Hitherto my route has led through the Cree country, hitherto we have seen
only the prairies and woods through which the Crees hunt and camp; but my
wanderings are yet far from their end. To the south-west, for many and
many a mile, lie the wide regions of the Blackfeet and the mountain
Assineboines; and into these regions I am about to push my way. It is a
wild, lone land guarded by the giant peaks of mountains whose snow-capped
summits lift themselves 17,000 feet above the sea level. It is the
birth-place of waters which seek in four mighty streams the four distant
oceans--the Polar Sea, the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific.
A few miles north-west of Edmonton a settlement composed exclusively of
French half-breeds is situated on the shores of a rather extensive lake
which bears the name of the Grand Lac, or St. Albert. This settlement is
presided over by a mission of French Roman Catholic clergymen of the
order of Oblates, headed by a bishop of the same order and nationality.
It is a curious contrast to find in this distant and strange land men of
culture and high mental excellence devoting their lives to the task of
civilizing the wild Indians of the forest and the prairie--going far in
advance of the settler, whose advent they have but too much cause to
dread.
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