V THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE TRIP 93 



where a day's walking invariably necessitates wading through 

 endless streams and marshes about half-way up to the knee, 

 and the only alternatives are the wearing of long thigh 

 " gum-boots," in which walking is a misery, or everlastingly 

 filling one's short boots with ice-cold water. 



Our first business after reaching the lake was to search for 

 any fresh traces of bear. Signs there were in abundance, 

 such as well-worn trails around the lake, places where bears 

 had pulled out salmon on its banks, and great excavations 

 where they had been digging along the sides of the foot-hills. 

 But, alas, not one of the signs was fresh, the evident fact 

 being that all these traces dated from the previous season. 

 Further search on the hills revealed a few tracks on the snow, 

 all many days old. That there were bears here at certain 

 times of the year was evident, but that there was probably 

 then not one within miles of the lake, we were fully satisfied. 

 Where, then, could they be ? 



Now the position of the lake was curious. Although 

 situated close to the head of the river up which we had 

 come, there was no stream connecting lake and river. It 

 was exactly on the divide between our valley and another 

 through which a large river flowed into the Bering Sea. We 

 estimated that sea to be between 30 and 40 miles distant 

 on the other side of the Peninsula. Out of the lake flowed 

 a small stream into the Bering Sea river which was not 

 shown on any map then issued, but I afterwards discovered 

 that this river flowed into Port Haiden in the Bering Sea and 

 was called by the natives the Meshik River. By this route 

 the salmon reached the lake, but not till late in the summer. 

 Here then was, as we believed, the solution of the problem, 

 and therewith the utter blasting of our hopes of obtaining a 

 good lot of bear skins in the spring before their pelts became 



