To the
head of the river is an additional sixty miles, and thence to
the head of the lake seventy-five more. The Hudson's Bay Company
had a storehouse at the Forks, and an island was forming where
the waters meet, the finest feature of the place being an echo,
which reverberated the bugler's call at _reveille_ very grandly.
A spurt was made in the early morning, the trackers first following
a bank overgrown with alders and sallows, all of a size, which
looked exactly like a well-kept hedge, but soon gave way to the
usual dense line of poplar and spruce, rooted to the very edges
of the banks, which are low compared with those of the Athabasca.
After ascending it for some distance, it being Sunday, we camped
for the day upon an open grassy point, around which the river
swept in a perfect semi-circle, the dense forest opposite towering
in one equally perfect, and glorious in light and shade and
harmonious tints of green, from sombre olive to the lightest
pea. The point itself was covered with strawberry vines and
dotted with clumps of saskatoons all in bloom.
It was a lovely and lonely spot, which was soon converted into
a scene of eating and laughter, and a drying ground for wet
clothes. Towards evening Bishop Grouard and Father Lacombe held
a well-attended service, which in this profound wilderness was
peculiarly impressive. Listening, one thought how often the same
service, these same chants and canticles, had awakened the sylvan
echoes in like solitudes on the St.
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