DOWN THE PEACE KIVEE. IQl 



ration per head at the Company's prairie posts was eight 

 pounds of fresh meat, which was all eaten, its equivalent 

 being two pounds of pemmican, the enormity of this Gargan- 

 tuan feast may be imagined. But we ourselves were not bad 

 hands at the trencher. In fact, we were always hungry. So 

 I do not reproduce the foregoing facts as a reproach, but 

 rather as a meagre tribute to the prowess of the great of 

 old — the men of unbounded stomach ! 



On the afternoon of the 4th we rounded Point Providence, 

 the soil exposures sandy, the timber dense but slender, and 

 early next morning reached the Quatre Fourches, which was 

 at that time flowing into Lake Athabasca. It is simply a 

 waterway of some thirty miles in length, which connects 

 Peace River with the lake, and resembles, in size and colour, 

 Ked River in Manitoba. It is one of " the rivers that turn " 

 — so called from their reversing their current at different 

 stages of water. A small stream of this kind connects the 

 South Saskatchewan with the Qu'Appelle, and another, a 

 navigable river, the Lower Saskatchewan with Cumberland 

 Lake. The Quatre Eourches is thus both an inlet and an out- 

 let, but not of the lake in a right sense. The real outlet is 

 the Rocher River, which joins the Peace River at the inter- 

 section of latitude 59 with the 111.30th degree of longitude, 

 beyond which the imited streams are called the Great Slave 

 River. 



The Quatre Eourches — " The Eour Forks " — gets its name 

 from the jtmction of a channel which connects a small lake 

 called the Mamawee with the south-west angle of Lake Atha- 

 basca, Fort Chipewyan being situated on an opposite shore 

 upon an arm of the lake, here about six miles wide. The 

 stream is sluggish, and is thickly wooded to the water's edge, 

 with here and there an exposure of red granite. It is a 

 very beautiful stream, and it was a pleasure to get out of 

 the great river and its oppressive vastness into the familiar- 

 looking, homely water, its eastern rocks and exquisite curves 

 and bends. Rounding a point, we came upon a camp of 



