xii PREFACE 



great thing, for in face of the rigorous, bound- 

 less North a single man's effort must ever seem 

 small. 



Again and again I might go back to the 

 solitude of the Great North and perhaps I 

 will but I know full well I will always deem 

 the hours of a lifetime all too short to accomplish 

 half that I would wish in that overwhelming 

 vastness that reminds me, with a sternly inti- 

 midating dominance, that I am but a tiny, 

 passing atom, active for the moment, but woefully 

 impotent before the timeless reign of the brood- 

 ing wilderness. 



Yet, piece by piece, the character of a new 

 land is revealed, not by the endeavour of one 

 man or one generation, but at the instance of 

 many, and so if the long trails I have made 

 seem little in proportion to the limitless extent 

 that lay before me, I still trust that my investi- 

 gation of a country lying between the Sas- 

 katchewan River and the Arctic Barren Grounds, 

 and between longitudes 101 and 108, may add 

 in some measure to man's knowledge of that 

 territory, whether the reader of this narrative 

 be layman with a love of nature, or naturalist 

 who finds delight in following the endeavours 

 of an associate. 



In a scientific article recently prepared for 

 publication by J. H. Fleming, C.M.Z.S., 

 C.M.B.O.U., a notable Canadian ornithologist, 

 dealing with the bird life which I collected on 

 this expedition, the writer says : 



" Almost the first knowledge we have of the 

 ornithology of the Saskatchewan region is con- 



