CHAPTER I.

WE LEAVE ONTARIO.


We left my father's house at Tintern on the 7th of October, 1884,
having been married on the 1st, for Parkdale, where we spent a few
days with my husband's friends. We started for our home on the 10th by
the Canadian Pacific Railway to Owen Sound, thence by boat to Port
Arthur, and then on to Winnipeg by rail, where we stopped one night,
going on the next day to Regina. We only stopped in that place one
day, taking rail again to Swift Current, arriving there the same day.
This ended our travel by the locomotion of steam.

After taking in a supply of provisions we made a start for Battleford,
distant 195 miles, by buckboard over the prairie, which stretches out
about 130 miles in length, and for the remaining 55 miles there are
clumps of trees or bluffs as they are called, scattered here and
there. Our journey over this part was very pleasant, the weather was
fine and the mode of travelling, which was new to me, delightful. Our
company, consisted in addition to ourselves, of only one person, Mr.
Levalley, a gentleman from Ottawa. We passed four nights under canvas.
The journey was not a lonely one, the ships of the prairie were
continually on the go, we passed several companies of freighters with
harnessed oxen, half-breeds and Indians. It was also full of incident
and adventure; on one occasion, when cooking our tea, we set fire to
the prairie, although we worked hard to put it out, it in a very few
minutes spread in a most alarming manner, and entirely beyond our