CHAPTER IV.
NUNAINGOAK BAY AND FRASER RIVER.
On the next morning we left Nain a little before eight o’clock in the morning. The entire population had gathered on the wooden wharf to see us off. The Eskimos still held strongly to their opinion that the only possible route lay by way of Frank’s Brook and along the Indian trail. They reiterated their prophecies that we should fail miserably, and be forced to return and sail south to follow the Frank’s Brook route after all. One of them indeed gave us his opinion with great lucidity. “You will go,” said he, “to the head of the Bay and across the first big lake, then perhaps a little way up the river, but soon, when the river breaks into many streams flowing between great rocks, you will turn back. You cannot pack up that valley, for it is steep and choked with alder scrub, and the trees grow too thickly among great stones. No! you will never reach the George that way.”
With these joyous predictions in our ears we pushed off in the trap-boat. A light wind was blowing from the east, which made it necessary to use the huge sweeps at starting, but which later, if it held, would give us a fair breeze up Nunaingoak Bay. For a long time until we rounded the point, the Eskimos remained watching us, and as we turned north one or two waved their hands to us. I think they believed we had already earned failure.
[Illustration: Deserted Tepees.]
[Illustration: The Morning of the Start.]
After a few miles we rounded a small rock, shaped like a loaf, and known as Pikajulak and obtained our first sight of Nunaingoak Bay. Nunaingoak Bay, we were informed, means no end or endless, and the name is certainly an appropriate one. Owing to the straightness with which both the bay and the river valley beyond it follow an almost due westerly course, there are no hills visible in the background of the notch cut by the river, and for a long way the water horizon is unbroken in the direction of the fiord head. On the south side there is little to be seen but grey precipitous bluffs of bare stone, characteristically rounded by glacial action; on the north, where a promontory separates Nunaingoak from the northern fiord, the slopes are gentle and more inviting, and the hollows are clothed with spruce and larch of no great size, but in some abundance. At one point on this side, where a wide bay runs in from the main fiord, the hills cease altogether, and there is a narrow neck over which a canoe may readily be portaged into Tikoatokak Bay, as indeed was actually done by Gathorne-Hardy later in the year.
For a mile or more from the head of Nunaingoak, except for a narrow channel, the water is very shallow, and the bottom showed covered with round boulders. Following the advice which had been given us, we navigated this part at high tide, and the rocks, which were just awash, made progress difficult. In this we were wrong, as at low tide the rocks are visible and mark the tortuous channel as if it were buoyed, greatly lessening the chances of shipwreck. All day we carried a light easterly wind, and, though the two canoes towed badly, we made fair progress in the lilac-coloured skiff which had been lent us by the Moravian missionaries. Flocks of eider and black guillemots flew past us, and at one time a single seal appeared that Boaz said was Oksuk—the grey seal (_halichœrus gryphus_); this seal was very wild, and though we tried to come within shot of it, we were unable to do so. All day we sailed on up the Bay, and late in the evening reached the mouth of the Fraser River; here, on a low point, silhouetted against the western sky, we found an Eskimo fishing camp. As we approached, the stumpy figures of the Eskimo fisherman and his family appeared, and, clambering into their leaky boat, they piloted us through the narrow channel which forms the outlet of the Fraser River, and incidentally bumped us on a rock in doing so. This channel is impassable at low tide. Leaving the Eskimo trout fishers waving their goodwill behind us, we passed into the first lake-like expansion of the lower Fraser, and after proceeding a little over a mile up the river and through another tidal rapid we pitched our first camp amongst some stunted bushes on the bank. During the day we had been accompanied by that curse of the Labrador summer, the hosts of the Arctic mosquito. On the voyage copious applications of Stockholm tar and oil had enabled us to repel them, but now our veils, our long gloves and tarry faces, proved but ineffectual defences to their strenuous and unceasing onslaught. It goes without saying that any part of the skin which was left uncovered for a moment had to be liberally and instantaneously anointed with Stockholm tar, but in addition to this, whenever our thick tweed clothing was drawn tight on arms or legs, the hordes were able to insert their stings.
[Illustration: At the Head of the Long Lake.]
[Illustration: The First Lunch.]
All day long the mosquitoes had made life brisk for us as we toiled at the oars, but on our landing they redoubled their attentions. More in hope of escaping them by movement than allured by the chances of getting any game so near an Eskimo camp, I took my shot-gun and wandered off into the woods.
