Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/92

 CHAPTER VI.

THE HOME OF THE REINDEER.

From Lake Athabasca to the Height of Land our course had constantly been up stream, but from this point to the sea the way must ever be with the current. Having launched our little fleet in the lake on the north side of the watershed, the new stage of the journey was begun with a strong, fair breeze.

The lake is a large one, and has been named Daly Lake—after the Hon. T. M. Daly, then Minister of the Interior for Canada. Towards the centre of it was discovered a peninsula, which is connected with the west shore only by a very narrow neck of land, across which a portage was made. For a day and a half we were delayed here by a gale, the most severe we had so far encountered. So wild was the lake during this storm that water-spouts were whirled up from its billows and carried along in great vertical columns for considerable distances.

Certain remarkable physical features in the shape of great sand "Kames," or high ridges, were also observed at this locality. They were composed of clear sand and gravel, were sixty or seventy feet in height, trended in a north-easterly and south-westerly direction, were quite narrow on top, and so level and uniform that they