TRANSFER FROM EUROPE TO AMERICA 15 



the long amber channel to be confronted by three openings exactly 

 alike, not much wider than the length of our Klondike canoe, all 

 lined by the high tufted reed. MacKenzie, the half-breed rapids 

 man, had been telling us the endless Cree legends of Wa-sa-kee- 

 chaulk, the Cree Hiawatha, and his Indian lore of stagnant waters 

 now lured him into steering us to one of the side channels. We 

 were not expected. An old mother duck was directly across our 

 path teaching some twenty-two little black bobbling downy babies 

 to swim. With a cry that shrieked " leg-it, leg-it" plain as a quack 

 could speak and which sent the little fellows scuttling, half swim, half 

 run, theold mother flung herself over on her back not a paddle's'length 

 ahead of us, dipped, dived, came up again just at our bow and 

 flopped broken-winged over the water ahead of us near enough almost 

 to be caught by the hand ; but when you stretched out your hand, 

 the crafty lady dipped and dived and came up broken-winged again. 



In winter, this region is traversed by dog train along the ice — 

 a matter of 500 miles to Lac du Brochet and back, or 600 miles to 

 Prince Albert and back. "Oh, no, we're not far," said a lonely 

 faced Cambridge graduate fur trader to me. "When my little boy 

 took sick last winter, I had to go only 55 miles. There happened 

 to be a doctor in the lumber camp back on the Ridge." 



But winter is not all easy in a 50 below zero climate where you 

 can't find sticks any larger than your finger to kindle night fire. 



Does it sound very much to you like a region where the settler 

 would ultimately drive out the fur trade ? What would he settle 

 on ? That is the point. Nature has taken good care that climate 

 and swamp shall erect an everlasting barrier to encroachment on 

 her game preserves. 



To be sure, if you ask a fur trader, "How are furs?" he will 

 answer, "Poor — poorer every year." So would you if you were 

 a fur trader and wanted to keep out rivals. I have never known 

 a fur trader who did not make that answer. 



"The last chapter of the fur trade has been written ?" Never! 

 The oldest industry of mankind will last as long as mankind lasts. 



