snow.

We had with us two splendid trains of dogs. My leader was a lively,
cunning Esquimaux dog, as white as snow. His name was Koona, which is
the Indian word for "snow"; and he was well named. The other three dogs
of my train were my favourites from Ontario. Two of them were gifts
from Senator Sanford, of Hamilton; the other was kindly sent to me by
Dr Mark, of Ottawa. The other train, driven by Alec, was composed of
some sagacious St. Bernards obtained for me by the kindness of Mr
Ferrier, of Montreal. The largest and most enduring of the eight was
Jack from Hamilton, whose place was second in my train, and who is to be
the hero of this adventure.

We had left our camp-fire in the woods early in the morning, and,
turning our faces towards the north, had hoped that ere the shadows of
night had fallen around us, at least sixty miles of the frozen surface
of Lake Winnipeg would have been travelled over. For a time we were
able to push on very rapidly, keeping the distant points of headlands
well in view for our guidance. Lake Winnipeg is very much indented with
bays, and in travelling we do not follow the coast line, but strike
directly across these bays from point to point. Some of them run back
for many miles into the land, and several of them are from ten to thirty
miles wide. The dogs get so accustomed to these long trips and to their
work, that they require no guide to run on ahead, but will, with
wonderful intelligence, push on from point to point with great
exactness.

On and on we had travelled for hours; the cold was very great, but we
could easily jump off from our dog-sleds and run until we felt the glow
and warmth of such vigorous exercise. After a while, we noticed that
the strong wind which had arisen was filling the air with fine dry snow,
and making travelling very difficult and unpleasant. Soon it increased
to a gale, and we found ourselves in a real North-West blizzard on
stormy Lake Winnipeg, many miles from shore.

Perhaps our wisest plan would have been, at the commencement of the
storm, to have turned sharply to the east, and got into the shelter of
the forest as quickly as possible. But the bay we were crossing was a
very deep one, and the headland before us seemed as near as the other
end of the bay; and so we thought it best to run the risk and push on.
That we might not get separated from each other, I fastened what we call
the tail rope of my sled to the collar of the head do