Portage, and even at Grand Island,
just below here, if the water is low. They have to carry it up from
the scows to the steamboats, and from the steamboats to the shore.
Every pound is handled again and again. It's the half-breeds that do
that. They're as strong as horses and as patient as dogs; fine men
they are, so you must let them have their little fling after their old
ways; they don't know any better."

"How many of the fur posts are there in the North, Uncle Dick?" asked
Rob, curious always to be exact in all his information.

"Well, let's see," pondered Uncle Dick, holding up his fingers and
counting them off. "The first one above here is McMurray; that's one
of the treaty posts where the tribes are paid their annuities by the
Dominion government. It's two hundred and fifty-two miles from here,
and there's where we hit our first steamboat, as I told you.

"Then comes Chippewyan, on Athabasca Lake. It was founded by Sir
Alexander Mackenzie in seventeen eighty-eight, and from that time on
it has been one of the most important trading-posts of the North--in
fact, I believe it is the most important to-day, as it seems to be a
sort of center, right where a lot of rivers converge. That's four
hundred and thirty-seven miles from here. When you get that far in, my
buckos, you'll be able to say that you are away from the hated
pale-faces and fairly launched on your trip through the wildest
wilderness the world has to-day. It is a hundred miles on to Smith's
Landing--sixteen miles there of the fiercest water you ever saw in all
your lives. Wagon portage there, but sometimes the boats go through.
Fort Smith is at the other end of that portage.

"Next down is Fort Resolution, and that's seven hundred and forty-five
miles from here. Hay River is eight hundred and fifteen, and Fort
Providence nine hundred and five miles, and Fort Simpson, at the mouth
of the Liard River, is a thousand and eighty-five miles from here.
Getting along in the world pretty well then, eh?

"There are a few others as I recall them--Fort Wrigley, twelve hundred
and sixty-five miles from here, and Fort Norman, fourteen hundred and
thirty-seven miles. Now you come to Fort Good Hope, and that is right
under the Arctic Circle. It is sixteen hundred and nine miles from
here, where we are at the head of the railroads. If we are fast enough
in our journey we'll get our first sight of the Midnight Sun at Good
Hope, perhaps.

"The next post north of Goo