24 
BULLETIN OK THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
Canaan Station for the purpose in August 1913. The geogra- 
phical relations of the two rivers (see the large map given 
earlier in this Note) suggest that the portage probably left 
the Canaan at the big bend in the meadow east of the railway 
track, and this supposition seemed fully sustained by local 
information which I was given. Here, in full view from the 
railway, the winding Stillwater stream comes to within a 
hundred yards, across open firm meadow, from low open 
rocky upland, which offers a most suitable opportunity for 
landing and camping. I accordingly mapped the surround- 
ings upon a large scale with much care.* Later, however. 
I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Eugene Bernard, a life- 
long resident of Canaan Station, a man much interested in 
all local matters; and he assured me that he remembers 
the portage when the path was still plain all the way across, 
running in green woods long since burnt away; and that it 
actually left the Canaan somewhat less than half a mile 
west of the railway, at a place about one hundred yards 
westward of the Forks where Fork Stream enters, the place 
shown approximately on the large map accompanying this 
Note. Mr. Bernard also writes me that he has interviewed 
another of the earliest settlers at Canaan Station, who tells 
him independently the same thing, — that the portage path 
started just west of the Forks west of the Railway. Such 
a supposition agrees as well with Layton’s map above mention- 
ed as does my earlier view, in fact somewhat better; and 
I am ready to agree that such other data as we possess is 
in agreement with Mr. Bernard’s information. In reply to 
my query why the Indians would leave the stream at this 
point and then travel for half a mile or more parallel with 
and near it, Mr. Bernard suggests that in those days the 
very small narrow and crooked stream above the Fork would 
be so densely choked with alders as to be practically impassable 
This seems to be reasonable, even though I know through 
what dense alders, and up what tiny streams, the Indians 
sometimes travelled on their portage route; (e. g. : the Wagan 
and Wagansis on the Grand River-Restigouche route) ; and even 
if this route were not actually impassable, it might be much 
less labor to carry along the upland than to navigate the 
small winding encumbered stream. Unfortunately I did not 
receive this information in time to allow me to study this 
starting place for myself, but this I hope later to do, and to 
*The little stream shown on the Geological map as extending northeastward from this 
angle, does not exist. 
