Through, long
months of deep winter, in ten thousand shacks and tepees and
cabins, the story of this June had been written as fate had
written it each winter for a hundred years or more. A story of the
triumph of the fittest. A story of tears, of happiness here and
there, of hunger and plenty, of new life and quick death; a story
of strong men and strong women, living in the faith of their
forefathers, with the best blood of old England and France still
surviving in their veins.
Through those same months of winter, the great captains of trade
in the city of Edmonton had been preparing for the coming of the
river brigades. The hundred and fifty miles of trail between that
last city outpost of civilization and Athabasca Landing, the door
that opened into the North, were packed hard by team and dog-
sledge and packer bringing up the freight that for another year
was to last the forest people of the Three River country--a domain
reaching from the Landing to the Arctic Ocean. In competition
fought the drivers of Revillon Brothers and Hudson's Bay, of free
trader and independent adventurer. Freight that grew more precious
with each mile it advanced must reach the beginning of the
waterway.
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