We soon made a bargain with Kakwanee, a young Indian just married and needing money, to show us the way to the Hudson's Bay post on the Grand Lake Victoria. Without knowing it, all the time we had been on Trout Lake we were quite near a crew of lumbermen who were building a dam at the outlet, to raise the water for a reserve supply, to be used, when needed, to drive logs down the Ottawa, the water running out through Lake Expanse. The intention was to raise the water six feet; and as there are at least seventy-five square miles of water in Trout Lake, it will be seen that a large reservoir would be produced by closing the outlet, perhaps fifty feet wide. The Indians were doing a good deal of laughing among themselves, as they said there was a marsh on the other side of the lake, where, unless another very long dam was built, the water would run off in the direction of Lake Kippewa as soon as it was raised a foot or so; and the lumbermen did not know this.
In the evening while we were camped, waiting for Kakwanee to bid farewell to his bride, Billy heard a trout splash the water. He at once got some birch-bark and placed it in the cleft of a split stick, warming it by the fire to make it curl up, and then lighting it on the edge. In this way he made a torch which burned brightly for a long time. Getting into the canoe he pushed silently out, standing up. Letting the light shine into the clear water, he soon located the big trout, which lay quietly on the bottom in the full blaze of light. Then he made the motions of spearing, though he had no spear; and there was no doubt, from the realism of the pantomime, that Billy, child as he was, well knew a very unsportsmanlike way to kill fish. It was a beautiful sight to see Billy stand up in a very tottlish birch-bark canoe, as confident as a bare-back rider on a circus horse.
The "Mountain Chute," Gatineau River.
Joe had done some work as a "shanty-man," and the sight of the crew who were building the dam made him reminiscent. "One time," said he, "I do de chainin' for a gang; dat is, fasten de logs wid de chain, and bind em fas'. My chum, he was French, and he drive de sled. He was goin' for git marry so soon it was time for de camp to break up, an' he was sing an' smile to hisself de whole time. De ver' las' day, de las' load, he say, 'Now, Joe, dis load be de las' I ever drive fore I go home to my Julie.' So he start de sled, an' de sled hit a dead birch. When I come 'long behine him, dere he was dead. A limb break off de birch when de sled strike it. It was all rotten, an' de piece of de limb not so big as your arm. But de limb was freeze, an' it hit him on de head, an' he never move. He go home to Julie, sure, but not de way he expec'."
"My," said Billy, solemnly, "it must be awful for a man's peoples when he go 'way from home feelin' good, and laugh and sing, and, the next thing his peoples know, he come home dead!"
The next morning Kakwanee appeared and we resumed our interrupted journey, running all day through two lakes, neither of which has ever appeared on any map of Quebec. It seems wonderful that after white men have used watercourses for canoe routes for a century or two, and when lumbermen have investigated the country, there are stretches of many miles together which are not indicated on official maps except by white spots. But this is true of over half a million square miles of British-American territory. The two lakes we traversed are called by Indian names which mean "Crosswise Lake" and "Old Man Lake." Out of the latter runs a river which falls into the Grand Lake Victoria. This lake is really an expansion of the Ottawa. In many places its shores are covered with medium-sized pines, and in others bare rocks are the only things to be seen. The greatest enemy to these forests is fire, and in all parts of the country are vast tracts which have been so devastated.
It was a long day's paddle from the lower end of the Grand Lake Victoria to the old Hudson's Bay agency near its northern extremity. Here Mr. Christopherson received us with great hospitality. He said I was the fourth white man who had visited the post that year. The Indians who came there to get their annual supplies, material and spiritual, had long since left their little summer cabins for winter hunting-grounds. Though the sun shone warm and bright, it might turn cold any night now, and so Mr. Christopherson sent Jocko to show us the portages as far as an Indian village, twenty-seven miles up the river. There we could get a guide to see us through to the place where the water runs the other way. Jocko, himself, wanted to go away hunting, so he only accompanied us as far as the Indian settlement.