2io HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



Pierre's House on the Bell River to the west, or at 

 Rampart House on the Porcupine to the southwest. He 

 knew the mountains between thoroughly. There were 

 two ways open: One was to get a canoe, go a few miles 

 down the Peel River to the mouth of the Rat River and 

 then up the Rat about three days' journey, paddling, 

 poling and tracking the canoe. We would eventually 

 come to a portage over which the canoe could be car- 

 ried to the Bell River. The men who accompanied me 

 would then return on foot and I would paddle the canoe 

 down the Bell and Porcupine to the Yukon. But this 

 canoe route was hardly open to me because there were 

 no good canoes for sale just now at Macpherson. That 

 practically limited us to the "portage route." 



The portage route was a footpath leading about eighty 

 miles west over the mountains to the Bell River. In the 

 early days when the Hudson's Bay Company had posts 

 on the Bell and Porcupine Rivers, the freight to supply 

 these used to come down the Mackenzie to Macpherson 

 and was then carried by porters over the mountains to 

 La Pierre's House. It was the feet of these porters that 

 had made the trail which we were now to follow. 



Firth told me many interesting stories about the old 

 portaging days. The goods of the Company used to be 

 made into ninety-pound packages each of which was 

 known as a "piece." They would employ no man in the 

 portaging who could not make eighty miles in four days 

 carrying in addition to the ninety-pound piece whatever 

 he needed in the w;»y of food and bedding. Many of 

 the men could carry two pieces or 180 pounds, and Firth 

 had known thn four who would carry three pieces 



each and their food for four days, a rifle, and some 

 ammunition, a frying pan, teapot, and even sometimes 



