EDMOXTO^^ TO LESSER SLAVE LAKE 31 



looking sheet of water. Some miles farther on we crossed 

 Whiskey Creek, a white man's name, of course, given by 

 an illicit distiller, who throve for a time, in the old " Permit 

 days," in this secluded spot. Beyond this the long line of 

 the Vermilion Hills hove in sight, and presently we reached 

 the Vermilion River, the Wyamun of the Crees, and, before 

 nightfall, the Nasookamow, or Twin Lake, making our camp 

 in an open besmirched pinery, a cattle shelter, with bleak 

 and bare surrotmdings, neighboured by the shack of a soli- 

 tary settler. He had, no doubt, gopd reasons for his choice; 

 but it seemed a very much less inviting locality than Stony 

 Creek, which we came to next morning, approaching it 

 through rich and massive spruce woods, the ground strewn 

 with anemones, harebells and violets, and interspersed with 

 almost startlingly snow-white poplars, whose delicate buds 

 had just opened into leaf. 



Stony Creek is a tributary of a larger stream, called the 

 Tawutinaow, which means " a passage between hills." This 

 is an interesting spot, for here is the height of land, the 

 " divide " between the Saskatchewan and the Athabasca, 

 between Arctic and Hudson Bay waters, the stream before 

 us flowing north, and carrying the yellowish-red tinge com- 

 mon to the waters on this slope. A great valley to the left 

 of the trail runs parallel with it from the Sturgeon to the 

 Tawutinaow, evidently the channel of an ancient river, 

 whose course it would now be difficult to determine without 

 close examination. At all events, it stretches almost from 

 the Saskatchewan to the Athabasca, and indicates some great 

 watershed in times past. Hay was abundant here, and 

 much stock, it was evident, might be raised in the district. 



Towards evening we reached the Tawutinaow bridge, some 

 eighteen miles from the Landing, our finest camp, dry and 

 pleasant, with sward and copse and a fine stream close by. 

 Here is an extensive peat bed, which was once on fire and 

 burnt -for years — a great peril to freighters' ponies, which 

 sometimes grazed into its unseen but smouldering depths. 



