868 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



|April 28, 1894. 



MAP OF THE REGION ABOUT LAKES TEMISCAMING AND TEMAGAMI. Drawn by H. K. Wicksteed, 1893. 



FIXTURES. 



MAY. 



30. Eastern Div. Meet, Calla Shasta, Connecticut River. 



JUNK. 



10. Hartrord, Spring Regatta, Con- 30. Red Dragon, Spring Regatta, 



necticut River. Delaware River. 



30. Knickerbocker.Spring Regatta 



JULY. 



7-21. W. C. A. Meet, Picnic Point, Lake Mendota, Wis. 



SEPTEMBER. 



8. Holyoke, Ann., Holyoke, Mass. 15. Red Dragon, Fall Regatta, Del- 

 aware River. 



Away "Up North." 



Fringing the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa and ihe Great Lakes to the 

 north, and extending from Labrador to the Arctic Ocean in a belt 

 from 200 to 500 miles in width, lies the great LaureDtian Wilderness 

 one spur of which, crossing the Ottawa, extends south across the St' 

 Lawrence, appearing above water as the Thousand Islands and thence 

 into the State of New York, where it is known as the Adirondacks 

 Throughout its whole extent this country is rocky and broken inter- 

 sected by innumerable lakes and streams, and nearly everywhere it is 

 covered with a dense forest. Here and there are belts of excellent 

 land, and settlements are springing up in a great number of places- 

 but these areas are always limited in extent, and the everlasting hills 

 and rocks are always in sight. 



The greater part of the area must ever remain as it is now— a pic- 

 turesque wooded wilderness— and serve perhaps the noblest of all 

 uses, that of a breathing ground and park for the great, restless over- 

 worked population of the vast plains to the south and west of it and 

 a nursery for some of the greatest rivers of the continent. The writer 

 was born in sight of this wilderness at Quebec, and has spent a con- 

 siderable portion of his life wandering through it, and he never leaves 

 it without a sigh of regret, and never sights it again without keen 

 pleasure. 



This past summer of 1893. it fell to his lot to conduct an exploring 

 party through a portion hitherto almost unknown and wonderfully- 

 picturesque; and as this particular corner is not difficult of access 

 nor very remote from railway connection, he thinks that the readers 

 of the Forest and Stream may possibly care for a brief description 

 of the trip, and that perhaps that young man of Erie who was lately 

 looking for a companion, may turn the bow of his canoe m that direc- 

 tion, if he wants pure air and water, cool nights, good fishing and 

 pretty scenery, with an occasional dash at a rushing rapid "and a 

 tussle with a head wind. In short, to accumulate health and strength 

 nerve and decision, he cannot do much better. 



On the morning of July 12 a small party was gathered on the little 

 makeshift dock at Mattawa, bidding adieu to their friends, the Hud- 

 son's Bay Co.'s factor and his charming family, departing for the Up- 

 per Ottawa. The tug whistles, the last straggler jumps aboard and 

 the nose of the scow swings out into the stream. These are the writer 

 two assistants, three young gentlemen supernumeraries, five axmen 

 and canoemen, and last, and most important, the cook, a good-tem- 

 pered, stout-built, middle-aged French Canadian lumberman, who has 

 settled down with his wife and family as a baker in this frontier vil- 

 lage, but who, like some others of us, felt as if things were not quite 

 right with him unless he had a run in the woods now and again. 



Of the men, two were young Scotchmen who had been in the lum- 

 ber woods for some years, and had long since rubbed off all vestiges 

 of the tenderfoot; they were bold, quiet, hard-working and self^e- 

 specting young fellows, but rather too independent and impatient of 

 control. Henri and Terrine were pure French Canadians, active 

 splendid axmen, good canoemen, civil and obliging. Lastly Gus Pil- 

 lon was a French Canadian with a considerable dash of Indian blood 

 quick as a flash with rifle and paddle, with a great deal of French in- 

 dustry coupled with an Indian taciturnity and sullenness; a useful 

 man but a little difficult to handle. 



