ing freezes up
every lake and stream, and hardens into adamant every muskeg and quaking
bog. The snow covers everything with its great mantle of beauty, and
makes it possible to travel on snow-shoes or by dog-train through vast
regions absolutely impassable in the summer months. Horses or other
large animals, are absolutely worthless for travel in such regions. The
snow is a great leveller. It fills up many a dangerous pitfall and puts
such a cushion on the logs and rocks, that upsets or falls are only
laughed at by the dog-travellers as they merrily dash along. The only
drawbacks to a tumble down a steep declivity of some hundreds of feet,
as once befell the writer, were the laughter of his comrades, and the
delay incident to digging him out of the snowdrift at the bottom, which
was anywhere from twenty to thirty feet deep. These accidents and
delays were not frequent; and, although there were hardships and
sufferings, there were many things to instruct and interest, and to
break the monotony of winter travelling in that lonely land.

In the coldest, brightest, sunniest days, the fitful mirage played its
strange antics with distant landscapes, and at times brought within near
vision places many miles away. Sometimes circle within circle appeared
around the sun, until as many as four were distinctly visible; each
circle at times having within it four mock suns--sixteen mock suns
visible at the same time was a sight worth going a long distance to see.
Strange to say, the Indians dreaded the sight of them, as they declared
they were always the forerunners of blizzard storms; and the more vivid
these sun-dogs, as they called them, the more dreadful would be the
storm.

But the most fascinating and glorious of all the celestial phenomena of
those glorious regions, are the Northern Lights--the Aurora Borealis.
Confined to no particular months of the year, we have seen them flashing
and quivering through the few hours of the short nights following the
hottest days in July or August, as well as in the long cold nights of
the winter months. They would sometimes linger on all night in their
weird beauty, until lost in the splendour of the coming day. A
description of them has often been attempted by writers of northern
scenes, and I have to confess, that I have been rash enough to try it
elsewhere; but their full glories are still unwritten and perhaps ever
will be. They appear to belong to the spiritual rather than t