CHAPTER XL 



OLD FORT RELIANCE TO FORT RESOLUTION 



All night the storm of rain and snow raged around our 

 camp on the south shore of Artillery Lake, but we were 

 up and away in the morning in spite of it. That day 

 we covered five portages (they took two days in coming 

 out). Next day we crossed Lake Harry and camped 

 three-quarters of a mile farther on the long portage. 

 Next day, September 11, we camped (still in storm) 

 at the Lobstick Landing of Great Slave Lake. How 

 tropically rich all this vegetation looked after the 

 "Land of little sticks." Rain we could face, but high 

 winds on the big water were dangerous, so we were 

 storm-bound until September 14, when we put off, 

 and in two hours were at old Fort Reliance, the winter 

 quarters of Sir George Back in 1833-4. In the Far 

 North the word "old" means "abandoned" and the 

 fort, abandoned long ago, had disappeared, except the 

 great stone chimneys. Around one of these that in- 

 trepid explorer and hunter — Buffalo Jones — had built a 

 shanty in 1897. There it stood in fairly good condition, 

 a welcome shelter from the storm which now set in with 

 redoubled fury. We soon had the big fireplace aglow 

 and sitting there in comfort that we owed to him, and 

 surrounded by the skeletons of the Wolves that he had 

 killed about the door in that fierce winter time, we 



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