42 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



ing the St. John and its tributary stream, the Madawaska, to Lake 

 Temiscouata and thence to the French Canadian settlements at 

 Kamouraska had been roughly cut through the unbroken forest 

 by command of General Haldimand thirty years before and during 

 the winter months the English mail from Halifax to Quebec was 

 carried by this route whenever it had been deemed unsafe to send 

 it by way of New York. Couriers travelled it each way once a fort- 

 night in summer and once a month in winter. Lieut. Colonel Harvey, 

 who had arrived at Halifax, being anxious to assume his duties as 

 a deputy-adjutant-general in Canada without delay, had made the 

 journey without much difficulty in the latter part of that month and 

 the first week in January. He reported it practicable for the move- 

 ment of troops when the rivers and lakes were frozen, although the 

 trail was much obstructed by fallen timber and the growth of under- 

 brush. Soon after his arrival at Quebec, an officer of the Quartermaster 

 General's department was instructed to go over it, make the necessary- 

 arrangements for the march, and act as guide. 1 



Every man was equipped with moccasins, snow shoes and a 

 pair of warm blankets. As most of them were natives of New Bruns- 

 wick they were generally skilful axemen and able to build huts for 

 themselves with evergreen boughs. Each file was provided with a 

 toboggan on which they were required to draw their arms, accoutre- 

 ments, blankets and fourteen days' provisions, each day's rations 

 consisting of a pound of meat and ten ounces of hard biscuit. Several 

 three pounders mounted on sleds with a supply of ammunition, drawn 

 by a detachment of Royal Artillery, accompanied the column. More 

 snow had fallen than at any time in the preceding nine winters and 

 it lay seven or eight inches deep on the level. On March 1, the lead- 

 ing company arrived at Grand Falls. The next two days' march 

 was made over a fairly level trail along the river bank, after which 

 the frozen surface of the St. John and Madawaska and Lake Temis- 

 couata, except where the course of the rivers was broken by rapids 

 or falls, furnished a good marching road for almost two hundred miles. 

 The companies invariably marched in single file and every officer 

 and man was required to take his turn in leading the way and breakin;; 

 a path for the same length of time, when he fell to the rear. The march 

 generally began at daybreak and lasted until the middle of the after- 

 noon when a camp was formed in a sheltered spot in the woods. 



The best axemen were set to felling pine trees to form rafters 



for the huts; these were trimmed of all lateral branches and cut to 



fifteen feet. Others trimmed branches and thatched the roof or threw 



back the snow with their shoes till they came to the soil, four or five 



1 Sherbrooke to Prévost, Dec. 14, 1812; Prévost to Sherbrooke, Jany. 27, 1813. 



