:54 THEOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



Ibodies in the country, met and dined with our party, after 

 which all adjourned to the treaty ground, where the people 

 had already assembled, and where all soon seated themselves 

 on the grass in front of the treaty tent — a large marquee — 

 the Indians being separated by a small space from the half- 

 Sbreeds, who ranged themselves behind them, all conducting 

 -themselves in the most sedate and orderly manner. 



Mr. Laird and the other Commissioners were seated along 

 the open front of the tent, and one could not but be impressed 

 Jby the scene, set as it was in a most beautiful environment 

 •of distant mountains, waters, forests and meadows, all 

 sweet and primeval, and almost untouched by civilized man. 

 The whites of the region had also turned out to witness the 

 scene, which, though lacking the wild aspect of the old 

 assemblages oh the plains in the early 'seventies, had yet a 

 character of its own of great interest, and of the most hopeful 

 promise. 



The crowd of Indians ranged before the marquee had lost 

 all semblance of wildness of the true type. Wild men they 

 were, in a sense, living as they did in the forest and on their 

 great waters. But it was plain that these people had 

 achieved, without any treaty at all, a stage of civilization 

 distinctly in advance of many of our treaty Indians to the 

 south after twenty-five years of education. Instead of paint 

 and feathers, the scalp-lock, the breech-clout, and the buffalo- 

 robe, there presented itself a body of respectable-looking men, 

 as well dressed and evidently quite as independent in their 

 feelings as any like number of average pioneers in the East. 

 Indeed, I had seen there, in my youth, many a time, crowds 

 of white settlers inferior to these in sedateness and self-pos- 

 session. One was prepared, in this wild region of forest, to 

 behold some savage types of men ; indeed, I craved to renew 

 the vanished scenes of old. But, alas ! one beheld, instead, men 

 with well-washed, unpainted faces, and combed and common 

 hair ; men in suits of ordinary " store-clothes," and some 

 even vrith " boiled " if not laundered shirts. One felt dis- 



