ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARKEN GROUNDS 



which at this season enjoy a short holiday. A woman can 



handle about two hundred fish a day by steady, quick work. 



We were not the only arrivals at the island, for many a 



canoe blew in loaded with Indians and their families and 



froods and chattels on the 



t> 



way to the post for the spring 

 trade. Again I witnessed ev- 

 idence of woman being the 

 country's beast of burden. 

 The men on landing went off 

 to join other men in smoking 

 their pipes, while the women, 

 loaded down like pack-mules, 

 climbed the steep and rocky 

 banks, and pitched the lodges 

 and lighted the fires and 

 cooked the suppers for their 

 luxuriant lords and masters. 

 I noticed one Indian woman 



toiling up the bank with a baby slung on her back in ad- 

 dition to her pack. 



The storm from which we had sought refuge increased 

 that night, and it was Sunday before we again got under 

 way, and Sunday night when we had finally crossed the 

 lake and gotten into Athabasca River. 



Six days of hard work brought us to another Sunday 

 and to Red River, thirty-five miles from McMurray, where 

 the men were to rest a day, for the way had been long and 

 the work steady from five in the morning until half after 

 seven, and, often, much later. Once in a while we had 

 been favored with wind and had sailed, and sometimes, when 

 the banks would permit of it, the boat had been "tracked." 

 But I did not care to lay in camp at Red River with 

 McMurray only thirty-five miles away, and offered Fran- 



GRIZZLY-CLAW NECKLACE 



