ATHABASCA DISTRICT 



59 



ing with it for two hundred " skins" 1 (one hundred dollars) and 

 a gratuity of a hundred pounds of flour and a long list of other 

 articles of trade. The Indians have learned that they can get 

 more flour at Edmonton for their furs than at Chippewyan,and 

 every year or two a party of them, led by some freeman (dis- 

 charged Company's servant), visits the outside world. Their 

 time is worth nothing, and they cannot understand why they 

 should pay more for heavy merchandise at Chippewyan than at 

 the railway terminus. 



Lake Athabasca is the northern limit of the territory of the 

 Crees; beyond, the various sub-tribes of the Athabascan stock 

 occupy the country as far as the narrow strip along the coast,, 

 which is inhabited by the Eskimos. 



The Chippewyans trading at the fort are more numerous than 

 the Crees and, if possible, more filthy and destitute. The pro- 

 ductive fisheries about the lake and the abundance of hares 

 insure them against starvation, while clothing may be easily 

 obtained by a few weeks' work in the fur season. 



A great deal of their time is spent in gambling, at which they 

 will occupy themselves for days together and wager their last 

 ounce of ammunition upon which they are dependent for food 

 for the morrow. 



Delta. The Athabasca and Peace Rivers are both fed by the 

 melting of mountain snow and both carry an immense quantity of 

 mud and driftwood into their deltas, which have been extended 

 several miles from the hills that mark the original boundaries 

 of the lake. The two streams now have a common delta lying 

 in a semicircle, five miles southwest of the fort. This accu- 

 mulation of silt has cut off a portion of the lake over twenty- 

 five miles in length, called Lake Claire. The swamps and mud 

 flats of the delta are intersected by a network of channels 

 through which the water flows in either direction, according to 



•The skin is the standard of values in the North. Formerly it meant a 

 beaver skin, but it has come to have a fixed value equivalent to about fifty 

 cents in Canadian money. It appears on the Company's books as "Made 

 Beaver," abbreviated to MB. All trade north of Athabasca Landing is car- 

 ried on by barter, there being no medium of exchange of any sort. The 

 best "money" that a traveler can carry into that region, if he wishes to 

 deal directly with the Indians, is tea and tobacco; the former, black and of 

 good quality, the latter in the form of slender twisted plugs know as 

 "negro-head." 



