mountains that we had yet seen, showed away to the south in the direction of the Athabaska pass, and "the Committee's Punch Bowl." This pass is seven thousand feet high, and snow hes on its summit all the year round, but our road led westward up the Myette; and, as the Athabaska here sweeps away to the south, under the name of Whirlpool river, the turn shut out from view for the rest of our journey, both the valley and the mountains of the Whirlpool.
The first five miles up the Caledonian valley, as the valley of the Myette is called in the old maps and in Dr. Hector's journals, we made in about three hours, and a little after midday halted for dinner. . . . The Myette has a wonderful volume of water for its short course. It rushes down a narrow valley fed at every corner by foaming fells from the hillsides, and by several large tributaries. A short way from its mouth it becomes simply a series of rapids or mad currents, hurling along boulders, trees, and debris of all kinds. The valley at first is uninteresting, but, five miles up and for much of the rest of the way, is quite picturesque, two prominent mountains, that rise right above the pass and the lake at the summit, closing it in at its head.
September 15th. Left the "Caledonian Camp" at 8 a.m. for our Sabbath day's journey, and found it not much better than yesterday afternoon's, as far as quality was concerned. As every one needed rest and was tired of the Myette and its swamps, willows, and rocks, the call for a halt was hailed with general joy. . . . McCord had selected his camping ground judiciously. Good wood, water, and pasture in his immediate neighborhood; a beautiful slope covered with tall spruce, among which the tents were scattered; an open meadow and low wooded hills to the north-west, round which the low line of the pass, winding in the same direction, could easily be made out; and the
