60 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



goods therein stored, I left in charge of Andrew Whitting 

 and his wife and daughter. 



The Ottawa was in a dangerous state, full of huge 

 blocks of floating ice ; but we were only on it a few hours. 

 After descending the stream, which had a good current 

 at this time, for about thirty miles, we landed and pre- 

 pared to pass the night ashore ; and a bitterly cold night 

 it proved, with wind and rain, which continued through- 

 out the following day. The whole of this day was taken 

 up in making an eleven miles portage to a small stream 

 which ran into Lake Nipissing, and thence to Lake Huron. 

 The ice in Nipissing had been drifted to the north-west- 

 ward by the wind, but the mouth of the river was blocked, 

 and we were compelled to make a very troublesome por- 

 tage to avoid it. However, once on the waters of the 

 lake we found the centre clear of ice, and made a rapid 

 passage, though not without danger on account of the 

 strength of the wind. The river discharging the waters 

 of Nipissing into Huron was comparatively free of ice, 

 and there was but little in Huron itself. By the time we 

 reached Huron the wind was blowing a hurricane, and we 

 were compelled to lose nearly a week ; for no canoe can 

 live on the great lakes when a gale is blowing. 



It will not be expected that I should give a descrip- 

 tion of this well-known great lake. That would be 

 carrying coals to Newcastle. Cursorily I may note that 

 Huron is one of the deepest of them, being not less than 

 600 feet deep in places, at least; for I failed to find the 

 bottom with a line of that length at a spot outside the 

 Manitoulin Islands. In other places, however, it ap- 

 peared to average from 400 to 500 as the greatest depth. 

 Thousands of small islets throng the waters near its 

 northern shores; and the Manitoulin group contain 

 several large islands, one of them about seventy miles 

 long by twenty broad. The surface of these great lakes, 

 though the water is quite fresh, is never frozen over, but 

 there is sometimes a considerable mass of ice round the 



