124 THEOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



was hard to tear one's self . away from such a wonderful 

 structure as this, the most striking feature of its kind on 

 the whole river. 



Farther on, escarped banks, consisting of boulders and 

 pebbles imbedded in tenacious clay, rose to a great height, 

 their tops clothed with rich moss, and wooded with a close 

 growth of pine, the hollows being full of delicious rasp- 

 berries, now dead ripe. 



By and by we encountered the Long Kapids — ^Kaukinwauk 

 Powestik — and, some hours afterwards, entered the Middle 

 Kapid — Tuwao Powestik — ^the worst we had yet ■come to, 

 full of boulders and sharp rocks, with a strong current. 

 Very dexterous management was required here on the part 

 of steersman and bowman; a snapt line or a moment's 

 neglect, and a swing to broadside would have followed, and 

 spelled ruin. 



It was evening before this rapid was surmounted, and all 

 hands, dog-tired with the long day's pull, were glad to camp 

 at the fodt of the Boiler Kapid, the next in our ascent, and 

 so called from the wrecking of a scow containing a boiler 

 for one of the Hudson's Bay Company's steamers. It was 

 the most uncomfortable of camps, the night being close, and 

 filled with the small and bloodthirsty Athabasca mosquito, 

 by all odds the most vicious of its kind. This rapid is 

 strewn with boulders which show above water, making it 

 a very " nice " and toilsome thing to steer and track a boat 

 safely over it, but the tracking path itself is stony and firm, 

 a fortunate thing at such a place. There are no exposures 

 of rock at the foot of this rapid; but along its upper part 

 runs a ledge of asphalt-like rock as smooth as a street pave- 

 ment, with an outer edge as neatly rounded as if done with 

 a chisel. This was the finest bit of tracking path on the 

 river, excepting, perhaps, the great pavement beneath the 

 cliff at the Long Eapids. 



In this region the river scenery changes to a succession 

 of cut-banks, exposed in all directions, and in almost all 



