ontact with educated,
or reputable, white men; for miscreants, like the old American
frontiersmen, were not known in the country, and if they had been,
would soon have been run out. There was now no paint or "strouds"
to be seen, and the blanket was confined to the bed. In fact, the
Indians and half-breeds of Athabasca Lake did not seem to differ in
any way from those of the Middle and Upper Peace River, save that
the former were all hunters and fishermen, pure and simple, there
being little or no agriculture. It was impossible to study the
manners and customs of the aborigines, since we had no time to
observe them closely. They have their legends and traditions and
remnants of ceremonies, much of which is upon record, and they
cherish, especially, some very curious beliefs. One, in particular,
we were told, obtained amongst them, namely, that the mastodon
still exists in the fastnesses of the Upper Mackenzie. They describe
it as a monster many times larger than the buffalo, and they
dread going into the parts it is supposed to haunt. This singular
opinion may be the survival of a very old tradition regarding that
animal, but is more likely due to the presence of its remains in
the shape of tusks and bones found here and there throughout the
Mackenzie River district and the Yukon.

[A similar belief, it is said, exists amongst the Indians of the
Yukon. The remains of the primeval elephant are exceedingly abundant
in the tundras of Siberia, and a considerable trade in mammoth ivory
has been carried on between that region and England for many years.
It is supposed that the Asian elephant advanced far to the North
during the interglacial period and perished in the recurrent glacial
epoch. Its American congener, the mastodon, found its way from Asia
to this continent during the Drift period, when, it is believed,
land communication existed in what is now Bering's Strait, and
perished in a like manner. It was not a sudden but a gradual
extinction in their native habitats, due to natural causes, such
as encroaching ice and other material changes in the animals'
environment. This, I believe, is the accepted scientific opinion of
to-day. But the fact that these animals are at times exposed entire
by the falling away of ice-cliffs or ledges, their flesh being quite
fresh and fit food for dogs, and even men, opens up a very
interesting field of inquiry and conjecture. In the bowels of a
mammoth recently revealed in North-Easter