Produced by Bruce Miller; Courtesy of Kevin McCarthy Director of Perrot
Memorial Library.
The Arctic Prairies
A Canoe-Journey
By Ernest Thompson Seton
Author of "Wild Animals I Have Known", "Life Histories", Etc.
What young man of our race would not gladly give a year of his lifeto roll backward the scroll of time for five decades and live thatyear in the romantic bygone-days of the Wild West; to see the greatMissouri while the Buffalo pastured on its banks, while big gameteemed in sight and the red man roamed and hunted, unchecked byfence or hint of white man's rule; or, when that rule was representedonly by scattered trading-posts, hundreds of miles apart, andat best the traders could exchange the news by horse or canoe andmonths of lonely travel?
I for one, would have rejoiced in tenfold payment for the privilegeof this backward look in our age, and had reached the middle lifebefore I realised that, at a much less heavy cost, the miracle waspossible today.
For the uncivilised Indian still roams the far reaches of absolutelyunchanged, unbroken forest and prairie leagues, and has knowledgeof white men only in bartering furs at the scattered trading-posts,where locomotive and telegraph are unknown; still the wild Buffaloelude the hunters, fight the Wolves, wallow, wander, and breed;and still there is hoofed game by the million to be found where theSaxon is as seldom seen as on the Missouri in the times of Lewisand Clarke. Only we must seek it all, not in the West, but in thefar North-west; and for "Missouri and Mississippi" read "Peace andMackenzie Rivers," those noble streams that northward roll theirmile-wide turbid floods a thousand leagues to the silent ArcticSea.
This was the thought which spurred me to a six months' journeyby canoe. And I found what I went in search of, but found, also,abundant and better rewards that were not in mind, even as Saul,the son of Kish, went seeking asses and found for himself a crownand a great kingdom.
Four years have gone by since I lived through these experiences.Such a lapse of time may have made my news grow stale, but it hasalso given the opportunity for the working up of specimens andscientific records. The results, for the most part, will be foundin the Appendices, and three of these, as indicated—namely, thesections on Plants, Mammals, and Birds—are the joint work of myassistant, Mr. Edward A. Preble, and myself.
My thanks are due here to the Right Honourable Lord Strathcona, G.C. M. G., Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, for giving me accessto the records of the Company whenever I needed them for historicalpurposes; to the Honourable Frank Oliver, Minister of the Interior,Canada, for the necessary papers and permits to facilitate scientificcollection, and also to Clarence C. Chipman, Esq., of Winnipeg,the Hudson's Bay Company's Commissioner, for practical help inpreparing my outfit, and for letters of introduction to the manyofficers of the Company, whose kind help was so often a Godsend.
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