38 E. Petitot on the Athabasca District 



nel of the Athabasca, and inundate all the prairies between the 

 different mouths of that great river, forcing the Egg River to flow 

 back to the main branch of the Peace River which joins the Great 

 Slave River. 



Such was the condition of the estuary of the Athabasca and its 

 mouths in Franklin's time (and also in 1876) ; and if there are 

 errors in the maps of that time, they are either owing to incorrect 

 information or to misunderstanding ; for I can scarcely believe 

 that the first explorers were able to visit all of these localities, con- 

 sidering the short time they spent in the country. 



The vast marshy savanna of this delta — an ocean of tall grass, 

 mare's-tail, Cyptrus^ reeds, and willows, intersected by numberless 

 miry creeks always covered with water-fowl — is well called in Cree 

 " The Herbaceous Network," which is practically the meaning 

 of Athabasca, Ayabasca, Arabasca, and Wabasca, in the Algon- 

 quin dialects, — a name applied to the entire lake and also to the 

 river by Europeans. 



There are often not more than two or three feet of water in 

 these creeks of the xlthabasca ; but sometimes the whole estuary 

 is submerged and becomes part of the lake, still bearing on its 

 muddy surface a flotilla of huge trees which have got locked to- 

 gether and materially heightened its level. I saw such a state of 

 things in 1871 and 1876; but how different was the estuary 

 three years after ! At that time, the channels of the Athabasca 

 were almost dry; the main current had left the central one and 

 gone wholly to the east, and the savanna of the estuary, elevated 

 many feet above it, was changed into the immense and perfectly 

 firm prairie, covered with young willow copses and dotted with 

 water-holes.* But the most remarkable thing was that the estuary 

 of the Athabasca had entirely left this high and dry prairie, and 

 betaken itself to a point between its old mouth and that of the 

 Peace River, into the Rocky (or Stony) River, the drainer of the 

 great lake. The expanse of waters between these two points had 

 therefore vanished, and the once great bay of Lake Athabasca, so 

 picturesque with its chains of granitic pine-clad isles, like a fleet 

 of war-ships preparing for nautical evolutions, had wholly disap- 

 peared. Perhaps I should more correctly say that this basin of 

 five to six leagues still existed with its rocky rim, but instead of 



* See Macoun, in Rep. Geol. Survey of Canada, 1875-76, p. 91. 



