3 



ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



rise near the Salt River, and both in a section of country 

 back of Fort Smith where there is a natural deposit of 

 salt. Hence the water is not fit to drink, and we were de- 

 pendent upon these snowbanks for cooking and drinking 



water. 



On the morning of the fourth day out from Slave Lake 

 the river grew much narrower and more winding, and 

 at one o'clock we came to the point where we were to 

 leave our canoe and make a portage across to Salt 

 River, and thence along the bank of Slave River to Fort 

 Smith. 



We arranged our luggage and provisions into packs to 

 average, I should say, about sixty pounds each, and at two 

 o'clock started on our fifteen-mile tramp to Salt River. 

 Such walking I had never experienced, and hope never 

 again to experience. Our way lay directly across a succes- 

 sion of swamps (muskeg). As we stood on their edge they 

 looked as harmless as submerged ponds, with bunches of 

 grass showing every few feet, and over all a coating of 

 smooth ice. But when we launched upon that placid ex- 

 terior we found its deceptions the bitterest. The ice was 

 not thick enough to bear our weight, and was too thick to 

 break without first jarring with our feet. It was hard ice 

 and sharp, and when we plunged through we went into 

 water up to our knees in some places and a great deal 

 deeper in others. First we cut our moccasins to shreds, 

 and then cut our feet until they bled. Between these sub- 

 merged swamps were others where there grew a thick un- 

 derbrush between innumerable mounds of moss and mire, 

 and through these we slipped and slid with one leg ankle- 

 deep in mire and the other probably knee-deep, and all 

 the time the brush slapped our unprotected faces, and the 

 sixty pounds on our backs dragged us deeper into the mire 

 or overbalanced us as we slid from mound to mound. 



