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 Saskatchawan 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 Lake is extensive, running towards the N.E. 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 Winipeg, 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 were 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 mud banks,
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 hooping-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 Saskatchawan.
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
to-day, 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 20 th with little
variation of scenery or incident, travelling in that time about thirty
miles. The near approach of winter was marked by severe frosts