475 



hooks at the end for grappling hold of the ice, 

 and drag ropes. When large sheets of ice op- 

 pose their progress, the met), by nieans of the 

 poles and ropes, which they employ with an un- 

 common ability, get the canoe upon it, and by 

 main force drag it perhaps fifty or sixty yards, 

 or until they find a convenient opening to 

 launch it again among the smaller fragments; 

 and then, using their paddles, they proceed 

 until they are intercepted by another flat, upon 

 which it is again hoisted as before, continuing 

 thus in toilsome succession across the river. 

 Frequently, while they are forcing it over a sheet 

 of ice, their slipperv foundation breaks beneath 

 them; but they mostly contrive to skij) nuiibly 

 into the canoe, and evade the difficulty. Often 

 in pursuing their course through a narrow vein 

 of water between two enormous masses, they 

 are suddenly closed upon; and, at the moment 

 when a stranger would imagine the canoe must 

 be ground to atotns by the collision, they skil- 

 fully contrive, by means of their poles, to make 

 the pressure of the two bodies act upon the 

 ^ower part of their vessel, and, with a little as- 

 sistance of their own, heave it upon the surface, 

 over which it is pushed and dragged as before. 

 They are amazingly steady in this laborious 

 work, and long habit seems to have expelled 

 from their minds every sense of danger : thus 



