Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/34

 that such kind fortune would befall it, my brother, after having taken its photograph, led it away by the ear into the shelter of the woods, and there left the little creature to its fate.

During the afternoon of the same day, the head of the Grand Rapid of the Athabasca, situated just 165 miles below the Landing, was reached. Here we met a detachment of the Mounted Police, in charge of Inspector Howard; and as it was late in the day, and Saturday evening, it was decided to pitch camp. The police camp was the only other one in the neighborhood, so the first question which suggested itself was: What possible duty could policemen find to perform in such a wild, uninhabited place? The answer, however, was simple. The place, though without any settled habitation, is the scene of the transhipment of considerable freight on its way to the various trading-posts and mission stations of the great Mackenzie River District. The river steamer Athabasca, belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, was now daily looked for with its load from the Landing. Mission scows, loaded with freight for Fort Chippewyan and other points, were expected, and free-traders' outfits were liable to arrive at any time. It was for the purpose of inspecting these cargoes and preventing liquor from being carried down and sold for furs to the Indians, that Inspector Howard and his detachment were stationed here.

From the Grand Rapid, down stream for about eighty miles to Fort McMurray, the river is not navigable for steamers, and so all goods have to be transported over this distance by scows built for the purpose. The head of the Grand Rapid is thus the northern steamboat