To Samuel Hearne, the Mungo Park of Canada, belongs the double honour of tracing the Coppermine River and discovering Great Slave Lake.  Just one hundred and thirty-seven years ago on Christmas Eve, Hearne got his first glimpse of this magnificent inland sea which is cut through the centre by the parallel of 62 deg., and which lies east and west between the meridians of 109 deg. and 117 deg..  No survey of Great Slave Lake has been made, but it is estimated to have a superficial area of 10,500 square miles—­just one-third the size of troubled Ireland, and as great as Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island combined.

Great Slave Lake, lying wholly within the forested region, is three hundred miles long, and its width at one point exceeds sixty miles.  At every place on its banks where the fur-traders have their stations ordinary farm-crops are grown.  Barley sown at Fort Resolution in mid-May reaches maturity in a hundred days; potatoes planted at the same time are dug in mid-September.  The gardens of Fort Rae on the North Arm of the Lake produce beets, peas, cabbages, onions, carrots, and turnips.  As Fort Rae is built on a rocky island with a bleak exposure, this would seem to promise in some future day generous harvests for the more favoured lands on the south and west.

The names given by the old fur-traders to their posts make the traveller think that in these North lands he, a second Christian, is essaying a new Pilgrim’s Progress.  At the south entry to the Lake we are at Resolution; when we cross it we arrive at Providence; away off at the eastern extremity is Reliance; Confidence takes us to Great Bear Lake; and Good Hope stretches far ahead down the lower reaches of the Mackenzie.  Fort Resolution on the south side of Great Slave Lake, a little west of the mouth of the Slave, lies back of an island-sheltered entrance.

[Illustration:  Unloading at Fort Resolution]

The striking feature as we enter is an immense Roman Catholic Mission school in process of construction, to supplement the existing church and school of that faith.  There is neither station of the Mounted Police nor Church of England here; their places are taken by two independent fur-trading concerns operating in opposition to the Ancient Company.

We had been told that the children down North had the kiddies at Fort Smith and Chipewyan “all skinned” for politeness, and we find it even so.  The good nuns are trying to make reputable citizens of the young scions of the Dog-Rib and Yellow-Knife nations and are succeeding admirably as far as surface indications go.  We approach a group of smiling boys arrayed in their Sunday clothes, awaiting a visit of the Bishop.  With one accord come off their Glengarry bonnets, smoking caps, and Christie stiffs, and a row of brown hands is extended to greet us.  Very trim the laddies look in their convent-made cadet-uniforms, as, standing at “’Shun!” they answered our every question with, “Yes, missus,”