130 CANADIAN ENVIRONMENT OF THE OUANANICHE 



not possibly be ascended with loaded canoes. In the majority of 

 places where the water is broken the rapids are very shallow and 

 filled with large boulders that in the descent appear to rush at the 

 canoes, while a constant crossing and recrossing of the stream must 

 be made to escape the shoal water. Besides these almost contin- 

 uous rapids, that extend nearly to the river's mouth, three hundred 

 miles below, there are a number of direct falls of considerable gran- 

 deur, and four canons, where the river narrows and rushes through 

 steep, rocky gorges. The second is the finest I have ever seen, and 

 if the falls on the Hamilton River are better they are very wild 

 indeed. The river descends with a fall of thirty feet into a gorge, 

 varying from thirty to one hundred feet wide, with perpendicular, 

 and, in many places, overhanging, jagged, rocky walls that rise 

 three hundred feet above the rushing torrent. This gorge is about 

 a mile and a half long, and terminates with a fall of one hun- 

 dred feet into a circular basin, where the water is all churned 

 to foam. From this basin a narrow channel leads into a second 

 and larger basin thirty feet below, into which the river precipi- 

 tates itself in a decreasing series of enormous waves. Below for 

 five miles the banks remain perpendicular, and from one hundred 

 to three hundred feet high. The total fall is three hundred and 

 fifty feet, and deducting one hundred and sixty feet of direct fall, 

 the descent in the canon is one hundred and ninety feet in a mile 

 without any break. We had a hard time getting past this obstruc- 

 tion. The only place where we could get down was by the gorge 

 of a small stream flowing into the larger basin at the foot of the 

 narrow gorge. This small stream has a small canon of its own, 

 where it joins the main stream with perpendicular walls two hun- 

 dred feet high. Near its junction the walls have fallen in and com- 

 pletely blocked the stream for one hundred and fifty yards with 

 great masses of rock piled up seventy-five feet above the water, 

 which, in trickling through below, falls twenty-five feet. We had 

 to carry our canoes and outfits over this obstruction, and the diffi- 

 culty of the task may be imagined when it took us over half a day 

 to pass that one hundred and fifty yards, and each one in the party 

 had his clothes and person more or less damaged. When we got 

 into the valley we did not know how soon we might have to crawl 

 out again, as the river below rushes along with heavy rapids, and, 

 having a sharp bend, we could not tell what was coming. Luckily, 



