Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/230

 CHAPTER XVI.

FORT CHURCHILL.

With our arrival at Fort Churchill, with its well-filled storehouses, the successful termination of the long journey seemed pretty well assured. Here was abundance of provisions to feed our small party for an indefinite length of time, so that we could either spend the winter at the post, and go south by canoes in the spring, or else remain long enough to recruit, and then continue the journey on foot.

Adjoining the Master's house, and ranged in two irregular, detached rows on the rocky bank of the Churchill River, were four or five old frame buildings, used as storehouses and servants' lodges. Two or three hundred yards down the shore was a neat little church and mission-house.

Drawn up on the beach near the church were several large open coast-boats, used during the summer by the Hudson's Bay Company in carrying on trade with the Eskimos, and beside these was a small landing and warehouse, while down at the mouth of the river, five miles distant, could be seen the ruins of old Fort Prince of Wales, once a massive cut-stone fortification.

The buildings of the traders were very old, some of them being in a half-wrecked condition, but those of the