Ascutamo
Sakaigon--a somewhat marshy-looking sheet of water. Some miles
farther on we crossed Whiskey Creek, a white man's name, of course,
given by an illicit distiller, who throve for a time, in the old
"Permit days," in this secluded spot. Beyond this the long line of
the Vermilion Hills hove in sight, and presently we reached the
Vermilion River, the Wyamun of the Crees, and, before nightfall,
the Nasookamow, or Twin Lake, making our camp in an open besmirched
pinery, a cattle shelter, with bleak and bare surroundings,
neighboured by the shack of a solitary settler. He had, no doubt,
good reasons for his choice; but it seemed a very much less inviting
locality than Stony Creek, which we came to next morning, approaching
it through rich and massive spruce woods, the ground strewn with
anemones, harebells and violets, and interspersed with almost
startlingly snow-white poplars, whose delicate buds had just opened
into leaf.

Stony Creek is a tributary of a larger stream, called the
Tawutinaow, which means "a passage between hills." This is
an interesting spot, for here is the height of land, the
"divide" between the Saskatchewan and the Athabasca, between
Arctic and Hudson Bay waters, the stream before us flowing
north, and carrying the yellowish-red tinge common to the
waters on this slope. A great valley to the left of the trail
runs parallel with it from the Sturgeon to the Tawutinaow,
evidently the channel of an ancient river, whose course it would
now be difficult to determine without close examination. At all
events, it stretches almost from the Saskatchewan to the Athabasca,
and indicates some great watershed in times past. Hay was
abundant here, and much stock, it was evident, might be raised
in the district.

Towards evening we reached the Tawutinaow bridge, some eighteen
miles from the Landing, our finest camp, dry and pleasant, with
sward and copse and a fine stream close by. Here is an extensive
peat bed, which was once on fire and burnt for years--a great
peril to freighters' ponies, which sometimes grazed into its
unseen but smouldering depths. The seat of the fire was now an
immense grassy circle, with a low wall of blackened peat all
around it.

In the morning an endless succession of small creeks was passed,
screened by deep valleys which fell in from hills and muskegs
to the south, and at noon, jaded with slow travel, we reached
Athabasca Landing. A long hill leads down to the flat, and from