Of the young gentlemen, Frank was a rolling stone who had wan- 

 dered across the continent and then to China and back and who 

 although young in years and heart, bad lived and seen much- he was 

 frank, generous, hard-working and very quick-tempered; a lovable 

 character but a trifle unstable. Allan was a half-breed but of a nobler 

 race than Pillon, being descended from the once warlike Mohawks 

 now settled peaceably m the Grand «iyer Valley 



The Indian side of his character was the dominant one. and showed 

 itself constantly in his love of wandering and his rooted dislike to 

 fixed work, and his pertinacity in hunting game of any kind. 



For myself, I am simply a weatherbeaten old stager of some forty 

 summers, who has knocked about too much for his own good, and 

 who gets occasionally restive under the constraints and narrowness of 

 modern civilization and longs for the wilderness with an intensity of 

 longing which is almost uncontrollable. I was almost invariably 

 known among the party as the "Chief." This will probably meet the 

 eye of my two assistants, L. and B., so perhaps it will be safer not to 

 describe them too minutely, and to say no more than that they were 

 loyal and trustworthy and well up to their work. 



The transport service in the upper Ottawa is a somewhat peculiar 

 one. Portages are close together and are crossed by light tramways, 



on which run cars capable of carrying seven or eight tons of stuff. In 

 order to avoid the constant trans-hipment from boat to railway and 

 back again, a wide scow is built and tne track laid on her deck, and the 

 car is run on board with its load and off again at each break in the 

 navigation. The scows are towed by small screw tugs or steam 

 launches. 



Having waved our adieux, we seated ourselves comfortably in the 

 bow of the scow, and lighting our pipes resigned ourselves "to dolce 

 far niente and the enjoyment of the delightful July morning and the 

 wild scenery. On either side were bold mountains, sometimes de- 

 scending sheer into the water, sometimes with a fringe of alluvial flat 

 at their bases. Sometimes a trihutary stream came in through a 

 gloomy-looking gorge, but more commonly they tumbled tumultuously 

 over the bluff, often forming most beautiful cascades. In front was 

 always the great, strong rive-: here, though over 300 miles from its 

 mouth, still from a quarter to half a mile in width, and flowing at a 

 rate which sometimes bothered our little tug, albeit she made a good 

 five or six miles an hour to stem Working the eddies for all they 

 were worth, however, she brought us up the first two-mile reach of 

 the river, and rounding a point, we sight the tumultuous, seething 

 rapid known as the "Cave:" and, pushing our way through a multi- 

 tude of tossing sawlogs which had been caught in the eddy at its foot, 

 we reached the landing. The cars were run off, a veteran horse was 

 hitched to them, and in fifteen minutes we were at the upper end of 

 the half-mile portage and soon speeding over another navigable 

 reach. 



Another three miles brought us to "Les Arables." and to dinner in a 

 shanty at its upper end. whence there was a four mile stretch to the 

 Mountain Rapid. The tug had broken down on this reach and was 

 unable to take us; but after some little delay, two large flatbottomed 

 rowboats were procured, and with these and our own canoes we trans- 

 ported ourselves and our two tons of provisions and outfit, together 

 with the other passengers, to the upper end of the smooth reach. 



The mountain portage is a short one, about one-quarter of a mile. 



