Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/42

 take, these matters were arranged with Schott, and all but our instruments, tents, blankets and three or four days' provisions were handed over to him.

On the evening of the 4th, the steamer Athabasca also put in an appearance, and made fast to the shore a little above the scows. Grand Rapid was no longer an uninhabited wilderness, but had now become transformed into a scene of strange wild life. Large dark, savage-looking figures, many of them bare to the waist, and adorned with head-dresses of fox-tails or feathers, were everywhere to be seen. Some of them, notably those of the Chippewyan tribe, were the blackest and most savage-looking Indians I had ever seen. As it was already nearly night when the last of them arrived by the steamer, the work of transhipping was left for the morning. In the dark woods the light of camp-fires began soon to appear, and around them the whole night long the Indians danced and gambled, at the same time keeping up their execrable drum music.

ENGLISH-CHIPPEWYAN HALF-*BREED.

At daylight the next morning the overhauling of cargoes was commenced. One by one the scows were loosened and piloted down the middle of the rapid to the wharf at the head of the island. Here they were unloaded, and after being lightened, were lowered down