exhaustion—sleep in the face of hordes 
of singing drillers persistently looking 
for an opening. 
AN exasperated swing of an arm and 
the carefully sealed blanket barri- 
cade was broken—the vocabulary of a 
mule driver was tried and found want- 
ing. 
But now—Man!—The blankets were 
thrown wide to the 
cool winds—and not 
a mosquito. 
Sandy Beach re- 
established the mo- 
rale of the men and 
our belief in the de- 
sirability of living— 
so that before noon 
we drew up into the 
head of the lake and 
located the portage 
that was to lead us 
over the height of 
land and down into 
the Bell. 
Years Wa g0,-a 
group of heavy log 
cabins had circled in 
a great clearing at 
the beginning of the 
portage. The post 
had been abandoned 
and another located 
near the center of 
the Grand Lake sys- 
tem, upon a bald, 
broad - shouldered 
peninsula that cut 
into the labyrinth of 
islands and bays. 
A half dozen 
trails left the clear- 
ing in as many di- 
rections. 
One, a clearly de- 
find path, broke 
away into the tim- 
ber and led up along 
the course of a tum- 
bling little brook. 
This we followed 
with the packs for a 
fair mile—#it was 
one of the finest 
trails of the sum- 
mer. 
And well it might 
be— it used to be the 
main artery over the 
height of land. It was the Bay trail 
and kept open by Indian hunters. 
HE Company Post was the law, the 
social and economic center of the 
north country. Through their log 
fortresses passed the barter of civiliza- 
tion for the treasures of the forests and 
waters. This trail connected the coun- 
try of the Hudson Bay watershed with 
Page 267 
that of the Ottawa and the St. Law- 
rence. 
Then man had decided to step civili- 
zation ahead a hundred years and had 
stretched two bands of steel boldly 
through the unbroken forests north of 
the height of land. The steel trail con- 
nected the Eastern seaboard with the 
developing plains of Alberta and Sas- 
katchewan and the north Pacific coast. 

Above—The canoe fleet makes a landing 
Below—A log jam has obstructed river traffic 
Ninety miles down the Bell, the Can- 
adian National R. R. had cut across the 
river and left the boom town of Notta- 
way on its bariks. 
Whether Nottaway had _ prospered 
and grown after its first boom or dwin- 
dled to a station and tumble-down 
frame buildings we did not know. At 
least there was a station there because 
we had shipped 250 pounds of grub 
there from a wholesale house at Ot- 
tawa. We were depending on that 
grub. 
OW, as we swung over the brown, 
needle-carpeted trail, we tried to 
vision Nottaway—real white bread 
with butter that was not ninety per 
cent. lard and bacon grease, pies, cakes 
and—candy. I’d have walked a mile 
for a gum drop. That 
was what Nottaway 
seemed to mean to 
us. To be sure we 
had chocolate with 
us—but that was 
emergency ration. 
When a man has de- 
veloped a habit of 
nibbling candy and 
sipping sodas in his 
spare time—it’s a 
sudden wrench to 
his sweeth tooth to 
be thrown upon a 
ration of beans and 
pan bread, with his 
only sweet in the 
form of sugar on his 
corn-meal mush and 
in the camp cake. 
We were still a 
week from Notta- 
way, but this last 
upward trail chang- 
ed our thoughts 
from memories of 
the strawberry pie a 
la mode of Ottawa 
to the anticipation 
of the questionable 
tables of Nottaway. 
A good trail is a 
short trail and it 
seemed but a jaunt 
before we swung out 
into a small clearing 
— the conventional 
portage end—on the 
banks of one of the 
prettiest little lakes 
I’ve ever seen. 
The water was of 
the coolest clear 
crystal shade of the 
gem aquamarine — 
not the cold flash of 
the diamond, but the 
refreshing cool spar- 
kle of the delicate 
blue-green gem. White clouds re- 
flected perfectly in the mirror-like sur- 
face and heavy plumed bushes hugged 
the water and banked to an even height 
the wandering shore line. Back of this 
green ruffle border ranked tall pines in 
dark, stately grandeur. 
Only the insistent attack of gather- 
ing hordes of “skeets’” hurried us to 
breaking the mirror surface of this 
