44 EXPLORATIONS IN THE FAR NORTH 



stretched out on the sled with his feet dragging, alternately ply- 

 ing the whip and swearing at the dogs, and singing hymns in 

 Cree. The other stumbled along for a while and then fell by 

 the track where he lay several hours. 



I had expected to ride the remaining eighty-five miles, which 

 was over an excellent track kept open by the ox-teams of fish 

 freighters; but my driver was too ill to walk, from the effects of 

 the overdose of bad whiskey upon a stomach accustomed to 

 nothing stronger than black tea, so that he occupied the sled 

 the following day. 



A few miles from Humbug Bay we reached the northern limit 

 of the colony of Icelanders, which occupies a considerable por- 

 tion of the west shore of lower Lake Winnipeg. The well-built, 

 steep-roofed, and whitewashed log houses were in marked con- 

 trast with the low squalid cabins of the Indians. The men are 

 employed as fishermen on the lake in summer and as lumber- 

 men in winter. They have cleared small farms which produce 

 vegetables and some grain. There is usually abundant pastur- 

 age for their cattle, and fish are plenty in the lake near by. 

 " But it is not our Iceland, if we did starve there sometimes," 

 said a silver-haired old woman who kept the "stopping-place" 

 where we obtained lunch that day. On the following day, the 

 tenth from Grand Rapids, as Aleck was able to run again, I 

 occupied the cariole myself. We reached Selkirk after night- 

 fall in the midst of a blinding snowstorm. 



Taking the boys with me to the hotel, I had the pleasure of 

 seeing them, for once, fully satisfied with food. They had run 

 forty miles that day on a hard track, more tiring to the muscles 

 than ordinary snow. The grinning waiter kept the supply of 

 food replenished and a pained expression came over their faces 

 as they realized that there really was a limit to their capacity. 



Hastily boxing my outfit, which it had been necessary to carry 

 thus far in bags, I reached Winnipeg by rail the next morning ) 

 March 2nd. 



Up to this time I had not had access to any of the accounts of 

 Franklin, Back, Richardson and others who had passed through 

 the fur countries, and my plans were necessarily somewhat 

 indefinite as to the point at which to leave the main route in 

 search of musk-ox; I had concluded, after reading Pike's Nar- 

 rative they could not be reached from the Great Slave Lake 

 without great risk and hardship. 



