Ann’s, and other places, far out in the wilds, undeterred by danger or hardship, and gathering half-breeds and Indians around them, have taught with considerable success the elements of civilisation as well as religion; while the latter remain inert, enjoying the ease and comfort of the Red River Settlement, or at most make an occasional summer’s visit to some of the nearest posts. In the evening we rode back to Edmonton, and there found Mr. Pembrun, of Lac La Biche, who had arrived to take command of the Company’s brigade of boats going with the season’s furs to Norway House, and Mr. Macaulay, of Jasper House, who had come to fetch winter supplies. Mr. Pembrun had crossed the Rocky Mountains several times in years gone by, by Jasper House and the Athabasca Pass, and on one occasion in the winter. He related several stories of these journeys, and amongst them one which bears a strong resemblance to a well-known adventure of the celebrated Baron Munchausen, but which will be readily believed by those acquainted with the locality in which it occurred. The snow accumulates to a tremendous depth in the valleys, and at his first camp in the mountains he set to work to shovel away the snow with a snow-shoe, after the usual manner of making camp in the winter; but having got down to his own depth without coming to the bottom, he sounded with a long pole, when, not finding the ground, he desisted, and built a platform of green logs, upon which the fire and beds were laid. Passing the same place afterwards in the summer, he recognised his old resting-place by the tall stumps of the trees cut off twenty or thirty feet above the ground, showing the level of the snow at his former visit. A party of miners came in from White Mud Creek, about fifty miles further up the Saskatchewan, where a number of them were washing gold. The captain of the band, a Kentuckian, named Love, brought with him a small bag of fine gold-dust as a specimen, and informed us that they had already made £90 a-piece since the beginning of the summer. From what we heard from other sources afterwards, however, there seems little doubt that this statement was greatly exaggerated. Love had been in California and British Columbia, and had reached the Saskatchewan by ascending the Fraser in a boat, and thence crossing the mountains on foot, by the Leather Pass to Jasper House. He was very sanguine of finding rich diggings on the eastern side of the mountains, and three of his company had started on an exploring expedition to the sources of the North Saskatchewan. Nothing had been heard of them since their departure, two months before.