56 j 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



Route to 



Clearwater 



Lake. 



Portages and 

 fall. 



and falls, through a gorge in the Laurentian Hills. Owing to the 

 difficulty in passing these, the route to Clearwater Lake ascends the 

 smaller stream a short distance and then passes overland to that river, 

 reaching it a point beyond the highly obstructed part. The 

 Wiachtiwan River, one mile from its mouth, has a sheer fall of three 

 hundred and fifteen feet. To pass this, a portage two miles and 

 twenty-five chains long is made over the hill on the north side. The 

 highest point on the portage is five hundred feet above the sea level. 

 One mile beyond, a fall of fifty-five feet causes a second portage of 

 seventeen chains. 



Above this the river averages forty yards in breadth, and winds 

 through a valley half a mile wide between rounded gneiss hills which 

 rise from three to five hundred above it. 



The river was followed eleven miles and a-half in a general course of 

 S. 80° E. Here a portage of one mile, fifteen chains, follows a small 

 tributary stream to the north up from the valley to a small lake on the 

 table-land above. The difference in elevation between the ends of the 

 portage is three hundred and fifty feet. 



This stream flows from the east two miles and three-quarters through 

 five small lakes connected by five small rapids, past which small port- 

 ages are made, to a height of land portage of forty-eight chains that 

 ends in a lake drained by another tributary flowing into the Wiachti- 

 wan River farther to the eastward. 



The route passes down this lake two miles to its outlet, where a 

 portage of eight chains is made past a small rapid to another lake one 

 mile and a-half long, followed by a portage of thirty-five chains to a 

 large lake seven miles long, the course from the height of land portage 

 being directly east. 



Four portages of four, ten, seventeen and twenty-three chains con- 

 necting lake traverses of twenty-eight, eighty and eighty chains lead, 

 in a north direction, to a large lake which drains in the Clearwater 

 River. This lake is five miles and a-half long from east to west, with 

 an average breadth of half a mile ; it is broken by a number of deep> 

 narrow bays at either end, parallel to the general course of the lake. 



The route crosses from the head of the most northward bay at the 

 east end by a portage of twenty-eight chains over a low hill into the 

 small stream which empties it. This stream was descended in a north- 

 west direction two miles and a-half, and there left on the north side by 

 a portage of twenty-four chains, up a steep hill to a small lake half a 

 mile long, from which a portage of live chains was made to Clearwater 

 River. 



A quarter of a mile up the river, an island one mile and a-half long 

 divides it into two channels, the north channel was ascended past three 



