AN INDIAN SETTLEMENT 59 



numerously than anywhere previously, and I 

 collected ten specimens ; among them a pair of 

 Sabine's Gulls, of which I saw three. These are 

 noteworthy, for they were the only specimens 

 of this species encountered throughout the expedi- 

 tion, and possibly they are quite rare in this 

 inland territory. Further west, some two hun- 

 dred and fifty miles, Ernest Thompson Seton and 

 Edward A. Preble made an expedition in 1907 

 down the Athabasca River and adjacent waterways, 

 and in their list of birds observed do not record 

 having seen a single specimen. 1 



Late in the afternoon, close to an island in the 

 north-east corner of Sandy Lake, we came on a 

 small settlement containing fourteen inhabi- 

 tants. Here (in the rude, unkept clothing of an 

 outdoor exile), we found a white trapper, by name 

 Hans Madson — a Danish-American married to an 

 English-Cree halfbreed woman. Not an old man, 

 this ruddy haired Dane of perhaps five-and- 

 thirty, yet were the customs of his race well- 

 nigh erased and his disposition imbued with 

 the habits and mannerisms of his redskin asso- 

 ciates : only in colouring and speech did trace 

 of his origin remain ; so far had he grown into 

 the likeness of his surroundings. His cabin was 

 empty of every luxury of food, and his eyes lit 

 hungrily when opportunity was given him to 

 receive a portion of sugar and prunes in exchange 

 for dried moose meat ; for his daily food was 

 little more than dried meat, and fresh or dried 

 fish, cooked without seasoning and eaten without 

 vegetable or bread of any kind. He was undis- 



1 The Arctic Prairies, by E. Thompson Seton. 



