Light canoes sometimes venture
down this fatal gulf to avoid the portage, unappalled by the warning
crosses which overhang the brink, the mournful records of former
failures.
The Hudson's Bay Company's people whom we passed on the 23rd going to the
rock house with their furs were badly provided with food, of which we saw
distressing proofs at every portage behind them. They had stripped the
birch trees of their rind to procure the soft pulpy vessels in contact
with the wood which are sweet but very insufficient to satisfy a craving
appetite.
The lake to the westward of the Pin Portage is called Sandfly Lake; it is
seven miles long and a wide channel connects it with the Serpent Lake,
the extent of which to the southward we could not discern. There is
nothing remarkable in this chain of lakes except their shapes, being
rocky basins filled by the waters of the Missinippi, insulating the massy
eminences and meandering with almost imperceptible current between them.
From the Serpent to the Sandy Lake it is again confined in a narrow space
by the approach of its winding banks, and on the 26th we were some hours
employed in traversing a series of shallow rapids where it was necessary
to lighten the canoes. Having missed the path through the woods we walked
two miles in the water upon sharp stones, from which some of us were
incessantly slipping into deep holes and floundering in vain for footing
at the bottom, a scene highly diverting notwithstanding our fatigue. We
were detained in Sandy Lake till one P.M. by a strong gale when, the wind
becoming moderate, we crossed five miles to the mouth of the river and at
four P.M. left the main branch of it and entered a little rivulet called
the Grassy River, running through an extensive reedy swamp. It is the
nest of innumerable ducks which rear their young among the long rushes in
security from beasts of prey. At sunset we encamped on the banks of the
main branch.
At three A.M. June 28th we embarked in a thick fog occasioned by a fall
of the temperature of the air ten degrees below that of the water. Having
crossed Knee Lake which is nine miles in length and a portage at its
western extremity we entered Primeau Lake with a strong and favourable
wind, by the aid of which we ran nineteen miles through it and encamped
at the river's mouth. It is shaped like the barb of an arrow with the
point towards the north and its greatest breadth is about four miles.
