CHAPTER II 



DOWN THE MACKENZIE RIVER THROUGH 2000 MILES OF 



INDIAN COUNTRY 



I left New York in April, 1906, and traveled by way of 

 Toronto and the Canadian Pacific Railway to Winnipeg. 

 At that time the Canadian Northern Railway had not 

 been completed to the Pacific Coast but the stretch be- 

 tween Winnipeg and Edmonton had been opened. It 

 lay through virgin country where farms and towns were 

 springing up here and there on the prairies or in the wood- 

 land places. I have always had a passion for new coun- 

 tries and so I preferred the as yet crude service and un- 

 even roadbed of the Canadian Northern to the smooth 

 track and perfect system of the Canadian Pacific. It 

 took a day and a half for the nine hundred miles to Ed- 

 monton. 



From Winnipeg on my journey was under the protect- 

 ing wing of the Hudson's Bay Company, the oldest and 

 most romantic commercial concern in the world and even 

 to-day one of the greatest in capital and financial power. 

 Lord Strathcona was the world head of the Company with 

 offices in London, but in Canada their wide empire in the 

 North was controlled by the Chief Commissioner, C. C. 

 Chipman, who welcomed me in Winnipeg. With official 

 courtesy and great personal kindness he gave me advice 

 and saw to it that the "servants" (as the employees of 

 this ancient organization are still called) should give me 

 every assistance. Through him I met the distinguished 



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