FOREST AND STREAM 
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Lake Desert, a Beautiful Body of Water, About Seventeen Miles Long. 
long portage. There were lots of wolf tracks 
along the shore of the river which indicated 
that the deer would have hard sledding after 
snowfall. 
Again we used no tents. Everyone slept well 
and was in good shape for the trip across to 
Rock Lake the next morning. We traveled about 
seventeen miles and it was a rough hard trip. 
We saw one thing of particular interest on the 
Tomasine River and that was a fine new beaver 
•dam which the beaver had just completed and 
which would be a credit to any engineer. 
Saturday, September 4. Still warm and clear 
with the wind in the south. Started over the 
trail for Rock Lake at seven o’clock. The trail was 
about two miles long, including the crossing of a 
small beaver lake. This particular lake had three 
beaver houses in it which were in splendid con¬ 
dition. 
It was a rough trail to Rock Lake going up, 
over a mountain about six hundred feet high. 
Rock Lake is about four miles long and from 
one and one-half to three miles wide with high 
hills around it. It is evidently a trout lake and 
the water is clear and beautiful. I caught one 
trout going across and missed another one. 
We portaged from Rock Lake about one and 
one-half miles to a small beaver lake on our 
way back to the Tomasine River. It seemed 
strange to leave the river, up which we had been 
traveling, and almost like going out of our way 
to make the portage to and across Rock Lake. 
The reason for this was that the Tomasine River 
for five or six miles is so rapid that it is im¬ 
possible to navigate up or down with canoes and 
the Indians and trappers had made a settled trail 
around these rapids through Rock Lake and 
“back again to the river. Before reaching the 
Tomasine River we crossed two other small 
lakes, one a beautiful trout lake! We did not 
catch any fish but could plainly see them. An¬ 
other was a beaver lake with quite a number of 
beaver in it. It is evident there are still a great 
many beaver in Canada and that they would in¬ 
crease very rapidly if let alone. 
We reached the Tomasine River about 4.30 
P. M. and put our canoes into the water at the 
foot of the upper rapids just below where Lake 
Windfall spills its water into the river. There is 
a little lake at the foot of the rapids and in it 
was a splendid big beaver house. It was only a 
short paddle across this little lake and then an¬ 
other portage around the rapids and into Wind¬ 
fall Lake. 
We camped at the foot of Windfall Lake at 
five o’clock. The weather was still fine and we 
made our beds again in the open with no tents. 
We saw no game, except a few ducks and loons 
and the game tracks were very few. We trav¬ 
eled about fifteen miles, all of which was very 
rough going. 
Sunday. September 5. Weather still fire Left 
camp for trip up Windfall Lake. Windfall Lake 
is a good sized lake with ."'any bays and open¬ 
ings. It is about ten or welve miles long and 
anywhere from one to four miles wide. After 
we had paddled tl rfe or four miles along the 
shore we saw a black bear. We were too far 
away for a shot and when we paddled closer 
Mr. Bear sniffed the air and disappeared into 
the woods. 
From Windfall Lake we entered the Flambeau 
River, a little stream connecting Flambeau Lake 
and Windfall Lake. Flambeau Lake is a shal¬ 
low lake connected by a brook with Staugen 
Lake. This brook or stream was too shallow 
for canoeing and we had four short portages 
before getting into Staugen Lake. Staugen Lake 
is about twenty-five miles long with many islands. 
On our way up Staugen Lake we met two 
canoes with six half breeds in them. They were off 
on a blueberrying trip. There were two women 
in the canoes and four men. At the head of the 
lake they had a small clearing and a rough look¬ 
ing log cabin. The blueberries all along the trails 
were fine and grew in the greatest quantity. We 
camped on a point in Staugen Lake about four 
o’clock. Fished for an hour and caught four 
wall-eyed pike. Traveled about twenty-five or 
thirty miles. Weather warm with the wind in 
the south. Still no tents. 
Monday, September 6. Weather warm and 
wind in southi Broke camp at seven, paddled 
four or five miles to the north end of Staugen 
Lake. Then two short portages into Wolf Lake. 
We crossed a small beaver lake in making the 
portages, and at the foot of this lake was a fine 
beaver dam and the lake contained several beaver 
houses. 
We reached Wolf Lake about 9 A. M. This 
was the finest yet, with clean rocky shores and 
some sand beaches. The lake is full of islands 
and has many large bays and openings. It re¬ 
minds one of the Georgian Bay country. I 
should say the lake was about twenty-five to 
thirty miles long and anywhere from one to 
eight miles wide. I fished a little going across 
but caught only one wall-eyed pike. There must 
be grey trout in the lake; it'looked like the kind 
of water and bottom they like. 
There are still lots of large pine, balsam and 
spruce trees in the country and thousands of 
young ones growing. There is also much hard¬ 
wood ; in fact, some of the hills have hardly any¬ 
thing on them except virgin hard-wood forests. 
In some places there have been fierce forest 
fires, but the country has not been spoiled for 
the second growth of birch, maple, oak, elm and 
poplar, together with some pine, spruce and bal¬ 
sam has grown up in wonderful quantities. 
At the foot of Wolf Lake we met two squaws 
and an Indian child in camp. Their man had 
gone into the bush. The woman, and particu¬ 
larly the little child, were very pleasing and 
seemed glad to see us, although they could not 
speak English. They had with them a tame 
young fox. He seemed to want to play with 
Dave’s dogs. He wagged his tail and acted very 
pleasant but the dogs were not so pleasant, and 
after getting over their surprise at seeing little 
Mr. Fox wanted to chew him. The Indians 
had an old double-barreled muzzle-loading shot¬ 
gun with powder horn and shot bag. As against 
this they had a canvas canoe instead of a birch 
bark. It seemed an inconsistency. 
We paddled about fifteen miles up Wolf Lake 
to Wolf River which flows with considerable 
rapidity into Lake Des Rapids. There were two 
portages around the rapids in Wolf River. After 
leaving the river we paddled up Rapid Lake 
about nine miles In the afternoon the wind 
shifted to the east, which always means rain, 
and we got it just as we were pitching camp. It 
rained only about :.n hour and did not bother us 
very much. This was the first night we used 
our tents. It was warm and sultry and the mos¬ 
quitoes and black flies were very bad. The rain 
stopped about eight o’clock. 
We saw no game during the day except ducks 
