50 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Lacombe; while, overtopping all, Mount Miette, its craggy peak 

 softened by eternal snows, towered grandly into the clouds. 



The trail now led over a high hill and at its greatest elevation 

 passed along a narrow shelf with perpendicular walls of rock above 

 and below, where one false step of man or beast would mean utter 

 destruction. From the top the emigrants could see Jasper House, 

 a post of the Hudson's Bay Company, a perfect picture of loneliness 

 and solitude, so far below them on the opposite side of the river that 

 it seemed a collection of hen-coops. The scarcity of food had begun 

 to tell upon their animals; and hardly a day elapsed without one or 

 more being abandoned. 



The crossing place on the Athabaska was reached early on the 

 morning of August 20th. The river was about a hundred yards 

 wide and fifteen or twenty feet deep, and flowing very rapidly. The 

 emigrants at once commenced to build rafts and in three hours all 

 were safely across, the animals swimming as usual. Along the north- 

 ern bank they continued their march, occasionally pausing to wash 

 its sands for "colours" or to seek their strayed cattle that now wandered 

 further afield for food. The next day they passed the ruins of one of 

 the numerous Rocky Mountain Houses, called Henry's House, situated 

 near the confluence of the Miette. Their route now led up the narrow 

 rocky gorge where flowed the Miette, a swift mountain torrent some 

 thirty yards wide, having a rough and stony bed, with which they soon 

 became well acquainted. In five hours they forded this ice-cold 

 stream seven times. Wet, tired, and altogether miserable, but not 

 downcast, they encamped beside the brawling stream. They crossed 

 the Miette twice more, and, then, bidding a glad farewell to the un- 

 kindly river, they came into a region so encumbered with fallen 

 timber that the expedition was compelled to rest, whilst axemen hewed 

 out a roadway through the wooden entanglement. Slowly they made 

 their way westward, and in the middle of the afternoon crossed the 

 divide into British Columbia, though they did not realize the fact 

 until they found streams flowing in the same direction. That night — 

 August 22nd — they encamped on the shores of Cowdung Lake, the 

 source of the Fraser, the golden river of their dreams. 



Almost a month had now passed since they had left Edmonton, 

 and food was becoming scarce. The diary, under date August 23rd, 

 states: "Killed an ox this morning before starting; provisions be- 

 coming slack; pemmican about done and flour scarce." They had 

 expected to make the trip in two months from Fort Garry, and had 

 considered one hundred and sixty-eight pounds of flour and fifty 

 pounds of pemmican per head to be sufficient. Almost three months 



