250 DOUGLAS' JOURNAL 



as I observed last night, I found it to be eleven. Here were four Indians 

 gathering from the pines a species of lichen, of which they make a sort of 

 bread-cake in times of scarcity. In their camp were horns of Black-tailed 

 deer and one pair of Red, or stag, the first I have seen since I left the coast. 

 The last eleven miles of the lake due east. Drift-wood is seen on the rocks, 

 10 feet above the present level. On leaving the lake the river returns to its 

 natural breadth about 150 yards, and continues with a swift current for 

 a mile, when it again gradually widens out into a second lake, neither so 

 broad nor deep as the one already mentioned. For fifteen miles the shores 

 are low sand and gravel, with low points or necks of land chiefly wooded 

 with Pinus Larix 1 and P. canadensis 2 ; under their shade a species of 

 Lunaria is just peeping through the ground. Pinus resinosa is no longer seen 

 on the banks. This part the course is west of north. At the termination 

 of the fifteen miles the country becomes still more broken ; bolder shores. 

 The timber is of more diminutive size and the lake widens out into bays 

 on both sides, about three to four and a half miles broad. The canoes of 

 the natives here are different in form from any I have seen before ; the 

 tinder part is made of the fine bark of Pinus canadensis, 2 and about 1 foot 

 from the gunwale of birch-bark, sewed with the roots of Thuya, and the 

 seams neatly gummed with resin from the pine. They are 10 to 14 feet 

 long, terminating at both ends sharply and are bent inwards so much at the 

 mouth that a man of middle size has some difficulty in placing himself 

 in them. One that will carry six persons and their provisions may be 

 carried on the shoulder with little trouble. Weather at noon pleasant ; 

 thermometer 55 in the shade ; chilly towards evening. Camped on 

 the right near a high rock of pure white marble. A mile on each side of 

 the lake stumps and entire dead trees stand erect out of the water ; by 

 some change in Nature the river has widened. The same thing occurs 

 ten miles above the Grand Rapids, 148 miles from the sea. Our distance 

 to-day is thirty-one miles. 



Sunday, 22nd. In the grey of the morn, at four o'clock, we were on the 

 water and pleasantly pursuing our journey, it being calm and the lake fine 

 and smooth. Slight frost during the night ; noon fine and warm but 

 cloudy, which continued throughout the day. Crossed over to the right 

 side and passed two points a little beyond the latter in a gravelly bay 

 where we stopped to breakfast at nine, having already gained fifteen miles. 

 This part of the lake has bold rocky shores. Course north and by east. 

 Four miles further on the right there is a remarkable rock 240 feet high, 

 perpendicular, of blue limestone on a substratum of granite. From this 

 point one of the most sublime views presents itself : nine miles of water 

 about five miles in breadth, having on the left a projecting point resembling 

 an island and a deep bay on the right, with lofty snowy peaks in all 

 directions. Contrasted with their dark shady bases densely covered with 

 pine, the deep rich hue of Pinus canadensis 2 with its feathery cloudy 

 branches quivering in the breeze, and the light tints but more majestic 

 height of Pinus Strobus exalting their lofty tops beyond any other tree of 



1 Larix occidentalis, Mast, in Journ. R. Hort. Soc. xiv. p. 218. 

 1 Tsuga canadensis, Mast., loc. cit., p. 255. 



