CHAPTER III.
Treaty At Lesser Slave Lake.
On the 19th of June our little fleet landed at Willow Point.
There was a rude jetty, or wharf, at this place, below the little trading village referred to, at which loaded boats discharged.

Formerly they could ascend the sluggish and shallow channel connecting the expansion of the Heart River, called Buffalo Lake, with the head of Lesser Slave Lake, a distance of about three miles, and as far as the Hudson's Bay Company's post, around which another trading village had gathered.

This temporary fall in the water level partly accounted for the growth of the village at Willow Point, where sufficient interests had arisen to cause a jealousy between the two hamlets.

Once upon a time Atawaywe Kamick was supreme.

This is the name the Crees give to the Hudson's Bay Company, meaning literally "the Buying House." But now there were many stores, and "free trade" was rather in the ascendant.