366 HUDSON BAY COMPANY'S OFFICERS. 



find officers and men who have once taken part in 

 arctic expeditions, go back again and again to these 

 regions whenever opportunity offers. 



In the sub-arctic regions, adjoining the southern 

 margin of the regular arctic zone, however, where the 

 summers are considerably longer, and the winters 

 very much shorter, the briefer period of cold, though 

 perhaps quite as severe while it lasts as it is in places 

 much further to the northward, does not appear to 

 produce any markedly unfavourable effects, or to be 

 at all incompatible with the enjoyment of perfect 

 health. The experience of the Hudson Bay Company's 

 officers and men seems to be conclusive upon this 

 point. It is in these barren grounds of Northern Canada 

 therefore, and in other similar countries, that we so 

 often find these instances of people who have become so 

 much enamoured of an arctic climate and arctic scenery, 

 that they seem to prefer it to almost any other. 



Many of the Hudson Bay Company's officers, in 

 former days, used to be stationed for years in small 

 trading posts, or forts, in the northern wilds, where 

 they were often altogether cut off from communication 

 with the outer world, except on the one occasion 

 when each season a boat or pack train arrived, bring- 

 ing up the Indian trade goods and other supplies for 

 the fort, and took away the collection of furs, made 

 since the previous year, on the return journey. 

 There were even one or two posts in the far north 

 where a letter took two seasons to reach them, as we 

 were credibly informed. Yet these men, most of them 

 vScotchmen, and half-breed Canadians, were generally 

 eminently happy and contented. A few now and then 

 gave up their posts, and retired in disgust; but after 



