In a few days I followed in company with
the Honourable John Ross, and was several days on the road - in constant
fight with snowdrifts - in getting to Point Levi.
Then came the canoe
crossing of the St. Lawrence, an enterprise startling, no doubt, as a
first experience, though safe, if tedious. We were put in a canoe,
really a disembowelled tree, and this was dragged, like a sledge, by a
horse down to the margin of the river, where it was launched amongst
floating ice, going up, down, and across the stream and its eddies. Our
canoe men coming to a big piece of ice, perhaps 20 feet square, jumped
out, dragged our canoe over the obstruction, and then launched it
again. When getting jammed between the floating ice, they got on the
sides of our boat, and working it up and down, like pumping the old
fire engine, they liberated us. Sometimes we went up stream, sometimes
down - all points of the compass - but, after an hour's struggle, we
gained the wharf at Quebec, safe and sound. But a while after I
certainly was exercised. It was important that Mr. Brydges should go
back to Montreal, and my son went with him. I watched their crossing
the river from the "Platform," in a clear, grey, winter afternoon. They
were two hours in crossing the river, a mile or two in width, in a
straight line. At one time, I almost despaired, for they had drifted
down almost into the Bay; but, by the pluck and hard work of their men,
they kept, in this tacking backwards and forwards, and up and down,
gradually making their way, till they landed, a long way below the
right point, however, and we exchanged handkerchief signals - and all
was well.
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