
The fur-trading posts are neat and orderly... 
Canoeing to James 
OU will recall from the story in 
Y the August issue our hazardous 
position on the sand bars, with 
the incoming tide approaching at ex- 
press train speed. Would it overwhelm 
us and sweep us out of existence or 
reach its level and swirl harmlessly 
around the shores of our miniature 
island? 
The tide was due to be high at three 
A. M. At twenty minutes to three it 
had passed the high tide line, two min- 
utes after the water was pouring over 
the lower portions of the bar on either 
side of the tents and spreading out in 
a sheet over the swamp behind us. 
Our camp was now a tiny island in the 
midst of the swirling eddies. Just as 
I was about to shout to the Captain 
and Tom to pull out their blankets and 
jump into the canoe, the advancing 
flood stopped ten feet from the tents, 
held its own a few moments, then 
slowly began to recede. We were safe; 
I crept quietly back into the tent and 
slept peacefully. 
UT it was two long days and two 
nights before the wind and waves 
abated sufficiently to permit us to leave 
the bar. In the meantime our water 
supply began to run low, so we tramped 
for hours through the swamp and open 
muskeg beyond, looking for fresh water. 
Perhaps the water shortage was a 
blessing in disguise, for it gave us 
plenty of exercise and something to 
By H. R. HUBBARD 
think about beside Relativity, the 
Quantum Theory and Mendel’s Laws. 
At last about nine o’clock the third 
evening, we portaged the canoe and 
duffle half a mile out on the flat, made 
fast to a pole, and curled up in our 
blankets to sleep and wait for the tide. 
At eleven o’clock we were off. It was 
such a relief to be actually moving 
again, that we did not mind the dis- 
comfort or the nervous tension of night 
travel. But we had learned our lesson 
from our previous experience with the 
tide and just before daybreak we 
grounded in a swamp about two hun- 
dred yards off-shore. When it became 
light we found that we were on the side 
of a long, low point running out across 
the flat as far as we could see. We 
ate breakfast, then to save time por- 
taged half a mile across the point, to 
pick up the tide on the other side. 
HERE we found abundant evidence 
of previous camping, old _fire- 
places, bones, teepee poles, etc., the first 
signs of man since leaving Fort Albany. 
Better still, the beach was clean and 
sandy and at full tide the ocean came 
right up to the bush. Altogether every- 
thing looked much more promising so 
we lighted our pipes and waited for 
the tide, feeling happier than at any 
time since we left the Fort. The next 
two days we were able to run in-shore 
at full tide and amuse ourselves ex- 
ploring the bush. The scrub forest was 
Smooth 
Water, 
White 
Water 
and 
a Desert of 
Mud— 
Sinbad 
the 
Sailor 
Still Lives! 
Bay 
carpeted thick with soft gray, red and 
yellow lichens, the meadows glowed 
with acres of wild roses and pea blos- 
soms whose brilliant hues rivaled those 
of any hot-house varities. On the 
sandy points grew a bush called “wil- 
lows” by the natives. The pale yellow 
flowers had a strong odor like honey- 
suckle, which was sometimes perceptible 
a half mile off-shore when the wind 
was from the west. 
UT on the water and on the flat 
the bugs were not troublesome, but 
in the bush and on the beach they were 
very much in evidence. This country is a 
real entomologist’s paradise. Such a 
variety of strange flies and mosquitoes 
I never saw before. When it was hot the 
mosquitoes retreated to the grass, leav- 
ing the field to the moose and deer flies, 
but in the evening when it became cold 
they appeared in full force. And such 
mosquitoes! Great steel-gray fellows 
that would nearly cover a twenty-five 
cent piece with probosces that could 
puncture the bottom of a canoe! And 
the colder it became the more active 
they were! But for our mosquito-bars 
we should have been eaten alive. 
E found water after hours of 
search along the shore, in little 
creeks only a few feet wide. On the 
first of these foraging trips we dis- 
covered some primitive duck or goose 
decoys made by the Indians, of bunches 
of grass placed on the ends of stakes 
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