Forest and Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1912. 
VOL. LXXVIIL—No. 19. 
127 Franklin St., New York. 
A Canoe Trip in Keewatin 
By REV. ARTHUR SANTMIER 
W HILE a missionaiy at Oxford House in 
the great Hudson's Bay region, I once 
received an urgent request from my In¬ 
dian assistant at God's Lake, some ninety or more 
miles distant, to come at once and officiate at his 
marriage ceremon3^ Evidently the poor man was 
sorely smitten, and the case was an urgent one, 
so without delay I made the neces¬ 
sary arrangements. 
At the time of receiving this 
•request I was busily' engaged in 
rebuilding the church and had a 
large number of men at work. 
Although near the close of May 
the lakes were still covered with 
ice and the rivers were but late¬ 
ly freed from their crystal cover¬ 
ing. Men were scarce, traveling 
.perilous, my work on the church 
imperative, but when no other 
clergyman was to be found with¬ 
in a radius of 150 miles, the re¬ 
quest of my brother was not to 
be put aside. 
On May 25 at a little after 
eleven we started on the difficult 
trip. There were no available 
men, and so I considered myself 
fortunate in securing the services 
of an Indian Ijy the name of 
Albert. This man was at one 
time an expert canoeman, York- 
boat hand and guide, but by rea¬ 
son of broken health and old age 
his strength had largely be¬ 
come weakness, and he could 
neither portage a load nor paddle with the 
strength of the ordinary' canoeman. 
Albert possessed a small Peterborough canoe 
of the racing type that had been set aside by 'the 
Hudson’s Bay Company when it was no longer 
safe. As it sat very low in the water, it could 
not stand rough weather as could the canoes of 
the God’s Lake Indians, which were strongly 
constructed of birchbark. 
About 200 pounds of baggage was loaded into 
the little boat, and we pushed off into the lake 
back of Oxford House in the midst of a terrific 
squall of wind and snow. After crossing this 
lake our course lay down the rapid Trout River, 
a shallow stream broken by a number of rapids 
and one large fall. Two of the company's canoes 
were ahead, and by 2 o’clock we had crossed our 
first portage and caught up with them. 
This portaging presented unusual difficulties. 
Our canoe, although a small one, was water- 
soaked and consequently very heavy. Albert 
could not portage it alone and so together we 
carried it across the portages after first having 
transferred our loads. 
Being stationed in the bow of the canoe and 
not being familiar with rapid water, we had 
frequent narrow escapes from smashing up on 
the numerous rocks that dotted the rapids! The 
day was bitterly cold and frequent squalls of 
snow and sleet, with high wind, not only im¬ 
peded our progress, but drenched us to the skin 
and so benumbed the hands that with difficulty 
we could hold the paddles. 
The beautiful Trout Falls was passed in the 
midst of a heavy fall of rain and shortly after¬ 
ward we emerged upon Knee Lake. It is about 
sixty miles long and of varying width, and is 
dotted with many beautiful islands. We camped 
on the shore of this lake not far from the river, 
and a dreary camp it was. Everything was wet, 
and there was no time in which to dry our cloth¬ 
ing or bedding. During the night a light fall 
of snow covered the camp and we awoke early 
to find that another stormy day had dawned. 
We also found ourselves frozen to the ground 
and had to literally pry ourselves loose from 
the mossy rocks. 
The canoe leaked badly and the first work at 
each stopping place was to unload and overturn 
the canoe to let the water run out and then to 
search for new leaks. These, when found, were 
stopped by applying melted pitch from pine trees. 
The Indian method of finding leaks is a novel 
and original one. By running his mouth along 
the seams and strongly sucking 
at suspected points, he can easily 
locate the leak and determine its 
size by the amount of air he can 
suck through. 
Our food consisted of tea with¬ 
out sugar, a few pounds of coarse 
flour and whatever game and fish 
we could kill by the way. Ducks 
were quite plentiful, but wild and 
hard to shoot. Rabbits, however, 
were numerous, and sufficient 
were secured to prevent starva¬ 
tion. 
While rapidly passing down the 
first ten miles of Knee Lake, dur¬ 
ing a lull in the storm, the sun 
came out to show us in all its 
loveliness the scenery of the lake, 
but the situation soon changed; 
the^sun became obscured by heavy 
cloud masses and very soon our 
progress was delayed by a solid 
field of ice extending clear across 
the lake. By following a narrow 
crack close to the shore and 
finally by portaging across a rot¬ 
ten ice floe, we reached the clear 
water and paddled straight down 
the lake to the mouth of Wolf River. For the 
remainder of the day frequent storms of great 
fury annoyed us, and at times threatened to in¬ 
terrupt or possibly to terminate our journey. 
At about 2 • o’clock the twenty miles of Knee 
Lake were left behind us and we started to as¬ 
cend Wolf River. At the very outset we were 
cut off by troublesome rapids and were obliged 
to make a half mile portage. These rapids were 
disturbed by large numbers of suckers forcing 
their way upward to the still waters above. At 
the head of this rapid was a fish weir, or trap. 
This is simply a chute made of poles so tilted 
that the current runs up the slide and then drops 
through between the poles. Not so the fish; they 
are carried up as far as the current goes and 
left on the poles, one or two cross sticks pre¬ 
venting their return down the slide. This is an 
Indian contrivance, and as the stream is dammed 
at this place, and the slide is the only outlet, it 
