THE ICE BADLY JA^IMED. 243 



Lebel told me that he had been born at 

 RimouskijOn the Lower St. Lawrence, in Eastern 

 Canada, and had left home thirty years before, 

 when only sixteen years of age. Ever since that 

 time he had lived in the woods trapping and 

 hnnting, moving ever westwards towards the 

 setting sun. On the discovery of the Klondyke 

 goldfields he had crossed the Rocky Mountains 

 and tried his hand at prospecting, but had soon 

 taken to the woods again. He was evidently 

 an expert canoeman, as he had poled and 

 tracked* his loaded canoe all by himself 

 from Selkirk up the lower Pelly into the 

 Macmillan. 



On the morning of October 6th, the day after 

 we had parted from Lebel, we found the ice 

 badly jammed in the narrow gorge above the 

 canyon of the Pelly River, which we had 

 entered on the previous afternoon. At one 

 time it really seemed as if we would be imable 

 to get through, but fortunately the jam had 

 only just been formed, and the several pieces 

 of ice were not frozen together, and as the 



* i.e., towed or hauled. 



