Year: 1870

ACHIEVEMENTS IN FARMING.


Barley and potatoes are raised at Fort
Simpson, and some years prove very
good crops. Frosts have occasionally
destroyed the labors of the husbandman;
but it is not pretended that these have
ever been of a very laborious nature,


LITERATURE AT FORT SIMPSON.


In one respect, the scanty population
hereabouts cannot complain. For their
amusement and edi6cation in leisure
moments a very well selected library of
over two thousand volumes is come-at-
able, and, we believe, very well patron
lied But in some other respects we do
not think the dwellers in civilization
could envy their Mckenzie river breth-
ren. They get their mail matter, for in
stance, only twice in the year. Suppose
this six months mail should miss or be
lost! What calamity.


WITHIN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE-THE Es-


oUIMAUx PARADISE.


Mr.. Mcfarland has resided some sew
enteen years in the Mckenzie river dis
trict, and has become SO enamored of his
lodge in the vast wilderness that he pre-
fers it to any other abode AT present,
he informs us, the post in the Peel river
district is the most northerly in the com
pany's domain. 1t is in latitude 6730;
but some years ago they had post sit
uated degree further north, which he
had charge of for five years, which was
the length of time it was in use. 1t was
on the Anderson river, between the Nc
Kenzie and Coppermine, and Of course
within the Arctic Circle, A lovely place
for white man to live in it must have
beenl Not unfrequently the cold is so
intense that only spirit thermometer
can register it, Three times during 1863,
for example the glass indicated 700 be-
low zerol The thought Of such fearful
cold is enough to freeze the marrow in
ones bones. How any human being
saturated with less grease than an Esqui-
maux, and undevoted to underground
habitations could exist in such climate
is mystery.


In this land they have a brief period
called summer, when such of the inhabi-
tants as escape being frozen are almost
roasted alive Generally the thermom-
eter ranges from ninety to one hundred
degrees in the shade, and once in while
it indicates the glorious red hot heat of
one hundred and twenty. This is in the
shade, reeollect; and even in the shade
there seems a peculiar intensity in the
heat which pervades the atmosphere.
There can be no doubt but the inhabitants
get thoroughly thawed out before the re-
turn of the rigorous season.


Another popularity of life in those
parts is, that there is night there during
considerable portion of the year, and
no day during another period. In fact,
the seasons are rather mixed thereabouts
All summer three months or so, night
comes not. The sun remains visible the
twenty-four hours through And during
the winter season, for upward of seven
weeks, only kind of twilight enables
the residents to blunder through the
day S labors.


Still another popularity marks this
region. In summer the inhabitants sleep
in the day time and get to work at their
ordinary observation-disclosures these may
be, apart from eating-in the night. The
hottest of the twenty-four hours, answer
ing to our day, they devote TO sleep;
when the sun is low, they arise and be-
take themselves to travel, to working, or
eating IU


EsQUIMAUX LIFE.


During the months of November,
March and April, the Esqdimaux come
to market with the produce of their hunt,
flrs and reindeer meat. The tribes in
this quarter. we are told, live very well,
having a partiality for the blubber of the
seal and whale and the flesh Of the rein
deer. And further they are not addicted
to raw flesh. They like cooked meat as
we'll as the best of us. In summer, when
the tribes are for the most part station
ary. their abodes are wooden huts, and
lodges of deer skin. In winter, when not
on the road, they are all the time ON the
verge of sufiocation in snow lodges, in
which the smoke has 10 aid the fire in