UP THE ASHTIAPMOUCHOUAN 215 



in length, force the frail craft tediously and foot by 

 foot up the stream. Often does the current appear too 

 heavy for the canoemen to stem, and the birch-bark 

 can only be held for a while stationary, or may even, 

 at times, be driven backward. The picture illustra- 

 tive of these difficulties is from a photograph by Mr. 

 Archibald Stuart. When one recalls how little un- 

 toward motion is required to overturn one of these 

 canoes, the peril and excitement of a trip of this kind, 

 with two men standing up in the birch-bark in the 

 midst of heavy rapids, may readily be imagined. In 

 order, again, to avoid the most treacherous portions 

 of some of these rapids, it is at times necessary to 

 ascend them where they are so shallow that the 

 canoemen, and perhaps the angler as well, must 

 step out and push the canoe up-stream. After a se- 

 ries of such rapids and two more portages the canoe 

 glides easily over la grande eau morte a long stretch 

 of dead water forming a lake from half a mile to a 

 mile wide. On the right bank of the river, at the head 

 of this lake, is the portage to Lac a Jim. This portage 

 is usually reached on the third day after leaving Lake 

 St. John. For twenty miles above are a long series 

 of rapids known as the Pemonka Rapids, exceedingly 

 heavy, and running at the rate of fifteen miles an 

 hour. In some places the guides have so much diffi- 

 culty in finding the bottom with their poles that they 

 call them the pas de fonds, or bottomless rapids. Near 

 their head the Riw&re a la Loutre, or Otter River, 

 falls into the stream on its right side. By ascending 

 this tributary for a mile and a half a fall of thirty 

 feet is reached, at the foot of which very good trout- 



