184 Moose -Hunting in Canada. 



guage. Indians and half-breeds, who never heard French spoken in 

 their lives, greet each other at meeting and parting with the saluta- 

 tion "bo jour" and "adieu." And so the word "portage" has come 

 to be generally used to denote the piece of dry land separating two 

 rivers or lakes over which it is necessary to carry canoes and bag- 

 gage when traveling through the country in summer. Sometimes it 

 is literally translated and called a " carry." Another French word, 

 " traverse," is frequently used in canoeing, to signify a large unshel- 

 tered piece of water which it is necessary to cross. A deeply laden 

 birch-bark canoe will not stand a great deal of sea, and quite a heavy 

 sea gets up very rapidly on large fresh-water lakes, so that a long 

 " traverse " is a somewhat formidable matter. You may want to 

 cross a lake, say five or six miles in width, but of such a size that it 

 would take you a couple of days to coast all round. That open 

 stretch of five or six miles would be called a " traverse." 



The number and length of the portages on any canoe route, and 

 the kind of trail that leads over them, are important matters to con- 

 sider in canoe traveling. A man, in giving information about any 

 journey, will enter into most minute particulars about them. He will 

 say, " You go up such-and-such a river," and he will tell you all 

 about it — where there are strong rapids, where it is very shallow, 

 where there are deep still reaches in which the paddle can be used, and 

 where you must pole, and so forth. Then he will tell you how you 

 come to some violent rapid or fall that necessitates a "portage," and 

 explain exactly how to strike into the eddy, and shove your canoe 

 into the bank at a certain place, and take her out there, and how 

 long the "portage" is ; whether there is a good trail, or a bad trail, 

 or no trail at all ; and so on with every " portage " on the route. 

 Carrying canoes and baggage across the " portage " is arduous 

 work. A birch-bark canoe must be treated delicately, for it is a very 

 fragile creature. You allow it to ground very carefully, step out 

 into the water, take out all the bales, boxes, pots, pans, bedding, 

 rifles, etc., lift up the canoe bodily, and turn her upside down for a 

 few minutes to drain the water out. The Indian then turns her over, 

 grasps the middle thwart with both hands, and with a sudden twist of 

 the wrists heaves her up in the air, and deposits her upside down on 

 his shoulders, and walks off with his burden. An ordinary-sized Mic- 

 Mac or Melicite canoe, such as one man can easily carry, weighs 



