Chapter III
Treaty At Lesser Slave Lake.
On the 19th of June our little fleet landed at Willow Point.
There was a rude jetty, or wharf, at this place, below the
little trading village referred to, at which loaded boats
discharged. Formerly they could ascend the sluggish and shallow
channel connecting the expansion of the Heart River, called
Buffalo Lake, with the head of Lesser Slave Lake, a distance
of about three miles, and as far as the Hudson's Bay Company's
post, around which another trading village had gathered. This
temporary fall in the water level partly accounted for the growth
of the village at Willow Point, where sufficient interests had
arisen to cause a jealousy between the two hamlets. Once upon
a time Atawayw?© Kamick was supreme. This is the name the
Crees give to the Hudson's Bay Company, meaning literally "the
Buying House." But now there were many stores, and "free
trade" was rather in the ascendant. In the middle was safety,
and therefore the Commissioners decided to pitch camp on a
beautiful flat facing the south and fronting the channel, and
midway between the two opposing points of trade. A _feu de joie_
by the white residents of the region, of whom there were some
seventy or eighty, welcomed the arrival of the boats at the
wharf, and after a short stay here, simply to collect baggage,
a start was made for the camping ground, where our numerous
tents soon gave the place the appearance of a village of our own.
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