EXISTING KINDS OF WILD CATTLE 219 
from the south came to the place and went out and 
shot it. There is a general opinion that they never 
went farther north than Great Slave Lake ; but 
among the records of the Hudson's Bay Company at 
Fort Simpson there is an item which appears in the 
journal for the year 1835, showing that during the 
winter six wood-bison were killed by the hunters on 
the east side of the Mackenzie River, near Marten 
Lake, and nearly 100 miles north of the outlet to 
Great Slave Lake. But this is the only case on 
record, and it probably refers to a herd that strayed 
farther north than usual. Some years ago there was 
a small band of a dozen or twenty to the south of 
the Peace River, near Fort McMurray ; but recently 
they have not been heard of, and have probably 
been killed off, and at present the only place where 
they are found is in the country north of the Peace 
River and south of Great Slave Lake, between the 
Slave River and the Caribou Mountains, and par- 
ticularly on the Salt Plain near the brine-springs. . . . 
" The greater part of the country is densely wooded, 
with the usual northern forest of spruce, poplar, 
tamarac, and birch. The small openings dignified by 
the name of prairies are rather scattered, and are 
usually only 200 or 300 yards in length ; but it is on 
these that one is likely to come across the bison. 
The Salt Plain, which covers an area of perhaps 
seventy-five square miles, and takes its name from 
having several brine-springs situated near the centre, 
is not an unbroken stretch of prairie-land, but is 
dotted here and there with clumps or groves of 
poplar. Part is covered with a luxuriant growth of 
grasses and various flowering plants, and looks very 
beautiful when these are in bloom ; and part is barren 
