Tracking Up-Stream Seseett

River, where they had made their second camp on 30 June,
a distance of seventy-five miles, runs from seven to eight
miles an hour. 3 7

Six miles before reaching this camp the river widened,
the current slackened to about two miles, and the paddling
was not more difficult than in dead water. In fact they
had reached that thrice-blessed point in the ascent of the
Mackenzie known to later trackers as ‘*‘ Head-of-the-Line,”
for it was here that the line was finally abandoned for the
paddle and sail. By Monday night they had reached their
first camp on the river where they had been on 29 June.

As the stock of provisions was nearly exhausted, a hunting
party was sent out from this camp. The surrounding land is
low, and the river so wide that the far side is scarcely visible
on the horizon. ““We were nearly five miles to the north of
the main channel of the river. The fresh tracks and beds of
buffaloes were very perceptible. Near this place a river
flowed in from the Horn Mountains which are at no great
distance to the north,”

In the evening English Chief arrived in with the tongue
of a cow or female buffalo, and four men and the Indians
were dispatched for the flesh.

Quite evidently the wood buffalo, whose range now
extends from the Mackenzie to the Peace west of Slave Lake,
at one time spread out to the north of Slave Lake and east
of Slave River.

Wednesday was spent in the same locality to wait for the
hunters. The canoes were repaired and new paddles made,
while the women were employed in gathering berries.
Mackenzie remarks that some peculiar quality in the water
of this river corrodes wood, and renders paddles useless in a
comparatively short time.

‘The explorers made an effort to get a view of the mouth