THE TEIP TO WAHPOOSKOW 137 



Landing, the residence of Bishop Young ; Lesser Slave Lake, 

 White Fish Lake, Smoky Eiver, Spirit River, Fort Ver- 

 milion, and Fort Chipewyan, in charge, respectively, of the 

 Eeverend Messrs. Holmes, White, Currie, Robinson, Scott, 

 and Warwick. The Roman Catholic Mission, already men- 

 tioned, had been established three years before our coming 

 by the Reverend J. B. Giroux, at Stony Point, near the out- 

 let of the first lake, the other Oblat Missions in Athabasca — 

 I do not vouch for my accuracy — being Athabasca Landing, 

 Lesser Slave Lake, the residence oi Bishop Glut and clergy 

 and of the Sisters of Providence ; White Fish Lake, Smoky 

 River, Dunvegan, and St. John, served, respectively, by 

 Fathers Leferriere, Lesserec, and Letreste; Fort Vermilion 

 by Father Joussard, and Fort Chipevsryan by Bishop Grouard 

 and the Grey Nuns. 



Mr. Weaver, the missionary at Wahpooskow, is an Eng- 

 lishman, his wife being a Canadian from London, Ontario. 

 By untiring labour he had got his mission into very credit- 

 able shape. When it is remembered that everything had to 

 be brought in by bark canoes or dog-train, and that all lum- 

 ber had to be cut by hand, it seemed to be a monument of 

 industry. Before qualifying himself for missionary wotk 

 he had studied farming in Ontario, and the results of his 

 knowledge were manifest in his poultry, pigs and cows; in 

 his garden, full of all the most useful vegetables, including 

 Indian corn, and his wheat, which was then in stook, per- 

 fectly ripe and untouched by frost. This he fed, of course, 

 to his pigs and poultry, as it could not be ground; but it 

 ripened, he told me, as surely as in Manitoba. Some of the 

 natives roundabout had begun raising stock and doing a 

 little grain growing, and it was pleasant to hear the lowing 

 of cattle and the music of the cow-bells, recalling home and 

 the kindly neighbourhood of husbandry and farm. 



The settlement was then some twenty years old, and num- 

 bered about sixty souls. The total number of Indians and 

 half-breeds in the locality was unknown, but nearly two hun- 



