294 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



A RANGER'S TENT IN WINTER— WITHOUT ALL THE COMFORTS OF HOME 



canoe and two men to help us over the 

 "Long Portage," seven miles. The 

 weather was perfect and as we made 

 the two short portages and crossed the 

 two long narrow lakes to the beginning 

 of our real day's work, it seemed good 

 to be alive and the loads we carried 

 only lent a zest and helped to keep us 

 down to earth. Leaving one canoe at 

 the beginning of the "Long Portage" 

 for the packers to return in, we started 

 out, stopping for lunch after a mile or 

 so. We shot two or three grouse with 

 our pistols, keeping them for our break- 

 fast. About half past five we reached 

 the other end and pitched our small 

 Laker tent, spreading it to give some 

 shelter to all four of us and after a 

 hearty supper, were soon asleep. 



In the morning we said good-bye to 

 our packers and launching our canoe 

 on the River Mattawin, a beautiful 

 stream about seventy-five miles long 

 and with many pictures(|uc rapids, we 

 started upstream. We had three port- 

 ages and had to "double" them as our 

 load was too heavv to be taken over in 



one trip. Just before noon we reached 

 the mouth of the Chienne River, a 

 smaller stream emptying into the Mat- 

 tawin, up which our route lay. Here 

 we had lunch and after passing through 

 two small lakes, where the river wid- 

 ened out, we found the water quite low 

 and had to track our canoe through sev- 

 eral swift waters. About four o'clock 

 we made a short portage into Lac 

 Brochet and to our great surprise found 

 it frozen. This was something of a 

 dilemma as we did not relish the 

 thought of having to pack all our bag- 

 gage around it and if it had frozen so 

 early, many of the other lakes above 

 would probably be frozen too. Trying 

 the ice with our axes, and finding it 

 fairly safe, I crossed by lying flat on 

 my stomach so as to cover as much ice 

 as possible and by tying four tump lines 

 together we dragged the duftle across 

 the narrow bay. Here we made a 

 camp and as the night was clear did 

 not trouble to j)ut up a tent but crawled 

 into our sleeping bags and were soon 

 lost to the worl(L About three in the 



