BS2 
FOHEST AND STREAM, 
[May 7. 1904. 
ters, peach jam and tobacco for dessert, with songs and 
stories, and turned in at 9:30 P. M. We had no flies, no 
mosquitoes or vermin of any kind. 
Sunday, August 23. It was quite cold in the night, and 
we enjoyed our heavy all-wool blankets. We left at 7:30 
A. M. The scenery was steadily growing in beauty. We 
passed a most interesting Indian camp. This savage had 
left his valuables, including a Hudson Bay gun and an 
ax and two canoes, where anybody could take them. No 
one touched them. It would have been a degenerate 
white who would have taken advantage of this trustful- 
ness of the Indian. 
We met only two human beings on our long trip — two 
Indians paddling up the river. The developments going 
on on both lines of the Canadian Pacific Railway and on 
the Grand Trunk Railway give employment to the Indians 
in summer, and they hunt all winter. 
There is a short-cut a couple of miles below this In- 
dian camp which saves a couple of miles, but at very low 
water it might pay as well to go around the ox-bow in the 
river. 
At the west end of the second small lake on the port- 
age we dined on a very nice camping ground. At the 
portage at the east end of this lake we lost an ax and 
have called that the "Lost Ax Portage ;" thus do many of 
these portages receive their names. We had much good 
scenery and swift water to-day. The Echelon Bluffs, at 
whose feet we paddled, were particularly inspiring. One 
could not help comparing them to the palisades of the 
Hudson, and generally very much to the latter's disad- 
vantage. - 
Split Rock Portage, where -we slept, was a particularly 
pretty and even more interesting camping ground. There 
are fissures in the rock- wh'icb': suck the water under 
ground. It comes up again with- a great spurt at the foot 
of the falls. Some one has htlfi^ a beaver in stone — a 
work of mother nature — on a tree, which makes a striking- 
landmark. We had a good bed here, although jack pine 
boughs made the springs. They are not as good as 
balsam. We had long passed the grumbling stage now, 
everything was good. 
Monday, August 24. We selected a high' sandy bank for 
dinner to-day. The shade was deficient and the sun hot, 
so that we v/ere uncomfortable. Aleck and Linklater had 
made a bet as to the number of portages between Split 
Rock Portage and the old Hudson Bay Post on Green 
Lake. HBC on the map means Hudson Bay Company, 
or Here Before Christ — "you pays your money and you 
takes your choice." Aleck, to win his bet (or so the 
malicious among us said), took us on another merry-go- 
Lower Minnesinaqua Lake. 
round journey, circumventing unnecessarily an island in, 
the river to save one portage (see the loop below Split 
Rock Falls), and thus won his bet. There are six port- 
ages going that way and seven the direct way. There is 
nothing made by going around this island when there is 
no bet up. Aleck's dodge helped to convince me that the 
Irdians are of Asiatic origin, and Japanese at that. 
We slept that night on the northern main shore about 
a mile past the island on fairly good camping ground. 
It began to rain just as we had finished putting up our 
tents, and rained pretty hard all night. We never were 
caught in a bad raifi during all this trip, except on the. 
last day, and then we took it from choice. 
Tuesday, August 25. We started at 8 :30 A. M., so that 
our outfit of tents, etc., might have a chance to dry. 
There was a mist and it was clammy, but it is better to 
travel in a light rain than tO' stay about a wet camp We 
had good waterproof wraps in which to put our blankets, 
v;hich never got wet. 
We went out of our way nearly a mile to dine at the 
old Hudson Bay Post on lower Green Lake. It proved 
uninteresting, and we do not advise anyone to go in 
there. 
During the afternoon it cleared up and we had a de- 
lightful paddle through Minnesinaqua Lake, which is 
entrancingly beautiful. It has many bits of very fine beach. ; 
Its name means the lake of the islands and points, and 
It well deserves the name. Here I had one of the black- 
backed jackfish break my greenheart rod. I treated him 
as I would any other pike, but I made a fatal mistake. 
Any other pike that I have ever had dealings with would - 
have been thoroughly exhausted after our interview, but 
v/hen this one saw the landing net he made a dash away 
so quickljr and so powerfully that the reel could not pay 
out fast enough, and the old Maltby rod that had come 
out victor in so many contests was worsted. Maltby was 
the Montreal rod maker who had on his sign the words, 
"God save the Queen and all good honest fishermen." 
He is in the happy hunting grounds now, R. I. P. 
Wednesday, August 26. About midway through Min- 
nesinaqua Lake at the Narrows we climbed a high bluff 
and took views eastward and westv/ard over the lovely 
island-dotted expanse. I have put together a twelve-foot 
picture (by means of three enlargements) of this spot of 
which I : am proud. Our camp, four hundred feet below 
us, was most picturesque. We did not take time, how- 
evW, to photograph thoroughly. W^ tool? om shot the 
bluff opposite our camp. The trip down the lake until it 
narrows into a river is most enjoyable. It is rapid, ex- 
citing, and yet safe. I have never seen river scenery so 
free from monotony. There are three portages between 
Minnesinaqua Lake and the junction of the Wenebegon 
"Mississaga Gorge or Tunnel." 
River Avith the Mississaga River. There are fine side 
trips from Lake Minnesinaqua, notably that running 
north from about the middle of that portion of the lake 
wJiich is above or east of the narrows. We had no map 
of Minnesinaqua, and Aleck made me one. We had be- 
L'un to think about this time that, present environments 
considered, our guides were better men than we were. 
"Worn out." 
