ATHABASCA DISTRICT 



67 



we were an hour in going around a bend that is crossed in 

 winter in five minutes. Near the mouth of the river we stopped 

 to wood up, at midnight, soon after which the steamer ran at 

 full speed upon a gravel bar. The boat heeled over until I 

 was nearly thrown out of my bunk. "Susy," who was at the 

 wheel at the time, remarked in a satisfied tone, " I thought me 

 there was a bar here somewhere." 



We were four hours in getting off. We then entered one of 

 the western channels of the broad delta and passed three or four 

 miles of mud-flats off the mouth before reaching the deep water 

 of the lake. Turning southward around Mission Island, we 

 reached Resolution early on the morning of the 6th. The 

 anchor was dropped two hundred yards from the beach and a 

 few pieces were sent ashore. 



An unusually large number of musk-ox skins had been 

 brought in, and rivalry between the Company and the free 

 traders had trebled the price formerly paid for them. This had 

 emptied the store and caused goods to be supplied at the first, 

 instead of the third, trip of the steamer. 



I counted sixty lodges on the beach before the fort. The 

 most of them were occupied by Yellow Knife Indians from the 

 north shore of the lake. 



At nine o'clock we were under way again, headed for Rae on 

 the Northern Arm. The main body of the lake is sixty miles 

 in width and the Northern Arm is eighty in length. This broad 

 traverse requires a much more seaworthy vessel than are the 

 upper river steamers. The "Wrigley" was built at Fort Smith 

 in 1886, all the lumber used being sawed by hand. Her dimen- 

 sions were eighty feet keel, fourteen feet beam, six feet draft, 

 with a four and a half feet screw. Her average speed on the 

 lake is over eight miles an hour. The running time from Fort 

 Smith to the northernmost post (a distance of over twelve 

 hundred miles) is five days. The return trip against the cur- 

 rent of the Mackenzie requires eight and a half days. She is 

 soon to be replaced by a new boat, to be built during the win- 

 ter of 1896-7. 



