The forests with their wild life responded generously to the less rigorous climate. In the Muskrat region, the wretched traders and Indians were forced to scour the country for fish and game in quantities sufficient to keep them alive. At Lake la Biche the waters yielded an abundant supply of fish; and during the five months that he spent at the post, Thompson saw no less than forty-nine moose and several buffalo brought in, all of which had been shot within twenty miles of the house. There also all the animals, including the precious beaver, attained their full size and development. Thompson wished to get an idea of the extent and general character of this western forest land, and the quickest way to do so was to survey the Athabaskan waters from their sources. Accordingly, when spring opened, he rode across country southwest to Fort Augustus and from thence westward to the headwaters of the Pembina, which at this point was divided from the valley of the Saskatchewan by a narrow neck of land. Embarking on the Pembina, he followed it down till it merged with the main stream of the Athabaska river. A short excursion up the Slave Lake river enabled him to explore the shore line of Lesser Slave lake. Returning to the Athabaska, he continued along its broad stream past Athabaska Landing to the mouth of the Clearwater river, and from thence he made his way along the well-known track by Methy Portage and the Churchill to Grand Portage. Throughout the region embraced in his survey, he found little exposed rock and therefore few lakes, but what was better for the beaver many small brooks and streams which they could dam for their ponds. The country thus promised a steady yield of furs from year to year, and this, with the generous supply of game which the forest offered to trader and trapper, was enough to justify the name which it bore, "The fur-traders' paradise."