The junction of the two rivers, the Wenebegon or Win- 
nebago and Mississaga, is a beautiful spot. That the 
Wenebegon River route is the most direct and rnuch the 
shortest from the main line of the Canadian Pacific Rail- 
way to the Mississaga, one can see by the map. Is it 
more interesting? I will know next year. 
A couple of hours paddling with the help of a good 
"Another quiet bit" — Mississaga River. 
current brings you to Aubrey Falls, the grandest feature 
of the trip. Take the first turn to the left (or south) 
as you go down in your canoe as soon as you hear the 
roar of the falls. Half way across the stifif portage you 
turn to the right on the crest of the hills and walk over 
to these magnificent falls, one hundred and sixty-five 
feet high and broken into a multitude of fantastic shape^, 
Weird, fascinating, awe-inspiring,r I do not know any 
cataract that surpasses it in interest. We arrived late 
and had no sun, and yet our pictures are good. Most of 
these were laken with a little four by five camera, so that 
the field is open to the photographer who will take up a 
good assortment of 8 by 10 plates and lenses to suit and 
choose his light. I did not wait an hour for good light 
anywhere. We had had a most enjoyable, if fatiguing, 
day when we lay down to sleep at Aubrey Falls that 
night. The roar of the falls had become sweet and dis- 
tant rnusic to us a few seconds after laying our heads on 
our pillows. 
Thursday, August 27. About twenty-three miles, we 
think it to be, of fast, exciting water nearly all the way 
from Aubrey Falls to Three Island Rapids. A charming 
day we have had, a day to think of in the coming years 
when we are old and will have to stay in by "our ain 
fireside." I hope mine will be in the forest primeval—a 
forest of pines and bearded hemlocks in sight of a river, 
a waterfall, and a lake. Indeed, I have chosen such a 
spot, and it is at the end of this trip between Slate Falls 
on the Mississaga and Lake Waquekobing, half a mile 
therefrom ; but of these places anon. 
About this day's quota of our trip I must say that we 
found 'the start at Aubrey Falls and the finish at Three 
island Rapids, and every mile between, to furnish a little 
better canoeing, a little more rapid water, a little more 
excitement, and a little more of the picturesque, than any 
we had done anywhere before. We arrived rather late 
at Three Island Rapids to make good pictures, and in 
the morning the sun was in the wrong quarter. Three 
Island Camp has beauty, convenience, and piles of good 
dry wood, no mean item in the make-up of a good camp. 
We had had some wet rapids during the day and dried 
our clothes very thankfully at Three Island Rapids before 
big camp-fires. We left plenty of wood to burn for those 
v/ho come after us. 
Friday, August 28. Rather regretfully did we leave our 
csmp, but we realized that we had to economize time and 
money. We would have liked to stay here and use our 
8 by 10 plates and make some good pictures. As it is, 
we must be satisfied with what our 4 by 5 camera caught 
for us in poor light. 
It is a short and interesting half day's journey from 
Three Island Rapids to Squaw Chute. There is plenty Of 
rspid water and good scenery. We recommend broad 
csnoes and short, say fourteen to fifteen feet long and 
tliree feet beam, with good stout paddles for the rapids, 
it is nearly all down current or slow water. Squaw 
Chute is a fine waterfall. There is a good portage' on the 
Indian Graves — Upper Green Lake. 
rfght or west side, and a shorter or rougher one close to 
the fall. We found a garden here with good potatoes, 
lettuce, cabbage, and other green things. We did a very 
little pillaging, for which we would have left money if we 
could have found a place to leave it in. After dinner two 
hours' paddling brought us to the "Tunnel," as it is lo- 
cally called; It is a striking feature. It is not a tunnel 
but a gorge, and the finest we have seen this side of the 
Rocky Mountains. There are one and three-quarter miles 
of it. We hired a team here from one of the few but 
prosperous settlers in this northern border settlement 
called Wharncliffe, Ont. There is a post-office here. The 
ttam took our three canoes while we walked and photo- 
graphed the Mississaga gorge. There is only one portage 
between Squaw Chute and Mississaga Gorge. There is a 
fairly heavy sea in one of the rapids we ran, and canoes 
should not be overloaded. Better have one man walk 
around than fill a canoe with water. 
Saturday, August 29. We slept at the lower end of the 
Mississaga Gorge. Two hours of easy paddling brought 
us down to Slate Falls, the best water-power on the Mis- 
sissaga. There are valuable copper mines and timber 
about these falls, and good fishing and shooting as well. 
L^nfortunately for us it rained hard and incessantly here, 
so that we could neither fish, shoot, nor photograph. It 
was a keen disappointment to us, as we met fishermen 
here who told us that both the bass and trout were biting 
vvell in the fine lakes that abound all about the falls.. We 
had our first inside of the tent meals during the trip here 
at Slate Falls. We used up fifteen minutes in shaving, 
with a tin plate for a glass. Some of us would have liked 
to have waited at Slate Falls for good weather, but Dap- 
per Bill's house was only three miles away. Our appe- 
tites were keen, and he told Cornell and the Sportsman 
that his wife was a great cook, and there was Algome 
mutton and jelly and baked potatoes and apple pies, etc., 
to be had at six o'clock. This won the majority of votes 
and we started for civilization. After dinner we portaged 
a half mile, from below Slate Falls into Waquekobing 
Lake, a beautiful sheet of clear water ten miles long by 
two to four wide, full of bass and lake trout, as we were 
told by Cincinnati fishermen who have a permanent camp 
there. It is only five miles from Waquekobfng Lake to the 
Soo Branch — or Soo Pacific Line — of the Canadian Pacific 
Railway at Dayton Station^ We might have continued 
down the river- fourteen rniles to Dean Lake Sitation, twQ 
