LENGTH OF CHURCHILL RIVER 45 



interrupt and change the route of travel ; and 

 add many hours' labour to the patient voyageur. 

 Over land it is the same ; one works forward to 

 a distant objective, for ever on the look-out to 

 avoid the rougher going — thick undergrowth, 

 swamps, muskegs, and such natural obstacles — 

 and endeavouring to obtain the most comfortable 

 and progressive route that the local conditions 

 of the country offer. 



Maps show the distance that I have canoed on 

 the Great Churchill River— or "The English 

 River " as it is locally called — from lie a la Crosse 

 Lake eastward to its junction with Reindeer 

 River, to approximate 276 miles ; while beyond 

 the point of my departure from it it continues 

 easterly another 540 miles before it empties into 

 the sea in Hudson Bay. This is sufficient to 

 make clear that it is a mighty river in length, 

 as it is also mighty in breadth and volume of 

 water. 



Throughout its course the Churchill River is 

 an extraordinary series of wide lake expansions 

 linked together by gateways and glens of mag- 

 nificent river where waters gather in indrawing 

 volume to enter, and hurry, and tumble, and 

 roar in their wild escaping onward, ever onward 

 to the next lake, and the next, in their 

 incessant, time-set journey to the sea. 



On the section of the river on which I travelled 

 there were no fewer than sixteen large and 

 beautiful lakes, ennobled by solitude, rich in the 

 undefined and the mysterious of the Unknown : 

 each resembling the other in that they were gems 

 inset in the one type of fair green forest country 

 5 



