i34 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



As the days grow longer, while the trails harden, the deep snow 

 settles, bearing a solid crust. There is a mildness in the air and in 

 sheltered places little pools form on the ice about midday. The poplar 

 buds are swelling. The raven's nest among the rocks of the bluff is 

 no longer empty. The river ice whitens though it does not yield. 

 Presently the cry of the wild goose is heard, the flocks are returning 

 from the. south. The ptarmigan forsakes the willow thickets, and the 

 hare retreats from the edge of the river. They know what the creaking 

 of the ice portends. The native fish-traps in the channel are dismantled, 

 the snow on the beaches disappears. The river ice settles closer to the 

 sand-bars; there is slush on the trail to the water-hole. The little 

 brooks begin to trickle, and form pools where the grayling makes his 

 retreat from the main river. The smaller migrant birds begin to ap- 

 pear, the wheatear, the American robin and a host of others, with 

 phalaropes and sandpipers. The harlequin ducks arrive in pairs, 

 silently making their way up the smaller streams, seeking secluded spots 

 for nesting. The first mosquitoes appear, advance guard of the multi- 

 tudinous pests of summer. 



As the streams increase in volume the river rises, the ice becomes 

 rotten and is lifted from the sand-bars; man and beast seem to wait 

 breathless for the ice to go out. The sun pours down with a fervor 

 not soon forgotten, though in the shade it is always cool. 



The cry of the brant, northward bound, is continually heard, and 

 myriads of smaller water fowl appear on every hand. All the minor 

 forms of life, native to the region or migrants from the south, with 

 startling suddenness people the copses and pervade the air. Vegetation 

 springs into leaf and flower at a bound. The water creeps up on the 

 beaches, the ice is shaken by tremors often accompanied by a groan- 

 ing sound. 



The tributary streams begin to run bank-high and flood the surface 

 of the river ice ; at last the crisis comes with the upriver rise. The ice 

 breaks, great cakes are driven high upon the beaches or jam in the 

 narrower channels between islands; at last it floods the lowlands; ice, 

 debris, and driftwood pour, with a grinding noise, headlong toward 

 the sea. Below the Ramparts at least a week goes by before the river 

 is free enough from floating ice and broken timber to be navigable, even 

 for canoes. With hardly a hint of spring, summer is upon the valley. 

 Mosquitoes appear in clouds. Except in midstream or where a brisk 

 air is blowing, life without a net and leather gloves is misery. The 

 Indians smear their faces with a mixture of grease and charcoal, and 

 paddle with a smudge on a square of turf, in the bows of their birch 

 canoes. The cribou, moose and bear, driven from the thickets by the 

 clouds of insects, plunge into the river for a temporary respite, where 

 they are often slain by the hunter in his canoe. Whoso must travel 



