NEAR MIDDLE RIDGE. 131 



to the high country, but had to return before we could 

 examine it. That night we decided to separate, Wyn- 

 yard taking the southern side of the lake while Jack 

 and I, with packs, were to travel as far as we could 

 towards Middle Ridge. This Middle Ridge, which 

 may be said to form the backbone of the island, is not 

 so much a single low range of hills as a series of 

 undulating uplands covered with trees. At that time, 

 to the best of my belief, no white man had ever set 

 foot on Middle Ridge, though many had seen it, for it 

 is visible for a great number of miles, presenting as it 

 does almost the only recognisable feature in a broad 

 landscape. We found some difficulty in carrying our 

 packs through the dense woods that lie between the 

 lake and height of land, but at length we took advan- 

 tage of a marsh heading upwards. The rain of the 

 earlier days had now turned to snow driven by a heavy 

 wind from the north, and it was after a tiring pack that 

 we at last put up our camp among an isolated group of 

 spruces in the middle of a wide marsh. By the time 

 this was done there still remained a couple of hours of 

 daylight, which left us time to take a look before night 

 closed in at the new country, in which we hoped to find 

 evidences of a large migration, for time was growing 

 short. November was upon us and the stags would 

 soon be dropping their horns. 



Although we had been covering much of the same 

 ground where I had, during the year before, seen such 

 numbers of deer and secured fine trophies, I was now 

 much less fortunate. I saw no more than a quarter of 

 the number of caribou, and the heads were dis- 

 appointing, but this could partially be accounted for 

 by the fact that the previous winter and spring in 



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