1908.] 



TABLES OF DISTANCES. 



109 



tions often disclose beds of willows or large trunks of trees many 

 feet below the present summit of the banks. Keeping to the left 

 we pass several large islands and enter the easternmost channel 

 of Peel Kiver. From this point to Fort McPherson, the terminus 

 of our trip, is reckoned 32 miles. The channel is winding, and the 

 part first entered is rather narrow, and usually is bordered by 

 overhanging clay banks on the concave side of the bends, and low 

 shelving shores on the opposite points. A portion of this channel 

 has been formed within the memory of men now living, by the river 

 cutting across a sharp bend. A little over halfway to Fort Mc- 

 Pherson we come to the main channel of Peel River, where it is 

 nearly half a mile in width. From here we follow a nearly straight 

 southerly course up the Peel to the post. 



Fort McPherson (see PI. XIII, fig. 3) occupies a commanding site 

 on the right bank of Peel River, 32 miles above its junction with the 

 Mackenzie.'^ It comprises the establishments of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company rand of a Church of England mission, which has been pre- 

 sided over for many years by the Rev. Robert MacDonald. To the 

 Avestward an uninterrupted view is aiforded of the wooded valley of 

 the Peel, beyond which stretches a genth^ ascending heathery slope 

 several miles in width, with the barren summits of the northern 

 Roclries on the horizon. The portage trail to La Pierre House leads 

 directly westward across thi ; range. Xearly due north of the post, 

 just west of the Mackenzie delta, stands a spur peak of the Rockies 

 called locally Black Mountain. It is a dark, barren, rocky mass 

 upward of 2.000 feet in height. To the eastward of the post is 

 spread a low, rolling, Avooded j)lain, evidently of alluvial origin, and 

 containing thousands of lakes. A winter trail extending eastward 

 from Fort McPherson to its outpost, Arctic Red River, is said to 

 cross 31 small lakes. The timber about the post, except along the 

 river, is noticeably stunted, and in some places conditions similar to 

 those of the Barren Grounds prevail. 



TABLES OF DISTANCES. 



The following tables, showing the approximate distances along the 

 principal rivers traversed, have been compiled from the reports and 

 maps of track surveys made by the Canadian Geological Survey and 

 Department of the Interior. In cases where the estimates by different 

 surveyors vary, unless there is reason to believe that one or the other 

 of the figures is more nearly correct, an average has been adopted. 



« Fort McPherson was first built 3 miles above its present situation, in 1S3S. 

 Its necessity arose from the fact that the removal of Fort Good Hope from its 

 former site to the Ramparts left the lower Mackenzie without a trading post 

 which was accessible to the Loucheux. 



