[howay] argonauts OF 1862 45 



This post was about five hundred miles from Fort Garry; seven 

 hundred miles yet lay between them and the great barrier range of the 

 Rocky Mountains. Carlton was of the usual type of trading post: 

 a few wooden buildings within a palisaded enclosure. The facilities 

 for crossing were so meagre that it was almost midnight before the 

 whole company were safely upon the northern bank of the river. 

 No time was lost at Carlton. Having purchased some buffalo meat, 

 the first that they had tasted, the travellers were again in motion by 

 seven o'clock on the following morning. 



From this point to Fort Pitt the route was along the north side of 

 the North Saskatchewan. The appearance of the country had 

 changed; it was more hilly and broken. The temperature, especially 

 at night, was much cooler. It became quite difficult for their untrained 

 eyes to keep the trail, which was to be sensed rather than seen. The 

 Thickwood Hills were passed on July 3rd, and the Lumpy Hills, 

 July 4th. On that day immense fields of wild strawberries were met. 

 The diary's downright entry runs: "Had strawberries and cream 

 for supper"; but imagination readily draws the picture. 



The next day they crossed some particularly bad sloughs. One, a 

 veritable Slough of Despond, as it would seem from the diary's scant 

 remarks, took an hour to cross and was so deep that the animals had 

 almost to swim. A great quantity of the supplies were wetted. But 

 as a recompense they came once more upon good roads and a beautiful 

 region abounding in the most luscious wild strawberries. In a lake 

 beside which they camped and which they supposed to be Pike Lake 

 they caught fine pike. Wolves now appeared in large numbers; at a 

 distance of a hundred yards from the camp they sat and howled 

 through the summer night. Very little wood was to be obtained 

 for the camp fires and the hois dii bison was neither plentiful nor 

 suitable for illumination. Fording sloughs and creeks, now struggling 

 in the rain along rough, miry roads, and again traversing rich prairie, 

 with the wolves on the flank, just out of rifle range by day and out of 

 eyesight by night they reached on July 8th the North Saskatchewan 

 once more, and on the following day arrived at Fort Pitt. 



This fort, on the north bank of the river, about midway between 

 Carlton and Edmonton, was a small establishment and was at that 

 time in charge of Mr. Chantelaine. Like Fort Ellice its principal 

 business was in obtaining supplies of pemmican and dried meat; 

 the buffalo were never far from Fort Pitt. Here an Iroquois named 

 Mitchelle was secured to guide them to Edmonton. Two so-called 

 trails to that fort existed, one on each side of the river. Milton and 

 Cheadle, who passed over in the next spring, chose the northern 



