DOWN THE PORCUPINE RIVER 221 



what Firth had told me it was less than three hundred 

 miles to Rampart House, but he was referring to the 

 sledge trails which do not follow the river and are much 

 shorter. I had been told that at Rampart House I would 

 be sure to find Indians whom I could hire with their 

 canoes to paddle me rapidly the remaining two hundred 

 miles to the Yukon. 



My Indians had said there was a possibility that I 

 might fall in with some fishing Indians or some moose 

 hunters almost any time. If fishing, they would be 

 camping beside the river, but if hunting moose they 

 might be some distance back. They told me to watch 

 carefully for smoke inland, for if Indians have the luck 

 to kill a big moose, and more especially if they kill two 

 or three, they will camp by the kill to smoke-dry the 

 meat. They had also told me that at this season of 

 year I might find some bad rapids in the river and had 

 warned me to be careful. 



With these two ideas of moose-hunting Indians and 

 possible rapids in my head I found excitement in round- 

 ing each curve in the river, for the next stretch held the 

 promise of an Indian smoke and the threat of a rapid. 

 These uncertainties helped wonderfully to pass the time, 

 but occasionally I would get into a placid stretch where 

 I could see the river below me for a mile or two ahead 

 and where the current was only half a mile an hour. 

 These were undeniably tedious spells, even if they gave 

 me the best possible chance to study the scenery. 



Although I was still a hundred miles north of the arctic 

 circle, I found the scenery here not very different from 

 that of the Athabasca River, a thousand miles farther 

 south. I suppose the trees along the Athabasca must be 

 stouter and taller but as you travel along the river you 



