Back of this
solitary resting-place were the moss-covered hills with their
sombre forests, and as we turned from them we looked out over the
bay at our feet, the shining waters of the lake, and beyond it to
the blue, round-topped hills reaching upward to blend with
exquisite harmony into the blue and silver of the great dome that
stooped to meet them. Who could doubt that romance and poetry
dwell in the heart of the Indian who chose this for the resting-
place of his dead.
Walking back along the point we found it cut by caribou trails, and
everywhere the moss was torn and trampled in a way that indicated
the presence there of many of the animals but a short time since.
Yet it did not occur to me that we might possibly be on the
outskirts of the march of the migrating caribou. Ptarmigan were
there in numbers, and flew up all along our way. We passed a
number of old camps, one a large oblong, sixteen feet in length,
with two fireplaces in it, each marked by a ring of small rocks,
and a doorway at either end. Near where we landed, close in the
shelter of a thicket of dwarf spruce, was a deep bed of boughs,
still green, where some wandering aboriginal had spent the night
without taking time or trouble to erect his wigwam, and who in
passing on had set up three poles pointing northward to tell his
message to whoever might come after.
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