THE HEIGHT OF LAND LAKE. 



59 



Eiver, and much encumbered with fallen trees ; by this 

 small stream canoes pass when the water is high, and 

 thus avoid the troubles of the Great Savanne Portage. 



This common dread of the voyageurs is one mile and 

 forty-one chains in length ; it descends 31^ feet to Sa- 

 vanne Eiver, and consists of a wet tamarack swamp, in 

 which moss grows everywhere to the depth of one foot or 

 eighteen inches ; the moss is supported by a retentive buff 

 clay, which is exposed at the western extremity of the 

 portage. The remains of an old road formed of the split 

 trunks of trees, probably constructed in the time of the 

 North- West Company, passes through it ; it is now in a 

 thorough condition of decay. The same may be said of 

 all the swampy portages along this line of route. In the 

 time of the North- West Company, this portage was doubt- 

 less one of the best, considering its length and general 

 character, but now a false step from a rotten or half float- 

 ing log, precipitates the voyageur into eighteen inches of 

 moss, mud, and water. No physical impediment appears 

 to exist which would prevent this portage from being 

 drained at a very small cost, and converted into one of the 

 best on the whole line of route. 



Savanne Eiver, to which it leads, is very rapid a little 

 above the landing place ; but on wading up the stream 

 for about a quarter of a mile, the occurrence of dead 

 water without froth or bubbles, showed that the feeding 

 swamp or lake was near at hand. Savanne Eiver is about 

 twenty-five feet broad here, and it continues a very me- 

 andering and crooked westerly course of about eighteen 

 miles to Milles Lacs, or Lake of the Thousand Islands, as 

 it is sometimes termed. 



Mr. Gaudet, one of Mr. S. Dawson's assistants, ran a 

 line between Jourdain's Eapids on Dog Eiver and the Sa- 

 vanne Eiver in 1858. The first two miles of the line 



