George Tracy Marsh

“ Among these lay a large body of water partly free of ice. Into the northeast he could trace the divide—even make out where a small feeder of the Ghost headed on the height of land. And he now knew that he looked upon the dread valleys of the forbidden country of the Crees—the demon-haunted solitudes of the land of the “Windigo,” whose dim, blue hills guarded a region of mystery and terror—a wilderness, peopled in the tales of the medicine man with giant eaters of human flesh and spirits of evil. ”

“ So with fur pack and outfit, and as much smoked caribou as he dared carry, Marcel poled his canoe up the Ghost, later to portage across the divide into the trailless land where, in the memory of living man, the feet of no hunter of the Hudson’s Bay Company had strayed. ”

“ But the risk was worth taking. If he could reach the Eskimos on their spring journey south to the post, before they learned of the scarcity of dogs at Whale River, he could obtain huskies at a fair trade in fur. And a dog team was his heart’s desire.
Portaging over the divide to the large lake, Marcel followed its winding outlet into the northwest. There were days when, baffled by a maze of water routes in a network of lakes, he despaired of finding the main stream. ”