Having Searched For A Part Where The Current Was Most Smooth, The Canoe Was Placed In The Water At The Head Of A Rapid, And St. Germain, Solomon Belanger, And I Embarked In Order To Cross.

We went from the shore very well, but in mid-channel the canoe became difficult to manage under our burden as the breeze was fresh.

The current drove us to the edge of the rapid, when Belanger unluckily applied his paddle to avert the apparent danger of being forced down it, and lost his balance. The canoe was overset in consequence in the middle of the rapid. We fortunately kept hold of it until we touched a rock where the water did not reach higher than our waists; here we kept our footing, notwithstanding the strength of the current, until the water was emptied out of the canoe. Belanger then held the canoe steady whilst St. Germain placed me in it and afterwards embarked himself in a very dexterous manner. It was impossible however to embark Belanger, as the canoe would have been hurried down the rapid the moment he should have raised his foot from the rock on which he stood. We were therefore compelled to leave him in his perilous situation. We had not gone twenty yards before the canoe, striking on a sunken rock, went down. The place being shallow we were again enabled to empty it and the third attempt brought us to the shore. In the meantime Belanger was suffering extremely, immersed to his middle in the centre of a rapid, the temperature of which was very little above the freezing-point, and the upper part of his body covered with wet clothes, exposed in a temperature not much above zero to a strong breeze.

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