CHAPTER V 



REINDEER LAKE AND FORT DU BROCHET 



Reindeer Lake ! Fort Du Brochet ! Names 

 remote on the map of Canada, names situated in 

 that Far Northern hinderland where so few have 

 come into being that each denominates a kingdom 

 of virgin country which lies, unknown to our 

 race, on all sides of the point that has been 

 discovered. To me such names are big with 

 possibilities, big with the attraction of things 

 mysterious, big because they shelter a country that 

 is waiting the races of the future. Yet to you, no 

 doubt they are mere names of Lake and Post to 

 be glanced over and forgotten, and given back to 

 the gigantic soundless wastes of semi-Arctic 

 Canada. Because they are hidden away in far-off 

 distance they hold what fame they have in the 

 still unravelled clouds, and the secretive silence, 

 of the ever-passing years. 



Reindeer Lake is between longitudes 102° and 

 103° and extends north to latitude 58°. It is a 

 vast sheet of water which stretches 140 miles 

 north and south, and forty miles across where its 

 width is greatest. It is in a country of rock, and 

 muskeg and low-lying hills which are filled with 

 silence and unseen cieatures. 



The lake contains countless islands (some 

 thousands) which are wooded, as are the land 



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