The valley bottom, which was here not so narrow as it subsequently became, was clothed with small spruce and larch, there was also a good deal of willow, especially in the marshy parts, but not any birch. On the north side the hills, of no great height, were everywhere accessible, the slopes and summits carpeted with berry plants. As I walked along by the edge of the water I saw in the soft sand tracks of both bear and caribou, but none of these signs was less than a fortnight old. Just as it was growing dark I flushed and killed a willow grouse, which was immediately plucked and placed in the soup for the evening meal.
The next day was Sunday, and having had but little sleep during the previous night we tried to put in a doze during the morning, but with scanty success, as every moment the burning sun hatched out fresh thousands of mosquitoes into life, until at length the plague became so intolerable in camp that we walked up on to the hills, and having lighted a fire sat in its smoke; but the mosquitoes seemed to object to its pungency much less than we, and it is a fact worthy of note, that this rough remedy, so efficacious in Canada and Newfoundland, appears to have little power over the swarms of Labrador.
On Monday morning, after hauling our boat through a succession of narrows, we reached the big Lake of which we had been told. Our first view of it was intensely typical of Labrador beauty. The mountain tops which surrounded it on every side were not clear of mist, and the waters shaded to a dark and peaty blue before the sun rising over the hills turned them to turquoise. Up the lake we sailed all day before an ever-increasing breeze, which sometimes drove us along at splendid speed. We were extremely lucky to get two days of easterly wind at this time of the year, when sometimes it blows from the north-west for weeks together; had it done so we must have rowed every yard in the face of a heavy sea. As the day advanced the height of the hills on either side of us grew loftier. The character of the cliffs changed also, most of them showing a rusty colour, as if stained with iron, and though on both sides huge bluffs came down at frequent intervals sheer to the water’s edge, we noticed that here, as lower down the valley, the more accessible openings lay to the north rather than to the south.
Throughout the day, in spite of the wind and the fact that we were out upon the water, the mosquitoes continued with us. When it blew hard they alighted on the lee side of the sail, and the moment the wind lulled got to their work. With them came numbers of deer-flies, insects about half an inch long, which are said to make themselves felt when they bite, but they seemed too sluggish to trouble us. All day long we carried our unwelcome passengers, which again found some splendid opportunities of torturing us; as, for instance, when we were “tracking” the skiff through the fast tidal narrows at the head of the lake.
[Illustration: Boaz is interested.]
[Illustration: “Tracking”]
Late in the afternoon the Eskimo Boaz pointed out three spots of special interest. The first was a dark ridge on the northern cliff to which a sinister history was attached. A party of Eskimo, returning successful from the deer-hunt, had mistaken this opening for another pass, through which alone the lower ground may be gained. In the misty darkness of the evening they drove over it, and men and dogs were dashed to pieces on the ice and rocks beneath. The second place of interest was a high mountain, down the precipitous flanks of which a great herd of deer had wandered one winter and, unable to climb the slippery surface again, had been butchered by the Eskimo on the sea-ice beneath. The third was Poungassé itself, a low gap in the southern cliffs, up which the Eskimo haul their _komatiks_ when on the spring deer-hunt, and thus attain the great central plateau.
But long before we came to Poungassé we had seen the low black line of trees which marked the western end of the lake. As we approached vast stretches of sand came into view, and as some of this had silted up into a bar we had great difficulty in getting the skiff to her moorings. At last, however, by wading and poling we forced her to the main channel of the river, and having anchored her from both bow and stern, we landed on the wide sandy beaches strewn with driftwood, which at this point form the banks of the upper waters of the Fraser. Among the driftwood we observed the first signs of birch trees, which, however, we were not destined to find growing till we were a day or two higher up the stream. Larch was scarcer here, and among the spruce were noticeable a certain number of small balsam firs; but these last disappeared again higher up. Imprinted on the sand we saw numerous fox tracks of all sizes and dates, but nothing more interesting; nor did any success attend Gathorne-Hardy’s efforts with the rod, though later in the year we had magnificent sport with sea trout at this very spot.
