CHAPTER XVI 



THE PELICAN TRIP 



We were still held back by the dilatory ways of our 

 Indian friends, so to lose no time Preble and I deter- 

 mined to investigate a Pelican rookery. 



Most persons associate the name Pelican with tropic 

 lands and fish, but ornithologists have long known 

 that in the interior of the continent the great white 

 Pelican ranges nearly or quite to the Arctic circle. 

 The northmost colony on record was found on an island 

 of Great Slave Lake (see Preble, "N. A. Fauna," 27), 

 but this is a very small one. The northmost large 

 colony, and the one made famous by travellers from 

 Alexander Mackenzie downward, is on the great island 

 that splits the Smith Rapids above Fort Smith. Here, 

 with a raging flood about their rocky citadel, they are 

 safe from all spoilers that travel on the earth; only a 

 few birds of the air need they fear, and these they have 

 strength to repel. 



On June 22 we set out to explore this. Preble, 

 Billy, and myself, with our canoe on a wagon, drove 

 6 miles back on the landing trail and launched the 

 canoe on the still water above Mountain Portage. 

 Pelican Island must be approached exactly right, in 

 the comparatively slow water above the rocky island, 

 for 20 feet away on each side is an irresistible current 



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