FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  
r-legged brutes find it different. On the Bloody Portage we overtook five teams of oxen which had been more than twelve hours trying to make sixteen miles and were bleeding profusely from the fly-bites. Finally two of them succumbed and a relief team had to be sent out from Fort Smith. Moose in the North, maddened by the "bull-dogs," often jump over precipices and river-banks, as the Scriptural swine did when _they_ were possessed of devils. Johnny-Come-Lately from dear old Lunnon reading in a Western paper, "The deer are chased into the water by the bull-dogs," ruminates audibly, "Chase the de-ah into the wa-tah with bull-dogs! How interesting! Jolly resourceful beggars, these Colonials." A literary scientist sending out copy from the North wrote, "My two greatest troubles are mosquitoes and bull-dogs," which the intelligent proof-reader amended into, "My two greatest troubles are mosquitoes and bull-frogs." Bringing in our daily treasure-trove of flowers we can scarcely realise that at Fort Smith we are in latitude 60 deg. North, the northern boundary of the Province of Alberta and in the same latitude as St. Petersburg. One day we gathered careopsis, pretty painted-cups, the dandelion in seed, shinleaf (_Pyrola elliptica_), our old friend yarrow, and golden-rod. Another day brought to the blotting-pads great bunches of goldenrod, a pink anemone, harebells of a more delicate blue than we had ever seen before, the flower of the wolf-berry, fireweed, and ladies'-tresses. The third day we identified the bear-berry or kinnikinic-tobacco (_Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)_ with its astringent leaves, and that dear friend of lower latitudes and far-away days, the pink lady-slipper. The last time we had seen it was in a school-room in far-off Vancouver Island where in early April the children had brought it in, drooping in their hot little fists. This same evening, watching a night-hawk careering in mid-air by the rapids of the Slave and enjoying its easy grace in twisting and doubling as with hoarse cry it fell and rose again, we were fortunate in literally running to ground its nest. [Illustration: A Transport between Fort Smith and Smith's Landing] [Illustration: Lord Strathcona, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company] Fort Smith, as places go in this country, is an infant in age, having been established only thirty-four years. Resting on the edge of the high bank of the Slave, it enjoys an eternal outlook on those wonderfu
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Illustration

 

latitude

 

brought

 

troubles

 

greatest

 
mosquitoes
 

friend

 

school

 

fireweed

 
children

flower

 
Island
 

Vancouver

 

bunches

 

ladies

 

delicate

 

anemone

 

Arctostaphylos

 

kinnikinic

 

drooping


harebells

 

identified

 

tobacco

 

latitudes

 

tresses

 

astringent

 

goldenrod

 

leaves

 

slipper

 

enjoying


country

 
infant
 

places

 

Company

 

Strathcona

 
Governor
 

Hudson

 

established

 

enjoys

 

eternal


outlook

 

wonderfu

 

thirty

 

Resting

 

Landing

 

careering

 
rapids
 

watching

 

evening

 

literally