I left the others preparing the canoes for the morrow, and walked up the north bank of the Fraser. The valley of the river at this point is wide, but the waters come down with some velocity. On the great virgin beaches, the comings and goings of all wild creatures for the past few weeks could be read. Here, a week ago, a fox had stalked some bird, and further on a bear with cubs had come down to the water’s edge. Later, leaving the banks, I climbed some high ground and saw that the river valley stretched away almost due west, the cliffs still growing higher and higher, while the low ground was densely wooded with spruce and juniper and what we later discovered to be alder, some of the trunks of which were as thick as a man’s leg. Indeed, so dense was the undergrowth that I was reminded of the Eskimo pessimist, “You cannot pack up that valley, for the trees grow too thickly among great stones.” Were we travelling to an impasse? Well, as to that time alone could show.
[Illustration: A Nasty Place.]
[Illustration: The Cliffs of the Fraser.]
Next morning we awoke to find the rain falling, both cold and heavy, but we got off in fair time. Porter, who is an expert, and Hardy, went in one canoe; Boaz Obed the Eskimo and myself in the other. As Boaz had never been in a canoe before, and I—though I have travelled a good deal in these craft—cannot pretend to any skill, it seemed likely that the pair of us might have an exciting time. This turned out to be the case, and we were more than once on the verge of upsetting, especially after the first few reaches, for the river then grew shallower and more rapid, running down over one steep incline after another, and sometimes in several separate streams. But his long practice in _kayaks_ stood Boaz in good stead, though at first he was loth to exchange the paddle for the pole until he found that the former was of little value in the fast converging currents which we had to negotiate time and again. After a particularly heavy bit of work we stopped for lunch, and while it was preparing Hardy and I each shot a squirrel, which was the only sign of game that we had seen all day. Though the squirrel is a small animal, we found that a couple added to the soup made a desirable change from the bacon, which was our only alternative. After lunch it rained harder than ever, and, truth to say, no upset could have made us much wetter than we were, for the rain beat strongly down, both morning and afternoon, and the wading was often deep and the stones slippery. The mosquitoes also were with us, and revelled in the fact that for such quick-water work we could not wear our veils. The tar mixture was useless, since it washed off in the rain and ran down into our eyes, temporarily blinding us. That evening Boaz, to our surprise, produced and dined off some dried white whale meat; after which he took a copious draught of seal oil from a bladder. This provision he had brought with him; and thereby hangs a tale to come clear presently.
The next morning, the 26th, the rain, which had continued all night, still beat down wearily; nor did it cease all day. Once again we had very difficult water to contend with, and there were but few reaches where we were not forced to wade and shove the canoe up-stream. Speaking generally, I may say that the whole of the upper Fraser is rapid, and though not actually a very difficult river, it is at all times a nasty one for canoes, as the currents and the slippery stones make the keeping of one’s feet a continual effort. After about ten miles the river began to show an increased tendency to split up into a number of very shallow streams, flowing over a shifting bed of coarse shingle and treacherous boulders. The banks for the most part were clothed with spruce on a carpet of white reindeer moss, which began to be interlaced everywhere with bear paths, the unmistakable signs of these animals being very numerous, while on every mudbank their curiously human footprints were impressed. Of other life we saw but little, always excepting the squirrels, which we hunted eagerly for the pot. The ubiquitous whiskey-jack, or Canada jay, appeared as usual, as did also an occasional ermine or weasel. Fishing, on the whole, was a failure; the sea trout were not yet up, and except at one place, where Hardy caught a few small trout, and in returning from which he had the great misfortune to lose the reel of our smaller and more useful rod, our efforts, though unflagging, proved practically fruitless.
On the third day, when quite fifteen miles up the river, the leading canoe with Porter and Hardy suddenly came in sight of a seal. It was the Labrador bay or harbour seal, an animal identical with our British common seal (_Phoca vitulina_). Hardy, thinking of the treat in store for Boaz, could he succeed in slaying the seal, did his best to stalk it; but the animal, which had come up from the sea, had evidently had experience of the Eskimo and their _kayaks_, and, diving under the canoes, disappeared down-stream.
For five days the rain never ceased, but this, whilst it made things uncomfortable, was probably a blessing in disguise, as it filled up the river, and so enabled us to pass over shallows, which at ordinary times would have presented insurmountable difficulties.
[Illustration: The Valley of the Fraser.]
[Illustration: Where the Fraser begins to grow shallow.]
