IV 



PREFACE 



Through some oversight no money was appropriated to 

 carry on the work and the project must have been abandoned, 

 had not President Chas. A. Schaeffer generously advanced 

 the necessary amount to meet the expenses incurred during 

 the first year. 



It was my desire to go at once to the Great Slave Lake 

 region, but it seemed best to the promoters of the enterprise 

 that I should become accustomed to the life of the natives 

 before going so far beyond the limits of civilization. Mr. 

 MacFarlane, then chief factor in charge of Cumberland Dis- 

 trict, the Hudson's Bay Company's southernmost division of 

 the Fur Country, thought it advisable for me to spend the first 

 winter at Grand Rapids in order to become acclimated and to 

 become accustomed to the northern mode of winter travel, 

 before I should attempt to enter the Barren Ground. 



Grand Rapids is not a good station for a collecting naturalist. 

 Water birds are not numerous, land birds do not differ from 

 those more easily accessible in Manitoba. The fur-bearing 

 mammals have been nearly exterminated. The customs and 

 traditions of the Crees, who inhabit the country, have been so 

 modified by contact with the whites during a period of over a 

 hundred years, that their interest to the ethnologist has been 

 greatly lessened. However, the work already done at that 

 post would be enhanced in value if the collection was con- 

 tinued through a winter season, and it was finally fixed upon 

 as my headquarters for the winter of 1892-3. 



As it was not desirable that I should begin collecting at 

 Grand Rapids before autumn, at the close of the University in 

 June, I went with Professor Smith to the Pacific Coast where 

 we were to collect natural history specimens for our own 

 cabinets until it was necessary for me to go to Winnipeg to 

 secure passage on the last trip of the lake steamers. 



Our first station was upon the shores of Puget Sound, near 

 Tacoma, where we devoted most of our attention to the marine 



