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Updated: June 12, 2025
The Rockies and the Selkirks impressed them very much, and they still consulted their maps, especially at the time when they found themselves approaching the banks of the Columbia River. "This river and the Fraser are cousins," said Rob, "like the Athabasca and the Peace.
One more great treaty had still to be made, and though it is anticipating a date twenty years after the famous Number Seven Treaty, we record it here before closing the chapter of treaties with the Indians of the North-West. A vast region away northward from Edmonton, known generally as the Athabasca, Peace River and Mackenzie River region, had so far not been brought under treaty conditions.
But rather than delay over a description in detail of the mere novelty of winter travel, let us hurry along to our first destination, and visit the Free Trader Mr. Spear and his family, and find out for our own satisfaction whether or not the mysterious "Son-in-law" had recently been courting the charming Athabasca.
The most remarkable feature in North America is its lake system the largest and most important in the world. In the north-west, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, are the Great Bear and Great Slave Lakes, which discharge their waters through the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean. Next we have the Athabasca, Wollaston, and Deer Lakes.
No barriers seem insurmountable to this rampant spirit; and, urged by it, the gold-seekers, chiefly aliens from the United States, plunged into the wilderness of Athabasca without hesitation, and without as much as "by your leave" to the native. Some of these marauders, as was to be expected, exhibited on the way a congenital contempt for the Indian's rights.
But when it really storms in that Far North, then neither man nor beast should be abroad not even the Eskimo dogs; though times and seasons can scarcely be chosen when travelling in Athabasca, for a storm comes unawares.
They belong to the Northern Crees, a name given them from their residing in the Athabasca department. There are now but few families of these men, who, formerly, by their numbers and predatory habits, spread terror among the natives of this part of the country.
Potatoes, where there is any available soil, grow to a good size; barley was nearly ripe when we were there, and wheat ripens, too. But, of course, it is not a farming region, nor are fish plentiful at the west end of the lake, the Athabasca River, which enters there, giving for over twenty miles eastward a muddy hue to the water.
This however is such a general topic of conversation among the voyagers in the encampment that we should not probably have remarked it had not the old man frequently offered to bet the whole of his wages that his two dogs, poor and lean as they were, would drag their load to the Athabasca Lake in less time than any three of theirs.
Both Du Mont and Xavier realized that their only hope for clemency lay in their ability to aid the authorities in building up a clear case against Lapierre, and during the ten days of snow-trail that ended at Athabasca Landing each tried to outdo the other in explaining what he knew of the workings of Lapierre's intricate system.
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