oad bosom of
Lake Winnipegoosis, whose immense surface spread out south and west until
the sky alone bounded the prospect. But there were many islands scattered
over the sea of ice that lay rolled before us; islands dark with the
pine-trees that covered them, and standing out in strong relief from the
dazzling whiteness amidst which they lay. On one of these islands we
camped, spreading the robes under a large pine-tree and building up a
huge fire from the wrecks of bygone storms. This Lake Winnipegoosis, or
the "Small Sea,'" is a very large expanse of water measuring about 120
miles in length and some 30 in width. Its shores and islands are densely
wooded with the white spruce, the juniper, the banksian pine, and the
black spruce, and as the traveller draws near the southern shores he
beholds again the dwarf white-oak which here reaches its northern limit.
This growth of the oak-tree may be said to mark at present the line
between civilization and savagery. Within the limit of the oak lies the
country of the white man; without lies that Great Lone Land through which
my steps have wandered so far. Descending the Lake Winnipegoosis to Shoal
Lake, I passed across the belt of forest which. Lies between the two
lakes, and emerging again upon Winnipegoosis crossed it in a long day's
journey to the Waterhen River. This river carries the surplus water of
Winnipegosis into the large expanse of Lake Manitoba. For another
hundred miles this lake lays its length towards the south, but here the
pine-trees have vanished, and birch and poplar alone cover the shores.
Along the whole line of the western shores of these lakes the bold ridges
of the Pas, the Porcupine, Duck, and Riding Mountains rise over the
forest-covered swamps which lie immediately along the water. These four
mountain ranges never exceed an elevation of 1600 feet above the sea.
They are wooded to the summits, and long ages ago their rugged cliffs
formed, doubtless, a fitting shore-line to that great lake whose
fresh-water billows were nursed in a space twice larger than even
Superior itself can boast of; but, as has been stated in an earlier
chapter, that inland ocean has long since shrunken into the narrower
limits of Winnipeg, Winnipegoosis, and Manitoba-the Great Sea, the Little
Sea, and the Straits of the God.

I have not dwelt upon the days of travel during which we passed down the
length of these lakes. From the camp of Chicag I had driven my own train
of dogs;