Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/15



CHAPTER I.

TORONTO TO ATHABASCA LANDING.

On the morning of the 10th of May, 1893, in response to a telegram from Ottawa, I took train at Hamilton for Toronto, to meet my brother, J. Burr Tyrrell, of the Canadian Geological Survey, and make final arrangements for a trip to the North.

He had been authorized by the Director of that most important department of the Canadian Government to conduct, in company with myself, an exploration survey through the great mysterious region of terra incognita commonly known as the Barren Lands, more than two hundred thousand square miles in extent, lying north of the 59th parallel of latitude, between Great Slave Lake and Hudson Bay. Of almost this entire territory less was known than of the remotest districts of "Darkest Africa," and, with but few exceptions, its vast and dreary plains had never been trodden by the foot of man, save that of the dusky savage.

During the summer of 1892 my brother had obtained some information concerning it from the Chippewyan Indians in the vicinity of Athabasca and Black Lakes,