and we were soon re-embarked and spinning along over the smooth 

 surface of the Seven League Lake, so called because it is about five 

 leagues long. The sun began to sink in the west and the shadows to 

 lengthen before we came in sight of the Long Sault Rapids This as 

 its name implies, is a rapid, or rather a series of rapids, extending for 

 a long distance, some seven miles in all. and is overcome by a tram- 

 way as usual, but in this case, a tiny steam locomotive does the work 

 of the ancient horse, and hauls a miniature train over a very rough 

 track and across some very crazy looking trestles at the rate of fifteen 

 to twenty miles per hour 



Just as the sun was setting we were landed at the foot of Lake 

 Temiscaming; and, having made arrangements for a passage next 

 morning on the steamer Meteor, we looked for a resting place for the 

 night. The evening was settling, and the wooden shanty which served 

 as a hotel did not look attractive. So spreading the tents out on the 

 ground alongside the track, four of us laid down on them while the 

 remainder made themselves comfortable on the hurricane deck of the 

 Meteor. The sandflies were somewhat troublesome, but on the whole 

 we passed a comfortable night, and after a hearty breakfast we wero 

 quite ready to enjoy the lovely sail of forty miles before us 



The Meteor is a staunch, seaworthy steamer of about 80 tons, with 

 powerful compound engines and a modern equipment. At 7 A M 

 sharp she cast off her lines and was soon ploughing through the blue 

 waters of the great lake Temiscaming. This is an expansion of the 

 Ottawa some 70 miles l^ng by a width gradually increasing from half 

 a mile to 5 miles near its head. Mile after mile we swept along, high 

 mountains to the west, mountains again not quite so high but ex- 

 tremely precipitous on the east. At the Opemican Narrows the width 

 contracts, and for a short distance there is quite a current, so that 

 strictly speaking there are two lakes. 



About 20 miles up th* Keepawa River enters from the east in a wild 

 seething cascade. It is the outlet of the lake of the same name, an 

 extraordinary labyrinth of bays and points, furnishing many miles of 

 navigation. The Ottawa in this neighborhood is said to be of immense 

 depth and looks it; and with its barren, rocky, precipitous shores and 

 dark water extending miles arid miles ahead in an almost unbroken 

 straight line, one is irresistibly reminded of the world-famous Sague- 

 nay. whioh it strongly resembles in every respect. 



All too soon, a huge mountain, standing up bold and solitary on the 

 left hand shore to a height of 800ft., is pointed out to usas overlooking 

 the mouth of the Montreal river; and at 11 A. M. the Meteor's bow 

 grates on the sand and the first stage of our journey is over. We have 

 left steam locomotion behind us, and our progress must henceforth be 

 by dint of our own muscles. 



Flour bags, tents, blankets and impedimenta of all kinds are bundled 

 ashore. We shook hands hastily with the captain and in a few min- 

 utes the Meteor had backed off again and was ploughing her way on 

 again to the north. While the cook was getting a lunch for us, the 

 canoes were loaded, and after a hasty meal we shoved off, the club's 

 canoe, the Nora, leading the way. Entering the mouth of the Mon- 

 treal, we crossed it and proceeded to ascend the Metabetchouan, which 

 enters it a few yards up. The Montreal is a strong river, coming from 

 150 miles or more in the interior: and, like the Keepawa and nearly all 

 the other rivers falling into this lake, it descends very abruptly in the 

 last mile or two of its course; breaking through a narrow crack in the 

 rocks it comes roaring and tumbling over a boulder bed almost into 

 the lake itself. 



Crossing at the foot of these rapids was somewhat nervous work 

 with our overloaded canoes, but was accomplished without accident- 

 and entering the mouth of the Metabetchouan we had practically dead 

 water almost to the first portage, two miles up. Landing the loads on 

 the bank the canoes turned back for a second trip with a crew of two 

 men each, while the remaining four started packing over the portage, 

 this proved a most arduous undertaking, involving an ascent of 300ft 

 in about a quarter of a mile; and for the first 100ft. the slope must 

 have been at least 1 in 2, and clay at that. The afternoon was very 

 warm, and the labor told severely on the boys, none of whom had 

 done any such work for several months. The Chief, thinking to set a 

 good example, swung upon his back a bundle of dunnage, 401bs or so 

 and got one of the men to throw a side of bacon on top; but after 

 several months of city life he found he was not equal to it, and after 

 a, jbrief struggle was fain to leave the bacon and proceed with the 

 bundle alone. 



AH the afternoon we tramped backward and forward over that half 

 ™i', e P or , ta ^< an T d h X, 8 p - M - we fl ad everything over except a few 

 odds and ends. Hastily launching the Nora after supper, we put out 

 a troll andwithm 20yds. of the shore struck a fine bass. The hook 

 was no sooner out again than we got another and in a few minutes a 

 third, when as it was getting dark, we were fain to come ashore and 

 camp under the stars on the little grassy flat at the end of the portage 



At gray dawn tne cook was up and getting breakfast, and a final 

 trip was made over the portage, from the summit of which a magnifi- 

 cent view is to be had. the valley of the Metabetchouan beneath? the 



