A flock of
pelicans and two or three brown fishing-eagles were fishing in its
agitated waters, seemingly with great success. There is a good sturgeon
fishery at the foot of the rapid. Several golden plovers, Canadian
grosbeaks, crossbills, woodpeckers and pin-tailed grouse were shot today;
and Mr. Back killed a small striped marmot. This beautiful little animal
was busily employed in carrying in its distended pouches the seeds of the
American vetch to its winter hoards.
The portage is eighteen hundred yards long and its western extremity was
found to be in 53 degrees 08 minutes 25 seconds North latitude and 99
degrees 28 minutes 02 seconds West longitude. The route from Canada to
the Athabasca joins that from York Factory at the mouth of the
Saskatchewan, and we saw traces of a recent encampment of the Canadian
voyagers. Our companions in the Hudson's Bay boats, dreading an attack
from their rivals in trade, were on the alert at this place. They
examined minutely the spot of encampment to form a judgment of the number
of canoes that had preceded them; and they advanced, armed, and with
great caution, through the woods. Their fears however on this occasion
were fortunately groundless.
By noon on the 12th, the boats and their cargoes having been conveyed
across the portage, we embarked and pursued our course. The Saskatchewan
becomes wider above the Grand Rapid and the scenery improves. The banks
are high, composed of white clay and limestone, and their summits are
richly clothed with a variety of firs, poplars, birches and willows. The
current runs with great rapidity and the channel is in many places
intricate and dangerous from broken ridges of rock jutting into the
stream. We pitched our tents at the entrance of Cross Lake, having
advanced only five miles and a half.
CROSS, CEDAR AND PINE ISLAND LAKES.
Cross Lake is extensive, running towards the north-east it is said for
forty miles. We crossed it at a narrow part and, pulling through several
winding channels formed by a group of islands, entered Cedar Lake which,
next to Lake Winnipeg, is the largest sheet of fresh water we had
hitherto seen. Ducks and geese resort hither in immense flocks in the
spring and autumn. These birds are now beginning to go off owing to its
muddy shores having become quite hard through the nightly frosts. At this
place the Aurora Borealis was extremely brilliant in the night, its
coruscations darting at times over the whole sky and assuming various
prismatic tints of which the violet and yellow were predominant.
After pulling, on the 14th, seven miles and a quarter on the lake, a
violent wind drove us for shelter to a small island, or rather a ridge of
rolled stones thrown up by the frequent storms which agitate this lake.
The weather did not moderate the whole day and we were obliged to pass
the night on this exposed spot. The delay however enabled us to obtain
some lunar observations. The wind having subsided we left our resting
place the following morning, crossed the remainder of the lake, and in
the afternoon arrived at Muddy Lake which is very appropriately named as
it consists merely of a few channels winding amongst extensive mudbanks
which are overflowed during the spring floods. We landed at an Indian
tent which contained two numerous families amounting to thirty souls.
These poor creatures were badly clothed and reduced to a miserable
condition by the whooping-cough and measles. At the time of our arrival
they were busy in preparing a sweating-house for the sick. This is a
remedy which they consider, with the addition of singing and drumming, to
be the grand specific for all diseases. Our companions having obtained
some geese in exchange for rum and tobacco, we proceeded a few more miles
and encamped on Devil's Drum Island, having come during the day twenty
miles and a half. A second party of Indians were encamped on an adjoining
island, a situation chosen for the purpose of killing geese and ducks.
On the 16th we proceeded eighteen miles up the Saskatchewan. Its banks
are low, covered with willows, and lined with drift timber. The
surrounding country is swampy and intersected by the numerous arms of the
river. After passing for twenty or thirty yards through the willow
thicket on the banks of the stream we entered an extensive marsh, varied
only by a distant line of willows which marks the course of a creek or
branch of the river. The branch we navigated today is almost five hundred
yards wide. The exhalations from the marshy soil produced a low fog
although the sky above was perfectly clear. In the course of the day we
passed an Indian encampment of three tents whose inmates appeared to be
in a still more miserable condition than those we saw yesterday. They had
just finished the ceremony of conjuration over some of their sick
companions; and a dog which had been recently killed as a sacrifice to
some deity was hanging to a tree where it would be left (I was told) when
they moved their encampment.
We continued our voyage up the river to the 20th with little variation of
scenery or incident, travelling in that time about thirty miles. The near
approach of winter was marked by severe frosts which continued all day
unless when the sun chanced to be unusually bright and the geese and
ducks were observed to take a southerly course in large flocks. On the
morning of the 20th we came to a party of Indians encamped behind the
bank of the river on the borders of a small marshy lake for the purpose
of killing waterfowl.
