ARCTIC FRIENDS AND ENEMIES 



a distance of one hundred and twenty-five miles, was a con- 

 tinuous series of rapids and waterfalls impossible by boat. 



During the winter, with the help of several men, I 

 freighted the bulk of my baggage and supplies, almost 

 a ton of stuff, on the ice, with dogs, to a point below 

 Hell Gate Canyon, where I constructed a strong log 

 cache and stored everything very carefully, to await my 

 coming in the spring, when I would return to build a boat, 

 in which to follow the Liard to the Mackenzie after the 

 ice had gone out. To my very great surprise, when I 

 reached a point about one mile below Hell Gate Canyon, 

 I found two white men in camp, who said they proposed 

 to remain there for the winter and then to return to the 

 Mackenzie. They represented to me that their food sup- 

 ply was a little short and that they had no guns nor am- 

 munition, and prevailed on me to supply this need. It 

 was finally agreed that I was to send them a gun and 

 ammunition and a few other small items in consideration 

 for which they were to help me build a boat in the spring 

 and aid me to transport my supplies down the Liard to 

 the Mackenzie. 



During the winter I had an opportunity to learn some- 

 thing of the native people who inhabited the country in 

 the neighborhood where my supplies were cached. The 

 fur trader with whom I lived was familiar with all their 

 doings for years and gave me accounts in detail of many 

 of their atrocities, among them the murder of two trusted 

 employes of the Hudson Bay Company who were traveling 

 through the country, and of two French Canadian trap- 

 pers who had gone there to trap for furs. The natives 

 around Hell Gate Canyon were not a regular tribe, but 

 were a lot of renegades from neighboring tribes banded 

 together, after having committed such offenses among 

 their own people as to make it necessary for them to find 

 a new hunting ground. 



During my winter's stay on the Liard River many ac- 

 counts of bloodthirsty and savage deeds came to my notice. 

 A few Indians lived near our little trading post, and reports 

 of all incidents of importance occurring among neigh- 

 boring tribes or people came to them and from them to 

 the trader, who communicated them to me. One story 



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