The Arctic Prairies

The Arctic Prairies

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Thompson Seton (#4 in our series by Ernest Thompson Seton)
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Title: The Arctic Prairies
Author: Ernest Thompson Seton
Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6818] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on January 27,
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE
ARCTIC PRAIRIES ***

Produced by Bruce Miller; Courtesy of Kevin McCarthy Director of
Perrot Memorial Library.

The Arctic Prairies
A Canoe-Journey
OF 2,000 MILES IN SEARCH OF THE CARIBOU
BEING THE ACCOUNT OF A VOYAGE TO THE REGION
NORTH OF AYLMER LAKE
By Ernest Thompson Seton
Author of "Wild Animals I Have Known", "Life Histories", Etc.

DEDICATED
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR WILFRID LAURIER, G. C. M. G.
PREMIER OF CANADA
PREFACE
What young man of our race would not gladly give a year of his life to
roll backward the scroll of time for five decades and live that year in
the romantic bygone-days of the Wild West; to see the great Missouri
while the Buffalo pastured on its banks, while big game teemed in sight
and the red man roamed and hunted, unchecked by fence or hint of
white man's rule; or, when that rule was represented only by scattered
trading-posts, hundreds of miles apart, and at best the traders could
exchange the news by horse or canoe and months of lonely travel?
I for one, would have rejoiced in tenfold payment for the privilege of
this backward look in our age, and had reached the middle life before I
realised that, at a much less heavy cost, the miracle was possible today.

For the uncivilised Indian still roams the far reaches of absolutely
unchanged, unbroken forest and prairie leagues, and has knowledge of
white men only in bartering furs at the scattered trading-posts, where
locomotive and telegraph are unknown; still the wild Buffalo elude the
hunters, fight the Wolves, wallow, wander, and breed; and still there is
hoofed game by the million to be found where the Saxon is as seldom
seen as on the Missouri in the times of Lewis and Clarke. Only we
must seek it all, not in the West, but in the far North-west; and for
"Missouri and Mississippi" read "Peace and Mackenzie Rivers," those
noble streams that northward roll their mile-wide turbid floods a
thousand leagues to the silent Arctic Sea.
This was the thought which spurred me to a six months' journey by
canoe. And I found what I went in search of, but found, also, abundant
and better rewards that were not in mind, even as Saul, the son of Kish,
went seeking asses and found for himself a crown and a great kingdom.
Four years have gone by since I lived through these experiences. Such a
lapse of time may have made my news grow stale, but it has also given
the opportunity for the working up of specimens and scientific records.
The results, for the most part, will be found in the Appendices, and
three of these, as indicated--namely, the sections on Plants, Mammals,
and Birds--are the joint work of my assistant, Mr. Edward A. Preble,
and myself.
My thanks are due here to the Right Honourable Lord Strathcona, G. C.
M. G., Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, for giving me access
to the records of the Company whenever I needed them for historical
purposes; to the Honourable Frank Oliver, Minister of the Interior,
Canada, for the necessary papers and permits to facilitate scientific
collection, and also to Clarence C. Chipman, Esq., of Winnipeg, the
Hudson's Bay Company's Commissioner, for practical help in preparing
my outfit, and for letters of introduction to the many officers of the
Company, whose kind help was so often a Godsend.
ERNEST THOMPSON SETON.


CHAPTER I

DEPARTURE FOR THE NORTH

In 1907 I