14. Bird- Nesting 



CHAPTER IV. 



T five o'clock next morning we arrive at Rat 

 Portage, which has a population of one thousand, 

 and several large saw mills, the products of which 

 are shipped westward to the pi-airies for the use of 

 the farmers in building their homesteads. The countr}" 

 about here is verj^ rocky and the scener}^ is of the 

 wildest description, and deep rock -bound lakes are always in 

 sight. The Lake of the Woods is the largest body of water 

 touched by the railway between Lake Superior and the 

 Pacific, and is famed for its beaut}'. It is studded with islands 

 and is a favorite resort for sportsmen and pleasure-seekers. 

 Except towards the south-west, where a wide "traverse" of 

 open water makes the Indian scan the sky before he ventures 

 out in his canoe, it is so filled with islands that to the tourist 

 it appears a wondrously beautiful river rather than a lake. 

 Land and forests are around him all the time. The traveller 

 now gets a glimpse of the beautiful, after passing through 

 hundreds of miles of unutterable dreariness. He is near the 

 dividing line of the Laurentian and the alluvial regions ; and 

 before he bids farewell to the Laurentides they burst into 

 scenes of rare picturesqueness. At Rat Portage the Lake of 

 the Woods is drained by the Winnipeg river, which forms 

 numerous cascades and water-falls in its descent. At the 

 eastern falls the river, compressed between beautifully-stained 

 granite rocks, rushes impetuously into a boiling caldron,'[at the 

 side of which is a quiet eddy where an Indian is seen with a 

 hand net scooping up magnificent white fish. The western 

 fall is a long, broad rapid with a drop of five feet. These 

 falls are only the first of an almost interminable series of 

 rapids and cataracts down which the river leaps on its way to 

 the great Lake Winnipeg. A canoe trip with Indians from 

 Rat Portage down to Lake Winnipeg is frequently taken by 