By July the 30th we were well up the river, which, however, was growing continuously more rapid and shallow, indeed, a mile a day was all the progress we could make, though Boaz and I had improved considerably in our canoe work, and now faced water which at the beginning would have driven us to unload. On this day Hardy and Porter had what might have been a nasty accident. They were working up an extremely fierce channel, when Porter’s iron shod pole of maple, from Prae Wood in Hertfordshire, slipped upon the rocks, causing him to fall headlong out of the canoe. The cargo was fortunately well fixed in, and covered with a large water-proof tent sheet, so, as the water was not deep, the two men were able to slip their hands underneath and, holding the cargo inside, to right the canoe, and so to save its whole contents.
All this time, though we had seen two or three rifts leading up to the plateau, on the north side of the river, on the south the line of cliffs had remained practically unbroken. They were now on both sides, fully 1,500 feet in height, and we began to wonder whether we should ever find a practicable ascent. Once we climbed a valley on the north side full of huge fragments which had fallen from the cliffs, but at its head were confronted by a precipice. This part of the valley of the Fraser remained, during most of the hours of the day, both dark and gloomy. The sun was shining many an hour upon the plateau before its rays pierced to the bottom of the deep chasm up which we were journeying, and early in the afternoon it sank behind the opposite cliff which threw a huge black shadow right across the river. From time to time vast masses of rock came thundering down the flanks of the mountain, sometimes with so resonant a sound as to wake us. We were always careful to camp well in the middle of the valley, as it would have been a daunting experience to face even for a single night the possibility of being crushed to death, for there are few men whose imaginations are so much under control that they could sleep peacefully within the zone of an unnecessary danger.
On the 31st, while we were lunching among some birch trees in the pouring rain, Boaz came to me, and the following conversation took place:—
“Me want more monee.”
I replied I did not understand that, as he had agreed to come with us for $1.50 a day.
“Much work, little monee. Cut wood, much work, little monee. You give me more monee?”
“Certainly not; go away.”
“Plenty fish, Nain,” said Boaz.
This was, of course, a threat, meaning that, if I did not accede to his demand, he was thinking of returning to Nain to take part in the cod-fishing. I then told him very distinctly that I never altered a man’s wages during a trip.
“You not give me more monee?”
“No.”
Both Hardy and I were amazed at his impudence, for he had proved himself to be a thoroughly lazy fellow, who took an hour over every little piece of work that came his way; also, when during the last days he had complained of a cold, I had doctored him, giving him both quinine and brandy, and had done as much of the wading as possible myself in order to save him. In the circumstances, we felt he was behaving very badly, and when, at the close of an afternoon of toil, he again approached me, I would not listen to him. At night, however, he visited the tent in which Hardy and I, wrapped in our blankets, were smoking our pipes, and at once took up the sing-song cry, “More monee.” I thereupon made him understand straightly and as clearly as possible that his veiled threat would have no effect upon us. He went away muttering, and we to sleep.
[Illustration: Hardy crossing the Upper Fraser.]
The next morning, Porter woke me with the words: “Well, Husky Boaz has gone all right.” It was quite true. He and Porter had been sleeping in the lean-to, and Porter had noticed Boaz collecting his belongings on the previous evening, but had thought nothing of it. When in the early hours of the morning he awoke, the Eskimo was lying asleep beside him, but when Porter woke again just before dawn, Boaz had vanished.
A hasty search showed that he had carried off his whale meat and seal-oil with him; probably he had brought this food in view of just such an emergency. There seemed to be no reasonable doubt but that from the outset he had planned to go with us for a certain distance into the country, and then, on threat of deserting us, to extort higher pay. He probably thought that, having two canoes, we could not do without him; I had seen that he was a very surprised man when we refused to raise his wage; moreover, the presence of the Eskimo camp of trout-fishers played into his hands, as it was not much more than a couple of days’ walk for an unloaded man.
