ATHABASCA DISTRICT 



65 



face and hands, with only a temporary effect. My face and 

 wrists were often swollen from their poisonous attacks. 1 Sleep 

 is impossible without a net to completely cover one. Indians, 

 who have no nets, lie half suffocated with their heads covered 

 by their woolen blankets. I was once forced to follow this 

 plan in the mountains of British Columbia, and nothing but 

 extreme exhaustion could have induced sleep. 



The clerk in charge at Fort Smith was living upon dried 

 suckers. These fish are obtained in large numbers below the 

 rapids, and form a considerable part of the food supply of the 

 Indians of the neighborhood. While they are drying, a little 

 sand finds its way into the gashes made in the fish, where it 

 remains to grate upon the teeth of the unfortunate compelled 

 to eat it. 



Captain Mills and I set out on June 26th to visit the Salt 

 Plains, from which the salt for the North is obtained. The salt 

 springs are situated forty miles northwest of Fort Smith, and 

 are reached by descending the Slave to the mouth of the Salt 

 River, a distance of fifteen miles, and ascending the latter 

 stream. On the way we landed at Bell's Rock, six miles below 

 the post, and made an unsuccessful search for fossils. This 

 low ledge of brecciated limestone and that underlying the 

 Pointe de Gravois on the right bank, two miles below, are the 

 only exposures of limestone that I saw on the Slave River. 



The swift current at Gravel Point forms a strong eddy where 

 fish are always abundant. This unfailing food supply accounts 

 for the presence of three or four Indian cabins on the bank 

 above. Permanent habitations at any distance from the Com- 

 pany's posts are of rare occurrence. The presence of a fishery 

 at the mouth of Salt River was indicated by the large number 

 of drying stages. The ruins of a log cabin were visible from 



1 Compare King, Narrative, p. 41. "In addition to the scorching heat of 

 the sun, we had been tormented by the mosquitoes, and so disfigured by 

 them that it was difficult to distinguish one man from another." Com- 

 mander Pullen wrote of the experiences of his boat party with mosquitoes, 

 in descending the Mackenzie, "Day or night made no difference to them; 

 they were our eternal tormenters, and in no hot country that I have ever 

 been have I found them so troublesome. In the daytime they were not our 

 only pests, for the bulldogs (immense large flies) were almost as thick and 

 troublesome with their sharp and poignant bite; so between them both we 

 got but little rest." Journal (Br. Blue Book), 1852, Vol. 50, p. 34. 



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