194 Mackenzie’s Voyages

here had since been carried away by a rise in the river though
they had been left twenty feet above the water-level.

Mackay and the hunters who had gone on again were
met at noon the next day with plenty of fat meat, ready
roasted, as they had killed two elk near by.

Their descent from the watershed had been made in the
best time of the year. The water is then at a convenient stage,
the mosquitoes and the flies have vanished, the weather is
ideal for camping out, and fish and game are plentiful. “here
is probably no similar stretch in Canada at the present day
through a wilderness that can be travelled so conveniently
from railhead to railhead as the waterways from Summit
Lake thirty miles from Prince George by auto-road, down
Crooked, Pack, the Parsnip and Peace to the town of Peace
River Crossing eight miles below the site of Mackenzie’s
Fort. There are guides who conduct parties over this route
every year, but most of it can be run by the veriest tyro.
From Hudson’s Hope down, the resident settlers frequently
make a jaunt to town by building rafts of logs and floating
down to the Crossing, through the lovely country so well
described by Mackenzie. He had a great affection for the
familiar scenery of the central plains and refers to its beauty
often. “On leaving the mountains we saw animals grazing
in every direction. ‘To give some notion of our appetites I
shall state that the elk, or at least the carcase of it which
we brought away, to have weighed 250 pounds, and as we
had taken a very hearty meal at one o’clock it might naturally
be supposed we should not be very voracious at supper.
Nevertheless, the whole was consumed by ten the next
morning by ten persons and a dog in two meals.

“On Friday when the sun arose, a beautiful country
appeared around us, enriched and animated by large herds
of wild cattle. The weather was now so warm that to us,