20 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



necessary to reach their destination. They start off on 

 the one main and almost only trail, which they follow to its 

 end, and then they continue on in the direction of their 

 objective point. Roads are few and far between in this 

 section, and disappear altogether when you get one hun- 

 dred miles north of Edmonton. The alleged road to La 

 Biche, which bears to the east of north, is the longest, 

 and the end ; beyond, all travel is by dogs in winter and 

 canoe in summer. Grierson knew that Beaver Lake 

 Creek was the point we were booked to reach that night 

 in order to make La Biche in three days' travel from 

 Edmonton, and he was sure it lay to the northeast. So 

 we pegged on, until finally, after chasing several lights 

 that turned out to be the wrong ones, and once nothing 

 less lofty than a planet, which in this far North hung 

 near the horizon, we found the log cabin of Beaver Lake 

 Creek's most distinguished settler. 



I say distinguished, because his was the only. cabin in 

 those parts which boasted of two rooms and a second 

 story an extravagance, he informed us, he had indulged 

 in with the idea of one day, when the section in which he 

 had located became more populous, putting a stock of 

 merchandise into the "other room," and utilizing the top 

 story as a dormitory for travellers. 



Having refreshed myself in about one and a half inches 

 of ice-water, I was confronted by this black -lettered 

 legend on the cabin door: "Bad luck attend the man 

 that wipes his nose on the towel " which convinced me 

 our host was a gentleman of discernment, with a delicate 

 humor for inciting reform in his guests without offending 

 their previously conceived sense of propriety. 



We left the pioneer of Beaver Lake Creek's "400" next 

 morning before the sun was up, and by one o'clock had 

 gone thirty-eight miles to Victoria, on the Saskatchewan 



