I

T must have been a pleasant and Columbuslike feeling that filled and thrilled the soul of each first traveler on each of the great rivers of America. It must have been so, because that is how the normal boy feels when he finds a new path through the woods or across lots, and the man-explorer is but a large-print edition of the boy-explorer.

Those were great and glorious first trips up the St. Lawrence, from east to west; down the Mississippi, north to south; up the Columbia, west to east; down the Mackenzie, south to north. They are history now, and if you want to know what they felt like there are only two ways of finding out, and then only in

part: to read the journals of the men who made them; or, better, to follow yourself in the path of one of them by going, this summer or next, down the Mackenzie.

For the Mackenzie trip has changed the least of them all since it was made for the first time, and something of the original sensation is still possible. It is the last primeval thing left us, and, even there, if your canoe upsets or you are stranded on a really lonely shore you are likely to be rescued by a smart-looking, electric-lighted steamboat at just about the time you are beginning to feel like Columbus and Crusoe combined. It's a bit disappointing, to be sure, but otherwise the Mackenzie trip is the real thing.

A vast stretch of two thousand miles of Northland shows on the map above the present end of the rail. From Edmonton,

the new railway hub of the Northern West, towards which four transcontinentals are aiming, to Athabasca landing, a hundred miles, by trail; thence up the Athabasca river to the Mackenzie, and down the Mackenzie to the Arctic: that is the route of the most remarkable sightseeing in America today. It is the top of the continent, a land of magnificent distances and many surprises, where one finds things he did not expect and does not find things that he did expect.

The Mackenzie is to this vast region what the Mississippi is to the Central and Southern states, a great main artery from which and into which branch numerous river and lake veins east and west. The "king of northern rivers" is one thousand miles long and a little more than a mile in average width. It is well-behaved though swift-running, shows a variety of good-looking scenery, and is ready to serve the modern captain of industry as well as it has hitherto served the native Indians, the fur traders, and the occasional voyager.

"The Barrens of the North" is what they used to call this whole Top-Country; but Nature never did such bad balancing as to weigh down a continent whose lower regions are inestimably rich,

with a worthless top, and to the north end of the American continent it gave a full share of attractiveness and riches. They are a bit hard to get at, it is true, but Nature's idea in caching them thus far away probably was merely to keep them in reserve until men needed them enough to go after them. It is true, too, that there are parts of the North-country which are still and rightly called the "Barrens," but they are not the region. drained by the Mackenzie.

The development of the far-flung North-country will be one of the industrial masterpieces of the next two decades. Men are going hither and fro just now, with transits, pick-axes, and divining-rods. They are scratching the surface here and there, just lifting the bed-clothes of the sleepy North, and presently they will be getting down to work and waking the giant with a loud call to get up. The alarm is set and pretty nearly ready to go off.