THE TRIP UP ROSS RIVER 263 



to come, when you will be paddling down with the 

 current. 



It was quite necessary to kill game as quickly as possi- 

 ble for a food supply. We spent the morning erecting 

 the tent and drying everything that had been soaked in 

 the wreck, and after eating another fish for lunch, poled 

 two miles up the river to Field Lake. Thousands of 

 ducks and geese were floating on its glassy surface, its 

 shores were fringed with thick spruce timber, and all its 

 numerous beaches were bordered by tall green grass. We 

 paddled around the shores in the hope of seeing a moose 

 until nearly dark, but were disappointed. When we 

 reached camp, half a dozen white fish were in the net. 

 Salmon were running up the river between the two lakes, 

 but the net was too light to hold them. 



August 29. In the morning the net had yielded four 

 or five white fish and I found in the traps, which had been 

 set the day before, four red-back mice, Evotomys dawsoni. 

 Crossing the river I started up toward some fairly high 

 plateau-shaped mountains east of the lake, hoping to find 

 a moose at the head of the draws. For three hours I 

 toiled through thick woods and brush to timber-line, and 

 then climbed the highest point of the mountain, from 

 which I could command a view of the whole country south 

 and east. Moose signs were abundant below, but above 

 the timber there was no sign of sheep or caribou. 



The three lakes were directly below me beautiful 

 lakes, each somewhat circular and about two miles in di- 

 ameter, all buried between mountains. On the east is 

 a range of rounded mountains of a subdued type, three 



