DOWN THE MACKENZIE RIVER 17 



man of our party, and also our leading humorist, gave 

 her the nickname by which we always called her — the 

 Rockbound Limited. 



One of our fellow-passengers was a clergyman new out 

 of England on his way to a mission station at Fort Nor- 

 man just south of the arctic circle. His was a restless 

 curiosity about all things indigenous to the country, but 

 he admitted that the more he investigated the more de- 

 pressed he became. He told me that he would have 

 turned south before ever he reached his subarctic station, 

 oppressed with the depravity of the "civilized" Indians 

 whom he already more than half-suspected of inability 

 to see the superiority of the Anglican over the Catholic 

 Church, but for two things which kept him to his job — 

 the encouragement of Bishop Reeve, who had seen much 

 improvement among the Indians in his time and was 

 therefore optimistic, and his own pride which forbade 

 turning back from work once undertaken. 



And if his missionary ardors were somewhat cooled 

 by the unromantic aspect of lazy-looking, gambling In- 

 dians dressed in cheap ready-made city clothes, they were 

 no less affected by the mosquitoes. In England he had 

 vaguely anticipated the possibility of being tomahawked 

 by savages and he modestly doubted whether he could 

 have met such a death with fortitude. Martyrdom be- 

 fore lions or howling savages could perhaps be met cour- 

 ageously in an instant of spiritual exaltation. But mar- 

 tyrdom through being tortured for days and weeks by 

 insect pests was a wholly different thing. In the stifling 

 afternoon heat when (on one occasion) the temperature 

 on our boat rose to 103 in the shade, he had to wear 

 heavy clothing and even then the mosquitoes crawled 

 down the gauntlet of his glove and bit him on the wrist 



