7o 



EXPLORATIONS IN THE FAR NORTH 



in 1789, on Marten Lake, nearly a hundred miles northwest of 

 Rae. The present post was established forty years ago. 



Rae was for many years the best provision post in the Mack- 

 enzie District, and furnished thousands of pounds of meat for 

 the river transport; but the caribou have been driven back 

 toward the Barren Ground, and the "hungry and desolate" 

 post now receives scarcely enough meat and grease to supply 

 its own people. As the caribou failed, the Indians resorted to 

 trapping and musk-ox hunting, so that the place now makes a 

 good return of furs. 



Only two white men lived at Rae when I landed there; " Old 

 Jock" Wilson, a chief trader in the Company's service, admin- 

 istered to a small portion of the earthly wants of the natives, 

 while their spiritual welfare was presided over by Pere Ruore, 

 a Roman Catholic missionary from Southern France. Mr. Wil- 

 son had a peculiar habit of refusing to speak to any one for a 

 week at a time if anything displeased him. He was assisted by 

 Antoine Leviolette, a metis clerk, who with his wife boarded 

 at the "master's table." 



For the first ten days I lived in the big house. Our fare con- 

 sisted of boiled dried caribou meat, so black, tough and cov- 

 ered with hairs that the sight of it soon became repugnant. 

 One can eat a full meal of this dried meat, dry meat, dry tur- 

 key, or " scrap," as it is called, and feel just as hungry as before. 

 Twice a day a plate of four small "cakes" of unleavened bread 

 was placed on the table. For lunch on Sunday there was a 

 rice pudding without milk, and no bread. At breakfast only 

 there was sugar for the tea. 



There was little to be done near the post, and I decided to 

 make a summer trip toward the Barren Ground with several 

 objects in view; to collect ornithological specimens, to secure 

 caribou skins before they had assumed their winter pelage, to 

 search for breeding places of water birds to be visited during 

 the following year, and last, but not least, to get something to 

 eat, as the unvaried diet of tasteless, leathery dried meat was 

 growing intolerable. 



I tried to engage the services of some of the Indians who, to 

 the number of three hundred, were temporarily encamped about 

 the post. Naohmby, "The Bear Lake Chief," was said to be 

 the most intelligent and the most obliging of the Dog Rib 



