230 ACROSS THE SUB-ARCTICS OF CANADA. 
limbs, but with considerable difficulty managed to keep 
up with the rest. After making a small day’s march we 
camped for the night on the bank of a stream called by 
the Indians White Bear Creek. The weather having 
turned colder during the night, making the prospects for 
travel more favorable, we started down stream the next 
morning upon the ice of the creek, and then across 
country to Duck Creek, where we found a second Indian 
camp, occupied by two Crees and their families. 
From one of these Indians, named Morrison, we pur- 
chased an additional dog with which to supplement our 
team. The price asked was a new dress for one of the 
squaws, but as we had no dress-goods with us, the best 
we could offer was that the dress should be ordered at 
the Hudson’s Bay Company’s store at York, and 
delivered when the first opportunity afforded. After 
some consideration, and several pipes of tobacco, the 
offer was accepted and with seven dogs in our team the 
journey resumed. We followed the creek till it led us 
out to the low, dreary coast at the mouth of the Nelson, 
where, having left the woods several miles inland, we 
were exposed to the full sweep of a piercingly cold, raw, 
south-west wind. 
We are accustomed to thinking of a coast as a definite, 
narrow shore-line; but to the inhabitants of the Hud- 
son Bay region the word conveys a very different mean- 
ing. There the coast is a broad mud and boulder flat, 
several miles in width, always wet, and twice during the 
day flooded by the tide. At this time of the year the 
mud flats were covered by rough broken ice and drifted 
snow, but above high-tide mark the surface of the 
country was level and the walking good. For several 
