A Sportsman 413 



The trip of twenty-two miles through the woods and 

 nine miles up the Richardson lakes was entirely com- 

 fortable and free from touches of King Frost. It was 

 slow going, however, from the necessity of breaking 

 out the road and testing the ice, consuming four hours, 

 including the stop of an hour and a half midway for 

 lunch and warming up at the foot of the lake. 



During our stay of two weeks we had but few 

 mornings when the lowest marking of the ther- 

 mometer was above zero. On January 5 three of 

 our party left to meet friends at Montreal. The 

 marking of the thermometer was 14 degrees below 

 zero at their time of leaving, ten o'clock, for Andover, 

 and closing at night 8 degrees below, but the trip was 

 made without any discomfort whatever. The night of 

 January 4 was the coldest of any, there being a perfect 

 gale of wind from the northwest all through the night, 

 with the thermometer 18 degrees below zero, but the 

 morning opened still and clear, and comfortable 

 enough. 



A gale of wind with the thermometer nearly 20 

 degrees below zero constitutes unmistakably a bliz- 

 zard, which would be fatal to human life unless some- 

 what protected from its fury. In our case, although 

 the camp was openly exposed upon the lake shore to 

 the full blast, we experienced no inconvenience. With 

 double windows and large fireplaces in every room, 

 filled to repletion with consuming birch and maple 

 we were hardly conscious of the extreme cold outside, 

 and passed the evening in witnessing the theatrical 

 entertainment given by the children. To be sure, the 

 cold gale was searching, and, despite the fires con- 

 tinued through the night, it found out the water 



