by railways and steamboats, with supply stations at
convenient intervals all the way. By this route the gold-fields can be
reached in two months or six weeks, and the cost of travel is
ridiculously cheap--nearly anybody can afford to go even now, and by the
spring it should be fitted out for the accommodation of any amount of
traffic.

"The details of the information in the following article are given by Mr.
A.H.H. Heming, the artist who accompanied Mr. Whitney in his journey
towards the Barren Lands, and the data may be accepted as correct, as
they were secured from the Hudson Bay officials.

"The details of the inland Canadian route, briefly, are as follows: By
C.P.R. to Calgary, and thence north by rail to Edmonton; from there by
stage to Athabasca Landing, 40 miles; then, there is a continuous
waterway for canoe travel to Fort Macpherson, at the mouth of the
Mackenzie River, from which point the Peel River lies southward to the
gold region. The exact figures are as follows:

MILES.
Edmonton to Athabasca Landing 40
To Port McMurray 240
Fort Chippewyan 185
Smith Landing 102
Fort Smith 16
Fort Resolution 194
Fort Providence 168
Fort Simpson 161
Fort Wrigley 136
Fort Norman 184
Fort Good Hope 174
Fort Macpherson 282
-----
Total 1882

"There are only two portages on this route of any size--that from
Edmonton to Athabasca Landing, over which there is a stage and wagon
line, and at Smith Landing, sixteen miles, over which the Hudson Bay
Company has a tramway. There are four or five other portages of a few
hundred yards, but with these exceptions there is a fine "down grade"
water route all the way. It is the old Hudson Bay trunk line to the
north that has been in use for nearly a century. Wherever there is a
lake or a long stretch of deep water river navigation the company has
small freight steamers which ply back and forward during the summer
between the portage points or