Round could get us off. Once under way, however, with our thirteen
waggons, there was no trouble save from their heavy loads, which
could not be moved faster than a walk. Our first camp was at
Sturgeon River--the Namáo Sepe of the Crees--a fine stream in a
defile of hills clothed with poplar and spruce, the former not
quite in leaf, for the spring was backward, though seeding and
growth in the Edmonton District was much ahead of Manitoba. The
river flat was dotted with clumps of russet-leaved willows, to
the north of which our waggons were ranged, and soon the quickly
pitched tents, fires and sizzling fry-pans filled even the
tenderfoot with a sense of comfort.

Next morning our route lay through a line of low, broken hills,
with scattered woods, largely burnt and blown down by the wind; a
desolate tract, which enclosed, to our left, the Lily Lake--Ascútamo
Sakaigon--a somewhat marshy-looking sheet of water. Some miles
farther on we crossed Whiskey Creek, a white man's name, of course,
given by an illicit distiller, who throve for a time, in the old
"Permit days," in this secluded spot. Beyond this the long line of
the Vermilion Hills hove in sight, and presently we reached the
Vermilion River, the Wyamun of the Crees, and, before nightfall,
the Nasookamow, or Twin Lake, making our camp in an open besmirched
pinery, a cattle shelter, with bleak and bare surroundings,
neighboured by the shack of a solitary settler. He had, no doubt,
good reasons for his choice; but it seemed a very much less inviting
locality than Stony Creek, which we came to next morning, approaching
it through rich and massive spruce woods, the ground strewn with
anemones, harebells and violets, and interspersed with almost
startlingly snow-white poplars, whose delicate buds had just opened
into leaf.