red pounds, a convenient weight for
carrying on the portages.

[Illustration: A "Sturgeon-head" at Athabasca]

[Illustration: "Farewell, Nistow!"]

June 6th at a quarter of seven saw the whole populace of Athabasca
Landing on the river bank--dogs, babies, the officials of the Hudson's
Bay, parson, priest, police, and even the barkeep,--and with the yelping
of dogs and "Farewell, Nistow!" we are off. We are embarked on a
2500-mile journey, the longest water route on the continent, down which
floats each year the food, clothing, and frugal supplies of a country as
big as Europe.

The river is running five miles an hour and there is no need of the
oars. The steersman is our admiration, as with that clumsy stern-sweep
he dodges rocks, runs riffles, and makes bends. The scow is made of
green wood, and its resilience stands it in good stead as, like a snake,
it writhes through tight channels or over ugly bits of water. Everybody
is in good humour; we are dreamers dreaming greatly. Why should we not
be happy? Mrs. Harding is homeward-bound, Mr. Brabant on a new rung of
the fur ladder of preferment, Inspector Pelletier and his associates
starting on a quest of their own seeking. Sitting low among the "pieces"
of the police boat, with only his head visible in the sunset glow, Dr.
Sussex builds air-castles of that eleemosynary hospital of his on the
Arctic Circle. The cook is whistling from the cook-boat. Five years ago
he graduated from a business college, but the preparation of bannock and
sow-belly appeals to the blood more insistently than trial balances and
the petty cash book. As for ourselves, the Kid's smile is almost audible
as she runs a loving hand over the oilskin cover of the camera. A
favourite expression of mine in the latitudes below when the world
smiled was, "Oh, I'm glad I'm alive and white!" On this exclamation I
start now, but stop at the word "white." North of Athabasca Landing
white gives place to a tint more tawny.

A hundred yards out, the Policemen are boyish enough to launch those
shiny Peterboroughs just to try them, and in and out among the big
sturgeon-heads, debonair dolphins, they dart. Then comes the rain, and
one by one the clumsy boats turn toward shore. There are some things
that even the enquiring mind cannot run to ground, things that just
happen out of the blue. For fifteen successive springs I have tried to
discover the first boy who brought marbles to school when marble-season
came i