THE SASKATCHEWAN NATIVES 



33 



bourgeois of the Northwest Company walked across the por- 

 tage and were taken prisoners by the superior force lying in 

 wait at the cove. These gentlemen were confined for some 

 time on a small round island — now called Prisoners' Island — in 

 the middle of the stream, and then taken to York Factory, 

 where they were treated with great cruelty. 



In the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the 

 present century, six to eight hundred men were sometimes 

 encamped at this portage. Then, the narrow lane cut through 

 the forest was worn by the feet of dark-skinned porters. Now, 

 the silence is unbroken save by the chickaree and the impudent 

 whiskey jack, and the path is grass grown. The little clearing 

 contains a few mounds with crumbling crosses that mark the 

 resting place of a few "unknown." 



During the summer months the rapids are frequented by 

 double-crested cormorants, white pelicans, and large numbers 

 of ring-billed gulls. 



In 1877 the Company built a tramway, nearly four miles in 

 length, from the steamboat landing below to the river a mile 

 above the head of the rapids, at which point dwellings and 

 warehouses were built. Four miles above are the Roche Rouge 

 Rapids; river steamers ascend these by the aid of lines and don- 

 key engines. The heaviest rapids besides the Grand Rapids, are 

 those of the Demi-charge, thirteen miles above "The Portage,'' 

 as the buildings at the head of the tramway are called. At the 

 foot of Demi-charge, lies Calico Island, so named in 1872, when 

 the first river steamer went to pieces in the rapids and her 

 cargo, containing a large quantity of calico, was spread out upon 

 the island to dry. Seven miles above the Demi-charge Rapids 

 is another stretch of rough water and beyond this the short and 

 narrow "steamboat channel," leading out of Cedar Lake. On 

 the south bank, near the rapids, two or three crumbling chim- 

 neys mark the site of a long abandoned trading station called 

 the "Flying Post." 1 In 1892 two Indian cabins stood upon the 

 lake shore near the channel, affording a convenient shelter for 

 passing travelers, as they were about halfway between the posts. 



Fifteen miles from the Narrows, the boat route turns sharply 



iHind calls this station "Cedar Lake House, a winter trading post of the 

 Hon. Hudson's Bay Company, lately established," etc. Report on the North- 

 west Territory, 1858, p. 76. 



