C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

52 THE LADIES, THE GWICH'IN, AND THE RATand we tied up twice to re-fuel. At the first halt I made friends with two men, aBelgian and a Swede, who lived in a cabin near the woodpile, log-cutting, trappingand now, in the summer, fishing and drying fish for their dogs. The Belgiantook me out in his canoe to the fish-nets where we found corny, jackfish andbluefish. He was more than grateful for the gift of some ancient newspapers thatwe had brought for pressing flowers, assuring us that they would be read fourtimes.The second halt was in a sandstorm on a wide reach of the river that was full ofsand banks and bordered by scraggy spruces. It was difficult to land, we made fastto saplings with a wire rope, but several of the saplings were uprooted before wegot a hold ashore. Then the NW Police held sports on the sandy beach while Iwandered about and found a semi-palmated plover's nest with four eggs andGwen watched all our antics from the deck.Arctic Red River, which we reached at dawn, was a cold and squalid place, fullof Indians in tents, but on the shore we saw lumps of ice that were each coveringquite an acre of ground. When we turned west to steam up the Peel River to FortMcPherson the waterway was most attractive; it was narrow and overhung by mudbanks where ice action had hollowed out the soil. Great lumps of ice continuallydropped into the water with a splash, the young poplars were a fresh green. Wecould see the height ofland beyond the Rat River and the distant peaks that werecapped with snow. Passing the mouth of the Husky River to which we shouldreturn when our real adventure began, we steamed on up the Peel River to FortMcPherson which stood on a high bank facing a fine range of mountains. Thiswas our last port of call and in her excitement, Gwen put her strained foot to theground, but soon withdrew it and lay back outstretched on her two deck chairs.We returned down the Peel River to the Mackenzie, turned north-east and awokenext morning to see a range of mountains on our right, then, cork-screwing inchannels until they were on our left, we came to Aklavik at 8.So, creeping northward by tortoise stages, down the Clearwater, Athabasca,Slave and Mackenzie rivers, through the Athabasca and Great Slave lakes, we hadtravelled by steamer, visiting those isolated northern settlements, FortResolution, Hay River, Fort Providence, Fort Simpson, Fort Wrigley, FortNorman, Fort Good Hope, Arctic Red River within the Arctic Circle, FortMcPherson and finally Aklavik on the Mackenzie Delta, that splays out in a 50-mile wide triangle to mingle with the Arctic Ocean. On the next lap of ourjourney we should have to travel by our own exertions.