WINTER TRAVEL 03 



country had to be observed; we must not "arrive" at a late 

 hour. 



We reached Providence on the eighth of December. The 

 river packet had arrived from Simpson, and a day and a half 

 later it was sent on in charge of "Old John," the pilot of the 

 "Wrigley." He has driven the packet train across the Great 

 Slave Lake, the most dangerous portion of that two thousand- 

 mile mail route, for the last nineteen years. In the bush strong 

 winds cause some hardship, but do not prevent traveling as they 

 do upon the lakes and Barren Ground. " Old John " had many 

 times starved both himself and dogs while a gale had blown 

 itself out, as no extra provision is taken for delays. 



The letters were carried in a pine box lashed on the ordinary 

 flat sled. The dogs were smartly dressed in tapis, and the boy 

 who ran before the team wore a pair of new mooseskin mittens 

 which were covered with a mass of beads; they had a many- 

 colored cord attached that passed around the wearer's neck. 

 His leggins, of blue strouding, reached above the knee and had 

 a broad stripe of beadwork along the outer seam, reaching 

 from the ankle to the gay-colored garter; a pair of new trousers^ 

 a fine-cloth capote, and beaded moccasins completed his cos- 

 tume. 



My dogs had some difficulty in keeping pace with the fresh 

 packet team. I was greatly in need of a few days' rest myself, 

 and shall always remember that run of a hundred and seventy- 

 five miles as one of the most trying trips that I ever made. 



Le grand froid 1 of winter had come. The temperature ranged 

 from fifty to sixty degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. If exposed 

 to the wind while on the march, as we were on the broad 

 river and on the lake, it was difficult to keep our faces from 

 being frozen. At night the intense cold seemed unendurable. 

 We never had an)- shelter but our blankets; it would have been 

 impossible to have kept a fire burning all night, as the coals 

 thrown off would have burned our blankets, and the quick- 

 burning spruce would have required frequent renewal. Toward 

 morning I was nearly always awakened by the bitter cold, 

 which sometimes gave me the impression that my feet were 

 certainly frozen. I sometimes started the morning fire myself. 



1 Pronounced " frete " by the metis who give the sound of e to the diph- 

 thong oi. 



