xii PREFACE 



great thing, for in face of the rigorous, bound- 

 less North a single man's effort must ever seem 

 small. 



Again and again I might go back to the 

 solitude of the Great North — and perhaps I 

 will — but I know full well I will always deem 

 the hours of a lifetime all too short to accomplish 

 half that I would wish in that overwhelming 

 vastness that reminds me, with a sternly inti- 

 midating dominance, that I am but a tiny, 

 passing atom, active fpr the moment, but woefully 

 impotent before the timeless reign of the brood- 

 ing wilderness. 



Yet, piece by piece, the character of a new 

 land is revealed, not bv the endeavour of one 

 man or one generation, but at the instance of 

 many, and so if the long trails I have made 

 seem little in proportion to the limitless extent 

 that lay before me, I still trust that my investi- 

 gation of a country lying between the Sas- 

 katchewan River and the Arctic Barren Grounds, 

 and between longitudes 101° and 108°, may add 

 in some measure to man's knowledge of that 

 territory, whether the reader of this narrative 

 be layman with a love of nature, or naturalist 

 who finds delight in following the endeavours 

 of an associate. 



In a scientific article recently prepared for 

 publication by J. H. Fleming, C.M.Z.S., 

 C.M.B.O.U., a notable Canadian ornithologist, 

 dealing with the bird life which I collected on 

 this expedition, the writer says : 



" Almost the first knowledge we have of the 

 ornithology of the Saskatchewan region is con- 



