262 THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



five hundred pounds. The water was low and very fav- 

 orable for both poling and tracking. Our actual travel- 

 ling time, after deducting all stops, from the Pelly River 

 to Lewis Lake was sixty-six hours and five minutes. Of 

 this time, we poled the boat for forty-one hours and fifteen 

 minutes, and towed it for twenty-four hours and fifty 

 minutes. This included forty-five minutes in going 

 through the Skookum Rapids, twenty-five minutes the 

 heavy rapids two miles above, and one hour and fifty 

 minutes in portaging around Prevost Canon. 



A few words about poling up the swift tributaries of 

 the Yukon. Jefferies called poling "bucking the current," 

 and I have not heard it better expressed. The river glides 

 and races steadily, strongly, resistlessly. Even when two 

 men are using poles, one in the stern, the other in the bow, 

 they simply push against it. It is continuous, downright 

 hard labor, with only slow progress as a reward, for the 

 boat creeps slowly upward, and when overcoming the 

 numerous riffles it barely moves under exhausting effort. 

 Like any other hard physical labor, you soon become ac- 

 customed to it and acquire a swing, but the expenditure 

 of muscular energy is none the less fatiguing. There is, 

 however, one satisfaction. After you have settled down 

 to the continuous strain all day, now going faster in the 

 eddies and slower reaches of the current, now going slower 

 in the swifter water, and again barely moving as you rap- 

 idly chug your poles on the rocky bottom and pull with 

 heart-breaking effort, you finally go on the bank to camp, 

 and looking down the river realize that you are putting 

 a long stretch of country behind you for delightful days 



