PREFACE xv 



addition to our knowledge of the birds of the 

 region drained by the Churchill River, and are 

 in fact the first collection made in far Northern 

 Saskatchewan." 



It may seem odd to the reader that I make 

 record at this date of an expedition undertaken 

 in the year 1914, yet this may be easily explained, 

 and, I hope, the delay forgiven, as such a cir- 

 cumstance is entirely due to the exigencies of 

 the Great War, during which it was every able 

 man's duty to abandon civil occupation and 

 take up arms in defence of home and country, 

 even though such action would rudely shake, 

 and perhaps break, the foundation of almost 

 any career. On receiving my release from the 

 Army I have made haste to return to the full 

 pages of my diary of 1914 and to labour to record 

 my experiences of that time in the hope that 

 they might be in some measure instructive to 

 those setting forth on like adventure, and to 

 those who take an interest in wild life of any kind. 

 Moreover, whatever I experienced in 1914 of the 

 country I then travelled through still retains 

 the native novelty, for had other footsteps fol- 

 lowed mine I would have been told so by the 

 Government authorities with whom I remain in 

 correspondence. So, through the years of war 

 that have passed, the North remains the silent, 

 unbounded solitude that my canoe and dog- 

 sled intruded on for a brief space ; since then no 

 like expedition has passed along that pathless 

 route. 



Every traveller appreciates or depreciates his 

 reception by the inhabitants of the country he 



