
Skill and coolness are prime requisites in this sport 
E came through the rapids one 
\X/ at a time each drawing over 
into the eddy at the bottom to 
dump out water and to watch the next 
man, hesitate at the top, shift for a 
position and then come charging down 
the watery stairway. 
The greatest danger of canoeing does 
not lie in not knowing how to swim. It 
is quite customary and popular 
for timid hearts and uninformed 
minds to murmur a dark warn- 
ing when a canoe is mentioned. 
This stupid fear is on a plane 
with the conventional fear of a 
snake—more people are killed 
from ingrowing toe nails than 
from snakes, unless it be from 
fright. 
Of course there is some dan- 
ger in canoeing—that is part of 
the fun. Two years before we 
had come down the Gatineau 
river—which flows from the 
height of land down to the city 
of Ottawa. 
At the “Recula” rapids there 
was a ten foot “cellar” and 
comber which turned “Doc’s” 
canoe completely over end for end— 
throwing him out the back way. That 
was all rigit—he got wet. But at the 
foot of the “Recula,” the whole channel 
of the river drove the canoe rapidly 
across a sma‘: circular cove and dropped 
it over the “Cat Path’—a tumbling 
twenty foot falls, to break it up on a 
pile of rocks. 
OC was stubborn—and would not 
leave the canoe to its splintering 
fate—he swam down stream after it, 
stuck with it and dragged it out just 
at the edge of the falls. The “Cat 
Path” would have made mince meat of 
him. 
cluded in this issue. 
the chapters 
Then there was the “Des Eau” rapids, 
fifty miles below the “Cat Path.” A 
shoulder of rock had piled up a mound 
of logs which threw the water to each 
side into deep shore channels. 
It was not a bad rapids and I was 
the only one of the gang who filled. 
I held the paddles in one hand and 
grabbed the canoe with the other. Cur- 
HUUUIINLVUUUTUUVUTOUU TUT 
Hubert Foote’s series of articles is con- 
This last paper gives 
the reader a vivid picture of real “white 
water” 
thrills of mascalonge fishing. 
voyage covered 1,000 miles, but we leave 
the party at Nottaway, believing that from 
that have gone before, 
one may secure a good idea. of the 
character of 
canoe work and _ describes 
the 
JUILLET UT 
rents were bursting to the surface in 
huge boils and sinking into whirlpools. 
It is always well to hold to the canoe, 
swimming with it down. through the 
rapids—many times I’ve saved it from 
breaking up on the rocks—so that when 
the canoe, caught in a whirlpool, sank 
as though pulled to the bottom by a 
rope, I went down with it, trailing at 
arms length like the tail of a kite. I 
could see the water getting darker as 
I went down. The channel was about 
twenty-five feet deep. The canoe 
stopped and I felt as though I was 
standing still in mid-air except that 
tangled cross currents tore at my arms 
and legs, in every direction as though 
the 
In all, the 
Quebec wilderness. up 
Mosquito, 
Moose 
and 
Mascalonge 
Canoeing Thru Canadian 
Wilds—Conclusion 
By HUBERT G FOOTE 
to tear me apart and wrench the canoe 
and paddle from my grasp. 
A VAGUE light area far above 
showed the surface—in the dark- 
ness huge indefinite black forms shot 
towards me and passed. I realized that 
I was near the bottom and huge 
boulders were flashing past. There 
was the danger—of crashing 
against one of these grim “tomb- 
stones”—breaking arms, legs, 
ribs—forcing the breath from 
me. It brought me out of my 
dreaming and I felt my lungs 
straining for air. An upward 
current caught the canoe and 
flung us toward the surface—up 
through a fairyland of confused 
bubbles and froth. 
I had time for one big gasp 
of air; a comber closed over my 
head and I went down for an- 
other submarine ride, to come 
in the swirling, surging 
eddies at the foot of the rapids. 
Even in these cases the dan- 
ger was more in the circum- 
stances than in the canoe. Run- 
ning a rapids is a quick succession of 
urgent problems, problems that must 
be solved in an instant and then cast 
aside to make room for another one 
that rises in front. There is no time 
to think “Oh, how I wish I had made 
that portage.” It’s “Where now?” and 
before the question can be voiced it 
must be answered and on you go. 
ls a great fight—it’s much as it 
must have been in the old days of 
hand to hand warfare—in the bloody 
thick of it, with the thunder and strife, 
the crashing armor and the flashing 
steel on all sides. It was parry and 
thrust—guard and slash—now a strain- 

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