I LOSE MY BALANCE—AND SOME CONCEIT
All of this fishing and dog-driving and travelling was just so much practice and experience for the years to come in farther and far more difficult fields. I did not know this at the time, but so it has turned out.
CHAPTER XVII.
From Norway House to the great plains—Portaging—Pulling and poling against the strong current—Tracking.
As the missions on the Saskatchewan were under father's chairmanship, he concluded to visit them during the summer of 1862, and to take me along. He arranged for me to go as far as Fort Carlton on the Saskatchewan by boat, and he, at the invitation of the Hudson's Bay officers, went with them to Red River, and then rode on horseback across the plains to the same point.
Bidding mother and sisters and little brother and many friends good-bye, behold me, then, taking passage in one of a fleet of boats, the destination of which was the Saskatchewan country.
Our route was up the Jack River, across the Play-green Lake to Lake Winnipeg, and then across the northern end of Lake Winnipeg to the mouth of the Saskatchewan River, and on up this rapid river to our objective point.
There were nine, and in some cases ten, men in each boat. There were perhaps a dozen passengers scattered through the fleet. I was alone in my boat, but nearly always at meal times and at night the fleet was together.
Favoring winds and fine weather in two or three days brought us to the mouth of the Saskatchewan.