1906-7. TRANSACTIONS. 37 



Again resuming our way, we soon pass out of the lake and 

 enter the Slave River, which in a few hours receives a mighty 

 river from the west, the Peace, which rising in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains flows in an easterly direction, nearly 800 miles to swell the 

 volume of the great water system of our far north. This accession 

 renders the Slave below this point one of the great rivers of Canada. 

 It now varies from a half mile to a mile or more in width. Is- 

 lands become frequent and the current greatly increases. 



Owing to a series of rapids between Smith's Landing and Fort 

 Smith, a distance of 16 miles, steamers go no farther down than 

 the former place. 



The goods are transported by waggons over this portage. 



At Smith we found the Wrigley, another steamer awaiting us. 



On Steamer Wrigley from Fort Smith to Fort McPherson, 



1299 Miles. 



The "Midnight Sun" and the "Grahame'"' were flat bot- 

 tomed crafts, driven by large stern-wheels, and drew only about 

 two feet of water, but the Wrigley was of a different type, being 

 built like one of our lake boats, propelled by a screw-wheel and 

 drawing five and a half feet of water, and the whole course of our 

 journey from this point to Fort McPherson was made by her with- 

 out interruption. 



It is unnecessary to give a detailed description of the river 

 or the country immediately below Fort Smith, as it is similar in 

 appearance to that farther up the river, and also to that of the 

 Athabaska. As we approach the mouth the usual conditions 

 follow. The land falls away into swamp, willows again take the 

 place of the spruce and poplar, islands are numerous, and after 

 many devious courses between them, we behold, at last, the waters 

 of Great Slave Lake. 



The spring freshets had caught us at Fort McMurray, and all 

 the way down from there, the water carried a very large percentage 

 of alluvial soil, and resembled in appearance the historic " Yellow 

 Tiber," borne swiftly along on -its surface also, were trees that had 

 withstood the storms and floods of a century along the banks of 

 the Athabaska, the Peace, and hundreds of tributary streams all 

 the way to the base of the Rocky Mountains. These annual 

 floods have left along the shores and on the sandbars of the Slave 

 River millions of feet of timber, sufficiently large for lumber. 



