e horizon, the sun was shining, and the
whole southeastern sky seemed aflame with bands and balls of fire. A
vertical ribbon of gradually diminishing lustre, scarcely wider than
the sun, was rising into the heavens to meet a vast semi-circle of
rainbow beauty arched above the natural sun. Where the strange halo
cut the vertical flame and the horizon on either side three mock suns
marked the intersection. Above the natural sun and beneath the halo,
four other mock suns studded the vertical band of light. It was a
wonderful sight and lasted fully twenty minutes--the sky was just as I
have shown it in my picture of the York Factory Packet.

Now the brigade was halted, in voyageur parlance, "to spell the dogs
one smoke," which, being translated, meant that the dogs could rest as
long as it took their masters to smoke a pipeful of tobacco. The
drivers, conversing in little groups or sitting upon sleds as they
puffed at their pipes, watched the beautiful phenomenon, and the talk
turned to the many remarkable sun-dogs that they had seen. Presently
the mock suns grew dim; the arch faded away; the band lost its colour;
the true sun rose above the trees and then, as ashes were knocked from
pipes, we resumed our journey.

After leaving the lake we entered a muskeg that extended for miles.
Its uneven surface was studded with countless grassy hummocks, many of
them crowned with willow and alder bushes or gnarled and stunted
spruces or jack pines. It made hard hauling for the dogs. From a
distance, the closely following trains reminded one of a great serpent
passing over the country, that--when it encountered a hummocky section
requiring the trains to turn from side to side, and to glide up and
down--seemed to be writhing in pain. Near the end of the swamp an open
hillside rose before us, and upon its snowy slopes the sun showed
thousands of rabbit-runs intersecting one another in a maze of tracks
that made one think of a vast gray net cast over the hill.

Passing into a "bent-pole" district we encountered an endless number of
little spruce trees, the tops of which had become so laden with snow
that their slender stems, no longer able to sustain the weight, had
bent almost double as they let their white-capped heads rest in the
snow upon the ground. Later, we entered a park-like forest where pine
trees stood apart with seldom any brushwood between. Fresh marten
tracks were noticed in the snow. A little farther on, two