A NOTE FROM THE FAR NORTH. 207 
and to have been governed only by the wildest caprice 
in their distribution. No axis can be traced, and it is 
a physical impossibility to walk for a day in a straight 
line over the prairie plateau at their base. One may as- 
cend, as a rule, the southern slopes of these peaks readily 
enough, but the northern slopes almost invariably give 
you from 1,500 to 2,000 feet of sheer precipice at a sin- 
gle leap. Skirting their bases are found dwarfed balsam 
trees, whose limbs are festooned with the long gray lichen 
eaten by the Caribou, or now and again a stray cotton- 
wood may present itself. So thickly are the peaks dis- 
tributed over the country, that the original plateau is seen 
only as a narrow and almost treeless valley, winding 
about between the peaks. Yet by following these valleys 
one may reach the waters of the Liard without crossing a 
single mountain. 
The storms which sweep through the passes must, at 
times, be fearful. I remember seeing a tree (the largest 
one indeed which I noticed at this elevation) full two feet 
in diameter, that had been twisted off by the wind, and 
carried two hundred feet away from the stump. 
Near the top the peaks are bald, and offer no other 
inducement to the adventurous botanist than a few lich- 
ens. Even the snow will not lie on the summits during 
the winter months, but is blown away into the valleys 
below, and into the gulches which streak the declivities. 
Hence, during the winter, when the valleys are buried 
beneath twelve or fourteen feet of snow, the Caribou seek 
the mountain tops to eat the lichens. The valleys are 
worn out into deep gulches by the melting snow, and 
everywhere you are met by miniature cafions in crossing 
them. Even in mid-summer the snow falls to a depth of 
a foot or more, at times, on the mountain sides. Among 
