CHAPTER VII. 
A GREAT FROZEN LAKE. 
BEFORE leaving “ Reindeer Camp” a cairn of rocks 
was built on the top of an immense boulder, conspicu- 
ously 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 for a thou- 
sand years has braved 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 latitute 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 mea- 
sured eight feet in circumference at two feet above 
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 gnarly, storm-beaten tops, lke veritable 
Druids of old. 
In this grove many varieties of plants were found— 
among others wood violets, which were here seen for 
the last time on the trip. Not the least enjoyable fea- 
ture of this little oasis was that it afforded us an oppor- 
