They were glad to see us. A moose-skin
boat showed how they had run the rough Gravel; the meat of two moose
smoked over the camp-fire; their dogs were fat. These are men who know
the woods--no hard-luck story here. It needs only Friday's funny fat
umbrella to complete the picture, with the goat scampering in the middle
distance.
Coming on board, the surveyors are greedy for newspapers, and we in
return learn somewhat of that great slice of land which they are the
first to traverse. The Gravel River is two hundred and fifty-five miles
long, with "white water" all the way. The force of the current may be
appreciated from the fact that it is forty-four hundred feet above the
sea-level at the Height-of-Land, and only four hundred feet here where
it enters the Mackenzie. All along the banks of the Gravel are moose,
mountain sheep, and caribou. The winter cabin of the party was built on
the Ross River and there, during the past winter, they experienced a
temperature of 54 deg. below. A party of this kind must be to a large extent
self-supporting, as it would be impossible to carry from the outside
food for such a long sojourn.
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