The line of the horizon was unnaturally near, and there was
more than the usual realising sense of the great space between the
earth and the sky. This was enhanced by the lifting of a far
distant hill-top above the line as if in an attempt to look across
the Divide.
That morning I had found myself with only a few films left, for the
fascination of taking the first photographs of the region traversed
had betrayed me into using my material more lavishly than I should;
but now I squandered two films in celebration of the achievement,
taking one picture looking out over the waters flowing South to
Lake Melville and the Atlantic and facing about, but without
otherwise changing my position, one over the waters which I felt
sure we should find flowing north to Ungava Bay.
In a wonderfully short time the outfit had been portaged across,
and we were again in the canoes, the quest now being, not for the
inlet but for the outlet of the lake, a much less difficult task.
Less than an hour's paddling carried us to the point where the
George River, as a tiny stream, steals away from its source in Lake
Hubbard, as if trying to hide in its rocky bed among the willows,
to grow in force and volume in its three hundred mile journey to
Ungava, till at its discharge there it is a great river three miles
in width.
Here at its beginning on the boggy margin of the stream we went
into camp. Here I saw the sun set and rise again, and as I lay in
my tent at dawn, with its wall lifted so that I could look out into
the changing red and gold of the eastern sky, I heard a splashing
of water near, and looking up saw a little company of caribou cross
at the head of the stream and disappear towards the sunrise.
CHAPTER XIV
THROUGH THE LAKES OF THE UPPER GEORGE
How little I had dreamed when setting out on my journey that it
would prove beautiful and of such compelling interest as I had
found it. I had not thought of interest - except that of getting
the work done - nor of beauty. How could Labrador be beautiful?
Weariness and hardship I had looked for, and weariness I had found
often and anxiety, which was not yet past in spite of what had been
achieved; but of hardship there had been none. Flies and
mosquitoes made it uncomfortable sometimes but not to the extent of
hardship. And how beautiful it had been, with a strange, wild
beauty, the remembrance of which buries itself silently in the deep
parts of one's being. In the beginning there had been no response
to it in my heart, but gradually in its silent way it had won, and
now was like the strength-giving presence of an understanding
friend.
