. The Canadian field-naturalist. March, 1928] The Canadian Field-Naturalist 65. Fig. 11 They also occupy points favourable for hunting and fishing on the west coast of Hudson bay, north of Churchill, Chesterfield inlet, and the shores of the large lakes southwest of Chesterfield inlet. The remainder of the Arctic Prairies is uninhabited except for a few small bands of Indians about the eastern ends of Great Slave lake and Athabaska lake. Since there are no roads and very few trails, travel in the Mackenzie valley is strictly limited to the waterways. Everywhere dense forests of spruce and popl
. The Canadian field-naturalist. March, 1928] The Canadian Field-Naturalist 65. Fig. 11 They also occupy points favourable for hunting and fishing on the west coast of Hudson bay, north of Churchill, Chesterfield inlet, and the shores of the large lakes southwest of Chesterfield inlet. The remainder of the Arctic Prairies is uninhabited except for a few small bands of Indians about the eastern ends of Great Slave lake and Athabaska lake. Since there are no roads and very few trails, travel in the Mackenzie valley is strictly limited to the waterways. Everywhere dense forests of spruce and poplar, muskeg or small lakes cover the lowlands near the rivers. These generally render travel across country nearly impossible or extremely slow. In all of the 1200-mile stretch of lake and river between the end of steel at McMurray and Norman (Fort Norman) the traveller will see only eight or ten Indian villages with two or three fur-trading stores at each to interrupt the virgin forest (Fig. 11). The total population of the entire Mackenzie district will probably not ex- ceed 5,000. Probably less than 150 of these are whites, the remainder being Indians, except 200 or 300 Eskimo. Anglican or Roman Catholic missions are maintained at nearly all of these villages. The Indians depend for a livelihood entirely on trapping, hunting and fishing. At the trading posts the tea, flour, sugar, tobacco and a few other things which the white man has taught them to regard as essential to their welfare can be obtained in exchange for the winter's catch of fur—^lynx, fox, marten, etc. The relative abun- dance of the lynx fluctuates from year to year in a very curious way. The supply of rabbits is an important matter to the lynx, since they are his main source of food, and the failure of that sup- ply means the starvation of a large part of the lynx of the region. Not a single rabbit was seen during the writer's trip down the Mackenzie in 1917. The naturalist, Edward Preble, who traversed the
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