28 E. Petitot on the Athabasca District. 



the same name, have enabled me to collect fresh topographical, 

 statistical, and historical material on this great district of the 

 Canadian North-west ; so that I have had to recast my former 

 account in order to interpolate these recent acquisitions as well 

 as my personal observations. 



It will be needless to refer to the works of the first explorers 

 of the region, such asHearne, Mackenzie, Franklin, Back, Richard- 

 son, and others, or even to the more recent l Wild North Land ' 

 of Captain Butler, as the commercial district of Athabasca, which 

 takes its name from the river and lake, has undergone so many 

 modifications during the last decade. In 1879, the Hudson's 

 Bay Company joined a considerable portion of the Lesser Slave 

 Lake and Mackenzie districts to the old Athabasca district, and 

 its boundaries were defined by the dismembered and modified 

 Mackenzie district on the north, the Churchill district on the east, 

 the English River on the south, the Upper Saskatchewan on 

 the south west, and British Columbia on the west.* From the 

 Buffalo river, a southern affluent of the Great Slave Lake, the entire 

 shore of that inland fresh-water sea up to and including the two 

 Fonds-du-Lac on the east, belongs to this district ; and Forts 

 Besolution and Reliance, which are contained in it, are subordinate 

 to Fort Chipewyan, the headquarters. 



If a straight line be drawn from Fort Reliance (situated at the 

 outlet of Artillery Lake, the mouth of the great river " Tpa- 

 tchege-tchop, " whose current is as perceptible across Slave Lake 

 as that of the Slave River) to the 1 05th meridian, and the latter 



* Tt should be observed that since M.Petitot's return to France, Athabasca 

 bas been re-defined as one of the four districts of the Prairie section of 

 the North- West Territories, by order of the Privy Council of Canada dated 

 the 8th May, 1883, in the following words : — " 4th. Athabasca. The district 

 of Athabasca, about 122,000 square miles in extent, to be bounded on the 

 south by the district of Alberta ; on the east by the line between the 10th 

 and 11th ranges of Dominion Lands townships before mentioned [i. e., the 

 line dividing the 10th and 11th ranges of townships numbered from the 

 fourth initial meridian of the Dominion Lands system of survey, or about 

 111° 30' W. long.] until, in proceeding northward, that line intersects the 

 Athabasca River ; then by that river andj the Athabasca Lake and Slave 

 River to the intersection of the last with the northern boundary of the 

 district, which is to be the 32nd correction line of the Dominion Lands 

 township system, and is very nearly on the 60th parallel of north latitude ; 

 westward by the Province of British Columbia." This district is of larger 

 area than Great Britain and Irelaud. 



