The marsh and swamp land gradually gave way to hills, which increased in size and ruggedness as we proceeded. We had found the river at its very beginning, and for a short way portages, as has been suggested, had to be made around shallow places, but after a little, as other streams augmented the volume of water, this became unnecessary, and as the river grew in size it became a succession of rapids, and most of them unpleasant ones, that kept us dodging rocks all the while.
Mr. A. P. Low, of the Canadian Geological Survey, in other parts of the Labrador interior found black ducks very scarce. This was not our experience. From the day we entered the George River until we were well down the stream they were plentiful, and we shot what we needed without turning our canoe out of its course to hunt them. This is apparently a breeding ground for them.
Several otter rubs were noted, and we saw some of the animals, but did not disturb them. In places where the river broadened out and the current was slack every rock that stuck above the water held its muskrat house, and large numbers of the rats were seen.
After the snow we had one or two fine, bright days, but they were becoming few now, and the frosty winds and leaden skies, the forerunners of winter, were growing more and more frequent. When the bright days did come they were exceptional ones. I find noted in my diary one morning: “This is a morning for the gods—a morning that could scarcely be had anywhere in the world but in Labrador—a cloudless sky, no breath of wind, the sun rising to light the heavy hoarfrost and make it glint and sparkle till every tree and bush and rock seems made of shimmering silver.”
One afternoon as we were passing through an expansion and I was scanning, as was my custom, every bit of shore in the hope of discovering a wigwam smoke, I saw, running down the side of a hill on an island a quarter of a mile away, a string of Indians waving wildly at us and signaling us to come ashore. After twelve weeks, in which not a human being aside from our own party had been seen, we had reached the dwellers of the wilderness, and with what pleasure and alacrity we accepted the invitation to join them can be imagined.
CHAPTER XIII
DISASTER IN THE RAPIDS