32 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



In rivers of developed commerce, such as the Missis- 

 sippi or Yukon, shoals and sandbars are indicated by 

 buoys, and pilot launches patrol the channels continually 

 to keep account of their rapid shifting. For a sandbar 

 that is here this week may be elsewhere next week. But 

 in 1906 a pilot passed down the Mackenzie in July, re- 

 turned in August, and did not see the stream again till 

 next summer, by which time many shifts of shoals and 

 channels had taken place. Consequently, the pilots then 

 did not try to rely much on memory but kept their eyes 

 upon the river ahead trying to tell by the color and the 

 character of the ripples made by the wind or current 

 whether the water ahead was deep or shallow. It is one 

 of the consequences of this condition that when one praises 

 a Mackenzie River pilot it is by calling him a good judge 

 of water. One day when we had been running aground 

 rather frequently, the Captain remarked to Ander- 

 son that our pilot might be a good judge of water but 

 that he must be a pretty poor judge of land. 



Where Hay River empties into Slave Lake we had 

 passed a mission of the Church of England that had a 

 fine garden and an especially large potato field. I find 

 people commonly surprised when they arc told about how 

 well vegetables grow so far north, but they would not be 

 surprised if they traveled through the country. When 

 you are puffing and perspiring at a temperature above 90 ° 

 in the shade, the rapid growth of potatoes seems no more 

 remarkable than the thickness of the mosquito swarms. 

 You rejoice at the one a good deal more than you do 

 at the other, but either ceases to be mysterious in the 

 sweltering heat. 



On the Mackenzie River proper north of Great £!ave 

 Lake, we found flourishing gardens at every trading post. 



