312 
FOREST AND 
STREAM 
this expedition was owing to the many trips that 
had to be taken over each portage, whenever the 
canoes were unloaded to carry round the falls 
or through the thick woods often a dozen times 
a day. One or two trips over a portage is all 
right, but repetition does not make it less hard. 
Our outfit, at this time, made eight good loads 
of 75 pounds each, in addition to the canoes. 
September 5th. Led off with a half mile carry 
across marshes to Lake C, which tends east and 
west, so we merely crossed the end and carried 
o'er a rocky marsh three-quarters of a mile to 
Lake D, where we had lunch. Saw a caribou, 
which we wanted, as our meat was about gone, 
but he saw us too and made off. Lake D is a 
part of a large lake from which it is cut off by 
two narrow ledges of rock, over one of which, 
we lifted the canoes after partly unloading them. 
In high water, these ledges are doubtless covered. 
The country here is sprinkled with small lakes 
or ponds, separated by anywhere from 300 yards 
to halt a mile of rough country, and everywhere 
the land is strewn with boulders, small ones and 
immense tilings, no heavy timber, merely patches 
of trees. 
Coming along a tongue of the lake, Bolling 
spied a caribou and headed the canoe to go 
ashore, when the caribou came up a little draw 
about 75 yards away. Bolling fired. The bullet, 
as we afterward saw, passed through the right 
shoulder and would have killed him, but he 
swung around and ran down hill, when the sec¬ 
ond shot hit just right, going through the heart. 
As ^ the water was rough under the canoe, Boll¬ 
ing’s shooting was very satisfactory. The men 
called this young stag a pricket, which is inter¬ 
esting as showing the survival of Shakesperian 
English in the less frequented portions of the 
western world. Bolling came across this use 
of the word some days afterward while read¬ 
ing “Love’s Labor Lost.” 
. From llere - we came out into Lake E, which 
is four or five miles long by a mile wide, tend¬ 
ing south southwest by east northeast, a beauti¬ 
ful body of water stretching up into the hills 
to the westward. We crossed it to the outlet 
which was hard to find, owing to many long 
meandering arms. The stream running out was 
v\ ide, shallow and filled with rocks. Dragged 
the canoes a few hundred yards of sharp pitch 
and went ashore for the night, making our¬ 
selves comfortable before a large fire. This was 
our first day on waters flowing south to Mael- 
paeg. Lakes A and B drained northwest into 
bourth Lake. 
Almost every day, our clothes to the waist 
were wet from having been in and out of the 
water, to say nothing of rain on about every 
third day, so that they had to be hung up to dry 
alongside the fire at night. The fire would go 
out before they were dried, and in the morning, 
t 'ey were apt to be frozen and had to be thawed 
before putting them on, the dry set taken off 
and put in the water-proof bags to slip on the 
next night. 
The limited time at our disposal forced us to 
travel as fast as possible and not to camp in the 
■evening until there was barely time to cut fire¬ 
wood and erect tents before dark, and in the 
morning be away again as soon as the equip¬ 
ment could be packed and put in the canoes. Had 
we had more time and not been so tired, it 
would have added greatly to the pleasure of the 
trip to have tried the fishing and spent time in 
properly hunting the country. 
September 6th. About 1130 a. m„ I was roused 
by a shout from Jones and waked to a great 
glare of roaring fire. The tent used by the 
guides was in flames, and for a few minutes, it 
looked as if our tent would burn also as the two 
were touching each other at one corner. It was 
only three 01 four minutes until the fire was all 
over. There was nothing left whatever of the 
small 4 x 7 tanalite Baker tent used by the men, 
except a few charred ends of small rope, not a 
piece of fabric as big as a dollar. The guides 
both had painful burns. Jones’ left hand was 
badly burned down to the flesh all across the 
back, and \\ ill’s left hand was blistered and all 
the left side of his forehead and part of his 
A Rough Carry of a Quarter of a Mile. 
cheek were blistered and scorched. His eye¬ 
brows were singed short and his beard, mustache 
and hair all showed marks of flame. As he 
burst out of his tent, a piece of the burning 
fabric fell over his head, and thus he got the 
more severe burns. Their blankets were not 
burned at all, but loose clothes and oilskins all 
showed marks of fire. Our tent had a few holes 
at the bottom edge and my sleeping bag cover 
had large holes at the foot. The tanalite canoe 
covers, on which the men had been sleeping, were 
pretty riddled with burns. As the little tanalite 
Baker was low, only about 4 feet high, in the 
rear deep and narrow, it is a wonder that the 
men were not more seriously burned. They were 
both pretty well shaken but took the big Baker 
tent, and wrapping up in it, laid down again at 
about 2130 a. m. 
We got up late, the guides looking as though 
they had been in a bar-room brawl. I dressed 
Will’s burns with the absorbent gauze from a 
first aid packet, after washing them with a strong * 
solution of bi-chloride of mercury. The bi¬ 
chloride solution was mixed in an aluminum pan 
which had corroded so vigorously that the pan 
continued to flake off until afternoon, and when 
Will saw it at lunch time, he was greatly per¬ 
turbed, thinking that a solution of such strength 
would surely ruin him for life. We did not 
get off until 10:45 a. m., and packed down the 
stream over the stones three or four hundred 
yards until we came into small pools and ponds 
separated by short rips, and finally made a pack 
of a third of a mile, broken by a pond, across 
which we ferried our canoes. This brought us 
into a good size lake, Lake F. It had begun to 
rain hard, was very cold and soon the rain was 
mixed with snowflakes, and our hands became 
numb on the paddles. Had some trouble to find 
the outlet as the stream was full of boulders and 
progress very slow, but soon came to falls where 
we cooked lunch in the rain, on the right hand 
bank. After lunch the sky cleared, and we 
packed and dragged down over the falls, the 
clay getting better all the time. While landing 
to spy out the outlet of the lake, we saw a flock 
of a dozen geese in a pond below us some 400 
yards away, but from lack of cover, it was out 
of the question to creep on them, and the shots 
from this distance were without result. Going 
on, we camped again on the right hand bank half 
a mile down river below another falls. I|* 
From all indications, this was not too bad a 
place for caribou, so leaving the men to make 
camp, Bolling and I took our rifles and went up 
to the top of a small hill nearby. In the dusk, 
we could just see a stag with what appeared to 
be a fair head some little distance away, and 
we set out to get to him, but he saw us and 
worked over behind the top of a ridge. Think¬ 
ing, at the rate he was going, we could make 
up the necessary distance with his lordship on 
the other side of the ridge, we made a spirited 
quarter-mile dash over the tussocky barren, but 
the stag went us one better, for after topping 
the ridge, he loosened up just sufficiently to go 
over a more distant ridge as we panted over the 
near one. 
September 7th. Bolling was up at 5 a. m. to 
look for caribou. It was clear and cold with a 
heavy frost and ice on the little pools. The 
gold widdie,” a low bush that grows, plenti¬ 
fully, holds an astonishing quantity of water on 
its leaves, and the climb to the lookout was wet 
work, but no deer. 
Leaving this camp, we had a few hundred 
vards of fair water and then a rough carry of 
a quarter of a mile down the bed of the stream 
over rocks, great and small, with water every¬ 
where among them. The gentle exercise of jump¬ 
ing from rock to rock with 60 or 75 pounds on 
one’s back was one of the many parts of this 
trip that helped set one up, and in this case, 
caused a downfall, of which, I would give much 
to have a picture. I had just made up a load of 
three big duffle bags in my harness, preparatory 
to taking it down over the rocks. Standing the 
pack on a large rock, with water mostly all 
round and four feet deep, I sat down on the rock 
1 
