44 J 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



Portages. 



Character of 

 country. 



Timber. 



To Pi-mi-ga-ma-chi Lake, lour miles, the course is N. 70 W. This 

 lake is several miles long from east to west, by about one mile broad ; 

 the route leaves it by the river that flows in on its north side, two miles 

 and three-quarters from the outlet, and passes 1ST. W. up that stream 

 three miles to Lake A-wah-a-gets, with two portages past small rapids. 

 From here the river turns S. 78 E., for seventeen miles, to Lake O-ho- 

 mi-ehi-chits, passing through seven narrow lakes connected by small 

 rapids, where the stream is too small and shallow to ascend with 

 canoes. Lake O-ho-mi-chi-chits is cut into three bays by long rocky 

 points ; it was traversed in a general S. 50° E. course to its head, the 

 distance being six miles. Here a low rocky portage, thirty-four chains 

 long, crosses the height of land between Bishop Roggan and 

 A-pa-chi-ch its river, a tributary of Big River; the portage ends at 

 a small lake forty-three chains long. Descending the small brook 

 flowing out of it, for ten chains, another small lake, thirty chains long, 

 is passed through to a portage of twenty chains, over a steep hill to a 

 lake of one hundred chains. The discharge is full of small rapids and 

 causes a portage of half a mile, at the end of which is a navigable 

 stretch of forty chains, followed by more rapids and a portage of eighty- 

 six chains, «fter which the crooked course of the river is followed for 

 eighty-eight chains to Lake Ka-bun-ski-was, which is six miles Ion?, 

 with numerous deep lateral bays. From the outlet of this lake the 

 river is again followed two miles and three-quarters, through two small 

 lakes with rapids between, to a portage of one hundred and thirty-two 

 chains, passing south over a ridge of hills and ending at Sha-tach-i-wan 

 Lake, through which the Big River flows. The A-pa-chi-chits River, 

 below the portage, passes through a deep gorge, and enters this lake 

 one mile and a half east of the portage, by a fall sixty feet high. 



As the small branch scream from Lake Ko-tan-i-wan-an is ascended, 

 the country becomes more and more rocky and rough, with long ridges 

 of hills running parallel to the river valley, massed closely together, 

 having but small areas of swampy valley land between. The elevation 

 of the hills above the surrounding water level varies from fifty to one 

 hundred and fifty feet, as far as the water shed. Beyond this the hills 

 rise from one hundred to two hundred and fifty feet above the general 

 level to Lake Sha-tach-i-wan. These hills have for the greater part 

 been recently burnt over, so that nearly everywhere they present the 

 scorched bare surface of the rock, partly covered with boulders, and 

 scattered over with the standing blackened trunks of trees; the whole 

 having a very desolate, barren look. On the unburn t portions small 

 black spruce and tamarac predominate along the lower parts of the 

 branch, but are in a great measure replaced by small banksian pine as 

 Big River is approached. A few small white birch and aspen pop- 



