OHAPTEE VII. 

 A GREAT FROZEN LAKE. 



Befoee leaving " Caribou Camp " a cairn of rocks was 

 built on the top of an immense boulder, conspicuously situated 

 on the summit of a point reaching out into the waters of 

 Carey Lake. A record of our journey to date was placed in 

 it, and the "flag that's braved a thousand years the battle 

 and the breeze " left floating overhead. 



On the 2nd of August the journey was resumed, and during 

 the day a remarkable grove was found on the north shore of 

 the lake, in latitude 62° 15' north. As a whole, the country 

 was now a treeless, rocky wilderness, but here by a little 

 brook grew a clump of white spruce trees, perhaps thirty in 

 all, of which the largest measured eight feet in circumference 

 two feet above the ground. Such a trunk would be considered 

 unusually large in a forest a thousand miles to the south, but 

 here it and its fellows stood, far out in the Barren Grounds, 

 with their gnarled, storm-beaten tops, like veritable " Druids 

 of eld." 



In this grove many varieties of plants were found; among 

 others, wood violets, which were here seen for the last time 

 on the trip. ISTot the least enjoyable feature of this little 

 oasis was that it afforded us an opportunity of having a good 

 noonday Are, which of late had been a rare luxury. 



Pushing out our canoes, we continued the traverse of 

 the coast to the westward, in search of the Dubawnt, but it 

 could not be found until the morning of the following day,. 

 when, at the north-western extremity of the lake, it was again 

 discovered. The river commenced with a wild rapid of about 

 thirty feet fall, and this we found to be followed within a 



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