42 E. Petitot on the Athabasca District. 



II. 



Lake Athabasca is the smallest of the fresh-water seas which 

 stretch like a chain from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Arctic 

 Ocean, east of the Mississippi, the Red River of the North, and 

 the Athabasca-Mackenzie system. 



It is 230 miles long by twenty miles broad, and about 600 feet 

 above the level of the Arctic Ocean, according to the observa- 

 tions of General Sir J. H. Lefroy. The position of Fort 

 Chipcwyan, the headquarters of the district, is 58 ° 43' N. lat., 

 and 111° 18' 32" W. long. ; that of Fort Fond-du-Lac is 59° 20' 

 N. lat. and 107° 25' W. long. 



Like a number of other lakes in this region, it is a crystal 

 sheet of water lying in a deep bed, granitic at the north end, and 

 with sandy and muddy deposits at the south. Three of its sides 

 are granite, and a great number of granite islands thickly set with 

 pines dot its surface. But there are no mountains there, and 

 Hearne, the first explorer in 1771, would have been more correct 

 in naming it Lake of the Isles than Lake of the Hills, as the 

 abundance of islands strikes the traveller at the first glance. 



I have already explained the Cree meaning of Athabasca. The 

 present inhabitants, the Chipewyan Tinneys, call it " Yetape-t'ue " 

 (Lake Superior), or more habitually " Kkpay-t'ele-kke," or Wil- 

 low bed, alluding, doubtless, to the deltas. This was also the name 

 of an old trading-fort at the mouth of the Athabasca river, where 

 willows were the dominant feature of the vegetation, only conifers 

 and aspens being visible elsewhere. 



The nature of the soil of the lake is therefore identical with that of 

 the great lakes tributary to Hudson's Bay, such as Lakes Wollaston> 

 Caribou, Beaver, and B, ar, the Lake of the Woods, and Lake 

 Winnipeg, and of those which drain to the Atlantic, as the 

 Canadian lakes proper. 



The fishes of the lake are Coregonus lucidus or white-fish, salmon- 

 trout (which there, as in more northern waters, reaches thirty-five 

 lbs. and over), Canadian trout, Catastomus reticulatus, maskin- 

 onge" (Esox estor),grey and red sucking-carps, sandre (Lucioperca 

 Americana, called dore by the Canadians), the goldeu-eyed 

 lakeche, lamprey, methy (Lota maculosa), &c. I only refer 

 here to the larger species, for the very sufficient reason that the 

 smaller ones are entirely unknown. 