Of course he had, like the rest of us, been kept pretty continuously wet with wading in the river while forcing the canoe over shallows, and though the Eskimo sealskin boots, which we all wore, are very water-proof, this is little advantage when the water is constantly high enough to run over the tops of them. Still, in our opinion, which was fortified by later experience, the real hard work had not begun, so his desertion was quite unjustifiable. Moreover, it gave us a certain amount of rather grave anxiety, as it seemed quite on the cards that he might take the trap-boat which we had anchored in the mouth of the upper river, in which case, when we came out of the country at the end of our trip, we should be greatly delayed, for we should be obliged either to _cache_ all our belongings at the head of the long shelterless lake of the Fraser and walk a weary way into Nain, or else attempt to run down the lake and bay in our canoes at a season when we might be storm-bound for a considerable period. Moreover, we could not guess what sort of a story Boaz would relate in Nain, where he would be obliged to explain his sudden re-appearance, and we did not wish to have a scare circulated. Scares grow from small seeds. It would only need some gossip to say in reply to a question as to our whereabouts, “I do not know; the Eskimo who went with them came back alone.” A chance speech of this kind travels fast and grows in importance in places like Labrador, and within a short space of time might be depended upon to reach St. John’s, Newfoundland, and from there to be reported home. None of these things happened, however, for Boaz joined the Eskimo trout-fishers at the head of the bay, and with them returned to Nain on August 5th. He did not even report himself at the Mission house, but departed as soon as possible to the outer islands, where he was still absent on his cod-fishing adventure, when we ourselves came back to Nain in the autumn. We heard, I fear without regret, that after all he had not done well at the fishing.
[Illustration: Down the Fraser.]
It is but fair to say that the Eskimo in general have the reputation of being very faithful; we must have struck the exception in Boaz, though he was highly recommended to us in every way; and now, as the Sagas say, “Boaz is out of the story.”
Three times in my experience I have been faced with this same demand for more pay, when the asker believed that he held me cornered; but as, at the outset of a trip, I always arrange the wages well in accordance with—or a fraction in advance of—the local rates, and to the entire satisfaction of the men engaged, I decline on principle to yield to subsequent exaction, which, indeed, is never made unless the applicant thinks he has his employer at a disadvantage.
We had now to reconsider our position, as we could no longer provide adequate crews for both the canoes. The valley still presented on either side an almost unbroken wall of inaccessible cliff. There had certainly been two possible openings on the north side: and now, about a mile beyond the camp in which Boaz deserted us, we at length perceived the only vestige of an opening which we had seen since Poungassé—to the south. This gulch or ravine we proceeded to investigate after breakfast. It proved to be very steep, and choked with what in Cumberland are termed screes, “the tumbled fragments of the hills” on either side, fragments, moreover, many of them so recently fallen that time had neither worn away the knife-like sharpness of their edges nor allowed them to settle into a trustworthy stability. Some of them were many tons in weight, and there were uninviting holes and gaps between them. In the few places where stones had not fallen in abundance the valley bottom was choked with alder, which grew upon the banks of a small torrent.
We made our way about two miles up this gorge and were about to turn back when Hardy suddenly espied a large black bear. This was the first we had seen, but as we had not our rifles, the bear escaped unchallenged and unscathed. Altogether on our first visit Bear Ravine did not strike us as at all a desirable exit from the valley to the plateau, and we determined to see what we could do to get further up the river with our one canoe to a spot where, some five miles ahead, we could see what looked like a second great rift in the southern precipices. The next day was spent in preparation for departure. As there were now but three of us we determined to leave a portion of our provisions, and in order that the supply left behind might not be devoured by bears, Porter constructed a long-legged _cache_, ten feet above the ground, on the trunks of four spruce trees. On this was deposited the superfluous canoe and a first instalment of reserved provisions. Meanwhile, Hardy, who had gone fishing to a small pond which contained some very diminutive trout, had sighted another bear. The animal, however, escaped out of effective range as the rifle was being withdrawn from its cover.
On August 2nd we were once more ready to try conclusions with the river, and having loaded the canoe Hardy and Porter put out into the stream while I took my rifle and started to cut across Bear Valley, in the hope of seeing the bear and perhaps securing what we were beginning to crave for—in spite of fish and squirrels—a good supply of fresh meat. I was not more than a few hundred yards from camp before I heard a cry and saw that Hardy and Porter were in dire trouble. Hardy, who was “tracking” from the gravelly shallows at the end of a long rope, slipped, and Porter, who was wading waist deep, lost control of the canoe as it was passing around a very awkward curve of fast water. In a moment it filled and, though Hardy retained hold of the line, was carried into the worst and deepest part of the rapid. Porter, who had rushed into the water after it, was trying to pull the canoe to land, when he and it were swept over the rapid into a nasty hole. At once the bags containing our outfit were dotted over all the surface of the river, the canoe was floating bottom upwards, and Porter had disappeared.
[Illustration: We _cache_ the first Canoe.]
