274 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



feeling that you and your party are cut off from the world; 

 and when on a sudden the evidence is presented of others 

 being in that same desolate waste, you experience first 

 wonder and then pity that any one else should be plung- 

 ing into the misery that you are leaving. 



I afterwards learned that those tracks had been made 

 by the Fort Rae Indians, who were just starting into the 

 Barrens for their spring hunt. 



With the tracks of those Fort Rae Indians we bade 

 farewell to the last decent weather we were to have until 

 we reached the " last wood." 



For four consecutive days we went on against a raging 

 blizzard, over the characteristic country of the Barren 

 Grounds, without seeing a musk-ox, a caribou, or any liv- 

 ing creature. Nature had not favored us. While we were 

 going north the storms blew from the arctic into our 

 faces, and when we were going south they whirled around 

 and smote us from that direction. Sometimes they varied 

 and came from the east or west, but that relieved the diffi- 

 culties of travelling very little. In fact, I believe they 

 were increased, for it wearied the dogs almost more by 

 beating sideways upon them than by driving directly into 

 their faces. 



And all the time it was so cold. How cold, I cannot 

 adequately describe ; and our wood was going stick by 

 stick, and we had begun on our lodge poles, all but two of 

 which had been consumed by the time we reached the 

 " last wood." 



In these four days we again crossed Lake Ecka-tua, at a 

 different point from that on the northward journey, and in 

 the midst of our battling with the storm there was com- 

 fort in getting back on territory that you recognized. It 

 seemed as though we were not cast away, after all. It was 

 a blessed thing we had no sun in these days, for at the last 



