IISTTRODUCTION 23 



years before. It was thought to be a most difficult country 

 to reach — a terra incognita — rude and dangerous, having no 

 allurements for the average Canadian, whose notions about 

 it, if he had any, were limited, as usual, to the awe-inspiring 

 legend of " barbarous Indians and perpetual frost." 



There is a lust, however, the unquenchable lust for gold, 

 which seems to arouse the dullest from their apathy. This 

 is the primum mobile; from earliest days the sensational 

 mover of. civilized man, and not unlikely to remain so until 

 our old planet capsizes again, and the poles become the 

 equator with troglodites for inhabitants. ISTo barriers seem 

 insurmountable to this rampant spirit ; and, urged by it, the 

 gold-seekers, chiefly aliens from the United States, plunged 

 into the wilderness of Athabasca without hesitation, and 

 without as much as " by your leave " to the native. Some 

 of these marauders, as was to be expected, exhibited on the 

 way a congenital contempt for the Indian's rights. At various 

 places his horses were killed, his dogs shot, his bear-traps 

 broken up. An outcry arose in consequence, which inevitably 

 would have led to reprisals and bloodshed had not the Gov- 

 ernment stepped in and forestalled further trouble by a 

 prompt recognition of the native's title. Hitherto he had 

 been content with his lot in these remote wildernesses, and 

 well might he be ! One of the vast river systems of the Con- 

 tinent, perhaps the greatest of them all, considering the area 

 drained, teeming with fish,^ and alive with fur and antler, 

 was his home — a region which furnished him in abundance 

 with the means of life, not to speak of such surplus of lux- 

 uries as was brought to his doors by his old and paternal 

 friend, " John Company." His wants were simple, his life 

 healthy, though full of toil, his appetite great — an appetite 

 which throve upon what it fed, and gave rise to fabulous 

 feats of eating, recalling the exploits of the beloved and big- 

 bellied Ben of nursery lore. 



But the spirit of change was brooding even here. The 



