were inaccessible cliffs, apparently of clay 
and stones, about two hundred feet high, and its 
windings in the south were encircled by high 
mountains. Its breadth exceeded half a mile, 
