PREFACE 



CANADA, in a great belt that runs from sea to 

 sea, across the southern territory of her dominion, 

 is the civilised, rapidly growing country which 

 we all know to-day. Therein, in out-of-the-way 

 places where mankind pass not too often, there 

 are still quantities of big game and fur-bearing 

 animals and wild-fowl to delight the lover of 

 nature and solitude. But it is not of such places 

 that I write in this narrative not of the outdoor 

 places that are within reach of those who inhabit 

 the populated south country of Canada ; for 

 the wanderings which it has been my good 

 fortune to experience, and which henceforth I 

 will endeavour to describe, were through a part 

 of the great unpeopled North, which even to-day 

 comprises more than half of the large Dominion 

 of Canada. So great is the far north territory 

 that there is many a hundred miles on which 

 no white man has yet set foot, and even where 

 the white man has been, in the distant interior 

 near to the Barren Lands, in many cases the 

 footprints have been so few that an old Indian 

 inhabitant of a district could easily count those 

 who had passed in a lifetime on his ten fingers. 

 Though I travelled 785 miles over ice and snow 

 by dog-sled, and 1,044 miles over water in a 

 single canoe, I lay no claim to having done a 



