The New North   By: Agnes Deans Cameron (1863-1912)

Being Some Account of a Woman's Journey through Canada to the Arctic

BY AGNES DEANS CAMERON

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

Published November, 1909

[Illustration: A Magnificent Trophy]

TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER

JESSIE ANDERSON CAMERON

AND

TO ALL THOSE WHO TRY TO LIVE OUT HER SIMPLE RULE "WE MUST JUST TRY TO DO THE VERY BEST WE CAN"

PREFACE

It is customary to write a preface. Mine shall be short. Out of a full heart, I wish to thank all the splendid people of the North who, by giving me so freely information and photographs, and chapters out of their own lives, have facilitated the writing of this story. For their spontaneous kindness to me and mine no acknowledgment that I can here make is adequate. What we feel most strongly we cannot put into words.

AGNES DEANS CAMERON.

August, 1909.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE MENDICANTS REACH WINNIPEG

The Mendicants leave Chicago The invisible parallel of 49 where the eagle perches and makes amorous eyes at the beaver Union Jack floats on an ox cart A holy baggage room Winnipeg, the Buckle of the Wheat Belt The trapper and the doctor Mrs. Humphry Ward speaks Boy Makers of Empire The vespers of St. Boniface

CHAPTER II

WINNIPEG TO ATHABASCA LANDING

The 1,000 mile wheat field Calgary in the Foothills Edmonton, the end of steel The Brains of a Trans Continental Browning on the Saskatchewan East Londoners in tents Our outfit A Waldorf Astoria in the wilderness The lonely cross of the Galician Height of Land Sergeant Anderson, R.N.W.M.P., the sleuth of Lesser Slave

CHAPTER III

ATHABASCA LANDING

Athabasca Landing, the Gateway of the North English gives place to Cree Limit of the Dry Martini Will the rabbits run? The woman printer Hymn books by hand in the Cree syllabic Baseball even here Rain and reminiscences The World's Oldest Trust

CHAPTER IV

DOWN THE ATHABASCA ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE MILES TO GRAND RAPIDS

"Farewell, Nistow!" The rainy deck of a "sturgeon head" under a tarpaulin Drifting by starlight The wild geese overhead Forty foot gas spout at the Pelican The mosquito makes us blood brothers Four days on our Robinson Crusoe Island in the swirling Athabasca Nomenclature of the North Sentinels of the Silence

CHAPTER V

NINETY MILES OF RAPIDS

The Go Quick Her takes the bit in her mouth Mallards on the half shell We set the Athabascan Thames afire Sturgeon head breaks her back on the Big Cascade Fort McMurray A stranded argosy, wreckage on the beach Miss Christine Gordon, the Free Trader A land flowing with coal and oil and gas and tar, timber and lime

CHAPTER VI

FORT CHIPEWYAN PAST AND PRESENT

Old Fort Chipewyan In the footsteps of Mackenzie and Sir John Franklin Sir John turns parson Grey Nuns and brown babies Where grew the prize wheat of the Philadelphia Centennial Militant missionaries fight each other for souls The strong man Loutit Wyllie at the forge An electric watch maker Where the Gambel sparrow builds "Out of old books"

CHAPTER VII

LAKE ATHABASCA AND ITS FOND DU LAC

Farewell to the Mounted Police Our blankets on the deck Fern odours by untravelled ways Typewriting and kodaking in 20 hours of daylight Navigating Lake Athabasca by the power o' man A 23 inch trout First white women at Fond du Lac Carlyle among the Chipewyans, a Fond du Lac library The hermit padre and the hermit thrush Worn north trails of the trapper Caribou by the hundred thousands The phalarope and the suffragette

CHAPTER VIII

FOND DU LAC TO FORT SMITH

World's records beaten on the Athabasca Down the Slave to Smith's Landing Priests sink in the Rapid of the Drowned The Mosquito Portage Fort Smith, the new headquarters Lady slippers and night hawks Steamer built in the wilderness Last stand of the wood bison The grey wolf persists Fur trade and the silver fox Breeding pelicans.

CHAPTER IX

SLAVE RIVER AND GREAT SLAVE LAKE