186 NARRATIVES. 



map, being full of lakes and streams. It was said to be out 

 of the range of settlements ; was unoccupied by trappers. 

 The choice was between this locality and going on forty or 

 fifty miles to the Madawaska region. The latter was far be- 

 yond the range of the white trappers, and occupied by Indians 

 who were unfriendly to intruders. We decided for Salmon 

 Lake. 



How to get to Salmon Lake was the next question. There 

 were no roads ; at least we could hear of none. There was 

 no navigable river. We shouldered our pack-baskets and 

 rifles, and explored. An old winter lumber-road, which was 

 said to run nearly to the point we wished to reach, was first 

 tried. We followed it two miles and a half, most of the way 

 over burnt and fallen timber, and through a swamp half-leg 

 deep in water, the rain in the mean time coming down in a 

 steady drizzle on our heads. At last we came to an old lumber 

 shanty, and camped for the night. As this shanty was a fair 

 specimen of the lumberman's usual habitation, I will briefly 

 describe it. It was about twenty feet square, seven and a 

 half feet high at the sides, and nine and a half feet at the 

 peak of the roof. Each side was built of five great logs, some 

 of which were two feet in diameter. The roof was made of 

 split logs hollowed into troughs, and placed in this position : 

 \S^^5^" All the cracks and holes were compactly filled 

 with moss. The chimney was merely a crib of six-inch sticks 

 laid up log-house fashion from the roof, and placed directly 

 over the centre of the building. It was four or five feet 

 square at the base, and served the double purpose of carrying 

 off the smoke and lighting the shanty. The fire-place was an 

 altar of soil and stones surrounded with timbers, raised a foot 

 or more from the floor, directly under the chimney. There 

 were no windows. Around the sides were two tiers of sleep- 

 ing-bunks. All through the Canada woods, wherever there 

 is good pine timber, these shanties may be found. They are 

 occupied in winter by twenty or thirty lumbermen, and after 

 the timber is all culled, and transported from the vicinity, are 

 abandoned. 



We cleared out the rubbish from the shanty, built a fire, 



