36 ALL AFLOAT 



naturally tend to seek the deepest and safest 

 channel just as the body of the water does. 

 Split channels must be met by instant decision ; 

 and it is when picking out the proper one 

 that steerage way tells. As the pace of the 

 rapid increases, so does the danger; for the 

 slightest false thrust of a blade is enough 

 to make a canoe swerve or upset. But, with 

 the expert bowman on the keenest of look-outs 

 and the course under the knowing touch of 

 the still more expert steersman, a rapid may 

 be run in perfect safety through racing waves 

 which only just fail to leap aboard, on roaring 

 water which drowns the human voice so 

 completely that the bowman can only make 

 use of signals, past rocks and snags on which 

 a single graze would mean a wreck, and, often 

 the worst of all, from one wild ' throw ' to 

 another with quite a different set and a wrench 

 of two fierce currents where they meet. 



All the white man's boats used by the 

 voyageurs approximated more or less to the 

 shape of the canoe : the various kinds of 

 Hudson river dug-out, the bateau, the 'Dur- 

 ham,' and the ' York,' which last became the 

 wooden successor of the birch-bark after 

 Governor Simpson's general inspection of the 

 Hudson's Bay domain. Only the rather barge- 



