RETURN JOURNEY TO OTTAWA RIVER 139 



Continuing our voyage we journeyed from eight or 

 ten to thirty miles a day, according to what I may term 

 my dead reckoning; for, needless to say, we had no 

 certain means of recording the distances traversed. I 

 consider this, allowing for the number of portages, and 

 the fact that we were paddling against the current, to be 

 equal to nearly three times the distance that might have 

 been covered on smooth water. 



On the 5th May we branched off into a tributary 

 of the Severn, called the Owl River by the trappers, but 

 which was not marked on my map. The reason for 

 doing so was because we were informed that we should 

 in this way make a considerable saving of time and 

 labour by going to the head of this creek and carrying 

 the canoe overland about twenty miles to the head- 

 waters of a second creek tributary of the Albany. For 

 it is to be observed that, having overcome the opposi- 

 tion of my companions, I had determined to return to 

 our huts on the Ottawa by way of James Bay and the 

 Abbitibbe, and not by returning through the great lakes. 

 Two Indians of the party, which gave us this advice, 

 volunteered to accompany us and lend a helping hand. 

 The journey overland may have been only twenty miles; 

 it seemed to me at least forty. It took us three long 

 days to perform it, the whole distance being over rocky 

 hills covered with pine forests ; and we were so exhausted 

 on reaching the second creek that we had to rest two 

 days to recover. 



This creek is named Peerra by the Indians, and it is 

 only a brook of a few inches' depth where we struck it, 

 and we had to drag the canoe five or six miles farther 

 before there was water enough to float it, with all our 

 traps in it. However, we had now a downward-running 

 current, with few rapids, where it was necessary to make 

 a portage. Some parts of the shallows of this stream 

 were choked with a growth of yellow-coloured water-lilies. 



We entered the Peerra on 12th May, and in three 



