much finer and lighter in quality, and 

 therefore more desirable for garments 

 for young- people and children. The 

 women dress these peltries with much 

 skill, and make 'them as pliable as a 

 piece of fine cloth. The male deer 

 have splendid horns or antlers, espec- 

 ially when they are three or four years 

 old, a new set of which they grow 

 every year, in less than six 

 months. They all, young and old, 

 cast their horns in December, 

 and the horns for the following year 

 do not begin to grow until the month 

 of April. During their period of 

 growth the horns are quite soft, and 

 are covered with a velvet-like skin. 

 This skin falls off, or more strictly 

 speaking, they tear it off their horns 

 by rubbing them against trees and 

 rooks, and this they do about the 

 middle of September, when the horns 

 are full grown. They then become 

 quite hard. It was very interesting 

 to watch those animals, of which 



THERE ARE THOUSANDS 



then marching in their annual tour. 

 They scarcely appeared to take any 

 rest, or halt, excepting for three or 

 four hours in the middle of the night. 

 They kept travelling in continuous 

 bands along the lake towards its 

 northeast extremity, and appeared to 

 be impelled by some mighty power 

 over which they had no control. They 

 have regular and well trodden paths, 

 which they keep without deviation, 

 even when fleeing from their enemy. 

 These paths in many places lead into 

 rivers, lakes and wide bays, and it is 

 surprising how unhesitatingly and 

 fearlessly they take to the water and 

 swim aeross. I have seen them swim 

 across some arms of the lake fully a 

 mile and a half to two miles wide, and 

 as if guided by compass, strike the 

 exact landing place and trail on the 

 opposite side to where they started 

 from. They are wonderfully power- 

 ful swimmers, and it takes a good 

 canoe man to keep up with them. 

 The fawns take to the water as read- 

 ily as the old ones, and the icy cold 

 state of the water had no influence 

 on them.for they appeared just as lively 

 and active upon landing as they did 

 when they went into the water. 



AT LOCKHART RIVER 



at the extreme northeast end of Great 

 Slave Lake, I camped for a few days, 

 enjoying its many fine attractions. 

 This is a beautiful place.with charming 

 surroundings, diversified by high, 



sloping hills, level, sandy plateaus and 

 valleys, dotted with tall spruce trees 

 and no underbrush. This is par 

 excellence the place for a month's 

 outing for the sport loving tourist, for 

 here he can get fishing and shooting 

 to his heart's content, and a variety 

 of very fine wild fruit in great abund- 

 ance. In fact the country all along 

 the side of the lake which I travelled 

 was teeming with a large variety of 

 wild berries, such as the strawberry, 

 gooseberry, raspberry, blueberry, 

 cranberry, eyeberry and yellowberry, 

 and so forth — pleasing luxuries in that 

 distant country. Roast venison and 

 cranberry sauce was an easily obtain- 

 ed dinner. The Lockhart river so far 

 as I saw of it is full of rapids and 

 some fine waterfalls. They also cause 

 the destruction of a great many of 

 this deer, as when crossing the river 

 they are frequently carried over the 

 falls and are drowned or killed by 

 being dashed against the rocks. I 

 saw a score or more of them along the 

 river that were killed in that way. 



OLD FORT RELIANCE. 



Situated on a fine sandy flat on the 

 border of the lake on the east- side of 

 the estuary of the Lockhart river 

 stands the ponderous stone chimneys 

 of the buildings which once constitut- 

 ed the now almost forgotten Fort 

 Reliance, which was first built by Sir 

 George Back's party, as a wintering 

 station in 1825, when the pioneer ex- 

 pedition was made to the Arctic by 

 •the Great Fish, river, since named 

 Back's river, after the explorer. This 

 expedition was in search of Sir John 

 Ross, who was lost for four years in 

 an attempt to discover a northwest 

 passage, from whose journal during 

 that long and weary time some notion 

 of the sterling qualities of our sturdy 

 race can be learned. It was on this 

 expedition of Sir John Ross' that his 

 nephew, Sir James Clarke Ross, more 

 famous in Arctic and Antarctic dis- 

 overy, discovered the magnetic pole. 

 Twenty odd years afterwards, the 

 same route was traversed by Chief 

 Factor Anderson's expedition, which 

 was sent under the auspices of the 

 Hudson's Bay company in 1855. doubt- 

 less with a fond hope of ■rescuing at 

 least some survivors of the lamented 

 Sir John Franklin's party, alas ! not 

 to be realized, and Fort Reliance was 

 restored by Mr. Anderson's party, 

 chiefly to serve as a base of supply 

 of provisions in case his expedition 



