204 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



a launch owned by Fred Bunce. We were soon off across 

 the lake, but not before we had seen the long tow of 

 our friends, who had made an earlier start from mile 

 twenty. Their three rowboats strung out behind a 

 launch were already several miles before us. But the 

 ''Bat" swiftly covered the narrow lake, twenty-four 

 miles long, and arrived at its lower end, Cooper Creek 

 Landing, just as the other men pushed off from the dock 

 to run down the river. 



Cooper Creek Landing was a city consisting of three 

 or four tents, and a few hundred yards below them a new 

 cabin erected by one Schultz, whose hospitality we 

 accepted for lunch. At the landing our launches left us 

 and returned to the railway station while we prepared 

 to run the eighteen miles of swift Kenai River, which 

 drained the upper lake into the lower or Skilak Lake. 

 Thanks to careful navigation through the numerous 

 rapids and around the threatening rocks, in the swift 

 current which sped at an average of about six miles an 

 hour, we reached the mouth of the river three hours 

 after we started fom the landing, without loss or damage, 

 although some of the boats shipped several large waves. 

 Every boat except our two stopped for an hour or so at 

 Frank Young's mining camp, about a mile below the 

 landing, with the result that we beat most of them down to 

 the lower lake. Only Crit Tolman passed us, because 

 he had had an Evinrude motor attached to the stern of 

 his dory, and with this most convenient little device 

 he drove the boat bow first through all the rapids in safety. 

 We, having only oars, must perforce go down through the 

 bad places stern first in order to be able to row against 

 the current and keep off the rocks. But not so stout 

 Ben Swesey, who declared that he believed a boat was 