I had an excellent view of the whole disaster, as I had gone on ahead, and when the canoe upset had run back towards the scene of the accident. While I was still rushing down to their help, and after, as it seemed to me, an age, Porter’s head came into sight again and he staggered ashore. It had been a very close call for him, as an eddy had taken him under and beaten him against the stones. Meanwhile Hardy had run down-stream, and I could see him like a man possessed, dashing in and out of the shallows, making salvage of our goods. Before I could get near him Porter had turned the water out of the canoe, which had fortunately been driven into the bank, and started back towards our old camp to aid in the salvage operations.
I was unluckily not on the side of the river towards which the current set, nor could I cross it, as it was a roaring torrent, several feet in depth; so seeing that I could be of no use to the others, I hurried back to the camp and lit a large fire, which I knew would be needed presently, as the snow-fed river was bitterly cold. Before long Porter came up in the canoe, and shouted that he did not think much was lost, except his own bundle, Hardy’s rifle and one of the flour bags. Later on we recovered the bundle and the bag, and, wonderful to say, our only losses in this untimely accident were limited to Hardy’s ·303 rifle, and a ·22 of mine, two gun covers, and a cleaning rod; added to which, though at the time we did not know it, some of Hardy’s films were slightly damaged. Both his camera and mine were fortunately on our respective backs. Upon the whole I doubt if ever a party got out of an awkward mischance much more cheaply, though of course the loss of Hardy’s rifle was extremely serious. We were lucky, nevertheless, in that we did not lose my old Purdey shot-gun, which, though insecurely lashed in the canoe, was held in place by a flour bag, jammed under one of the thwarts. This old gun seems to bear a charmed life, as it once spent six days at the bottom of the river De Los Antiguos in the Andes of Patagonia.
I lit a second fire, and soon everything was drying nicely, when heavy rain came on. After it had cleared off, Porter made an effort in the empty canoe to recover the rifle, but unfortunately the current had driven it down into a deep hole beneath a rock, and as the river swirled by at the rate of eight knots, it was impossible, with his extemporised grappling apparatus, to come within striking distance; so that we were finally obliged to give up the attempt.
In the evening more rain fell, and the discomfort it entailed about filled our cup of disagreeable experiences for that particular day.
[Illustration: The beginning of the last navigable stage.]
[Illustration: Drying out.]
On the morning of August 3rd we were up early, intent upon a second attempt to get through the rapid water that had undone us. First Porter inspected it in the empty canoe, and while doing this once again saw the buckles of Hardy’s rifle case glimmering far below. It was sunk to a depth of many feet, and the current above it was so fast that all idea of regaining it had for the time to be given up, though when the river receded we had hopes of recovering it, as, from the Eskimo at the fishing camp, we knew that there had been a month or so of continuous rain in that locality, and the river was, therefore, much higher than it usually is at that season.
I may here state, however, that when we once more passed this spot in the autumn the river had fallen so much that we were able to fish Hardy’s rifle up from its lurking place. As it was in its case, it was hardly damaged, and after a thorough cleaning it shot as well as ever.
On Porter’s return from his reconnaissance we loaded up the canoe, and all three of us spent the whole morning in tracking, poling, and pushing her up-stream, only to find that the further course of the river was quite unnavigable, and that to attempt to continue our journey with the canoe would be to court disasters similar to those we had twice experienced. By this time we found ourselves about abreast of Bear Ravine, and made camp in the mouth of it. We had now to decide on one of two alternatives. On the one hand, we could pack up the bed of the Fraser, in search of a less precipitous outlet on the south. But, in the river bed, the alder scrub grew so thick that we should have to cut our way through and also make several relays. On the other hand, we could attempt the ascent of Bear Ravine. We were inclined to the latter, and arranged that Porter should climb the ravine to reconnoitre, while Hardy and I, after pitching camp, went out with rifle and shot-gun to look for the fresh meat that we greatly needed. This plan we carried out; but our hunt proved unsuccessful, for we killed nothing more interesting than the usual squirrel. After nightfall, just as we were beginning to wonder whether he had not met with an accident on the screes, and were indeed about to start in search of him, Porter returned. He told us that, after a break-neck climb, he had reached the top of the ravine, and come out upon a great rolling plateau, over which the view extended for miles. Away to the west he had seen in the distance a doe caribou, and also a series of small lakes trending in a south-westerly direction. The country he described as good for walking, the only obvious disadvantage being the apparently total absence of fuel. On his way down he had again seen a bear. Such was his report, and in the circumstances we determined to try to portage up Bear Ravine to the plateau.