deg. Fahrenheit, and the
monthly mean for January, 18 deg. below zero. Vegetables of their own
growing, with whitefish from the lake, furnish almost the entire food
supply of this thrifty Mission, one season's harvest giving them a
thousand bushels of potatoes, fifteen of turnips, and five each of
beets, carrots, and parsnips, with two hundred cabbages and over ten
thousand whitefish.

Hay River has never been explored. It is supposed to head near the
source of the Nelson and to flow northeast for three hundred miles
before emptying, as we see it, into Great Slave Lake. This river marks
the limit of those grassy plains which extend at intervals all the way
from Mexico northward. Bishop Bompas, years ago, descended a long
stretch of the river, discovering not far back from where we stand a
majestic cataract, which he named the "Alexandra Falls" after the then
Princess of Wales. He describes it as a perpendicular fall one hundred
feet high, five hundred feet wide, and of surpassing beauty. "The amber
colour of the falling water gives the appearance of golden tresses
twined with pearls."

Crossing Great Slave Lake, we think of Chant-la, Chief of the Slavis at
Hay River. Bishop Reeves was anxious to convert him to the Christian
faith, but had great difficulty in giving Chant-la a proper conception
of the Trinity. The old man would not say he believed or understood what
was inexplicable to him. Setting out once on a long journey, the cleric
adjured the Chief to struggle with the problem during his absence. The
Bishop returning, Chant-la came out in his canoe to meet him, eagerly
reporting that all now was clear. "It is like Great Slave Lake," said
the old man. "It is all water now, just like the Father. When winter
comes it will be frozen over, but Great Slave Lake just the same; that
is like the Son. In the spring when the ice breaks and the rain makes
the snow into slush, it is still Great Slave Lake; and that is like the
Holy Ghost."

Beyond Great Slave Lake, forty-five miles down the Mackenzie, we reach
Fort Providence, as strongly French in its atmosphere as Hay River is
British. Our coming is a gala day. The hamlet flies three flags, the
free trader sports his own initials "H.N.," the Hudson's Bay Company
loyally runs the Union Jack to the masthead, over the convent floats the
tri-colour of France. Fort Providence is hot. We walk to the convent and
are hospitably received by the nuns. They call their Red flock toge