l
rapids. The river here is a mile wide. The sweep and eddy-wash of ages
have cut out a deep bay, on the inner shore of which stand the buildings
of The Company, the little Roman Church, the houses of the priests. Back
of the permanent structures rise, this glorious July day, the tepees of
the Chipewyans, Slavis, and Dog-Ribs who have come in from the
hunting-grounds for their treaty money. Fort Smith struck us as being
more "dead" than any northern post. But it is on the verge of great
things. Mr. Brabant has announced that this place is to succeed Fort
Simpson as headquarters for the Northern fur-trade, and his personality
will soon send unction into the dry bones of the valley.

At the foot of the high hill looms a monument to the initiative and
commercial enterprise of the H.B. Company,--a modern steamship in the
waters of a wilderness-country. Ours is to be the honor of making in her
the initial journey to the Mackenzie mouth. It is impossible coming from
the South to navigate the Slave River rapids by steam. Any boat
ambitious to ply on the waters lying northward between Fort Smith and
the Arctic must be either taken in in sections or built on the ground.
With enterprise and pluck, the Hudson's Bay Company has just completed
the construction at Fort Smith of the steamship, _The Mackenzie River_.
Its great boilers and engines made in far factories of the south came in
over the Athabasca trail on sleighs in winter. Down that whole distance
of ninety miles of Athabascan rapids they floated on scows as we
floated, and while human ingenuity is bringing north the iron bowels,
skilful hands out of native timber are framing the staunch body to
receive them.

The builders of the big boat have had disasters which would have daunted
any but the dogged Company of Fur-Traders. Two land-slides threatened to
slice off and carry into the river the partially-made boat, a fire
burned up the blacksmith shop and with it all the imported doors,
window-sashes and interior finishings, so that she sails to-morrow with
carpenters still at work. While the hull of this carefully modelled
vessel is necessarily of light construction, with special steel to
enable her to navigate safely the waters of the Mackenzie River,
longitudinal strength has been adequately provided in the form of five
lattice girders and by numerous hog-posts and ties, and the diagonal
bracing of the bulkheads will provide ample transverse strength. The bow
also has bee