CHAPTER IV 



ON THE GREAT CHUKCHILL RIVER 



IT is difficult to measure the distances one travels 

 in passing through new country, so one seldom 

 attempts it. When the question arises of travel 

 about to be undertaken, or that has been ac- 

 complished, one falls back, as a rule, on what 

 maps one possesses to scale off as best one can 

 on a minute scale the straight distances as they 

 are there shown. But such map measurements 

 are at best but rudely approximate, for seldom 

 indeed can one follow a land or water trail 

 directly from point to point, as one assumes 

 the course on the map. Indeed, if one surveyed 

 and laid on paper the actual course of a primitive 

 canoe l in navigating a lake, while keeping land 

 in view and avoiding the unsheltered open lake 

 on which it would spell death to be caught in 

 one of those rapid rising storms of wind so common 

 to the country, one would be astonished at the 

 line that would zigzag and curve in its progress 

 towards its objective, for it would in all proba- 

 bility take along shores of jutting headlands and 

 through bewildering groups of island, that ever 



1 I speak of inland waters that have grown old in their own 

 deep solitude, where stout power-driven sailing-craft are un- 

 known of the kind that coiild surge ahead through all winds 

 and currents and on any course, aided by chart and ship's compass. 



44 



