ter the melting of the mountain snows--the voyageurs were
always keen for the excitement of making the descent by canoe. Lestang,
M'Kay, Mackenzie, a dozen famous guides, could boast two trips a day
down the rapids, without so much as grazing a paddle on the rocks.
Indeed, the different crews would race each other into the very vortex
of the wildest water; and woe betide the old voyageur whose crew failed
of the strong pull into the right current just when the craft took the
plunge! Here, where the waters of the vast prairie region are descending
over huge boulders and rocky islets between banks not a third of a mile
apart, there is a wild river scene. Far ahead the paddlers can hear the
roar of the swirl. Now the surface of the river rounds and rises in the
eddies of an undertow, and the canoe leaps forward; then, a swifter
plunge through the middle of a furious overfall. The steersman rises
at the stern and leans forward like a runner.

[Illustration: TRACK SURVEY of the SASKATCHEWAN between CEDAR LAKE &
LAKE WINNIPEG]

'Pull!' shouts the steersman; and the canoe shoots past one rock to
catch the current that will whirl it past the next, every man bending to
his paddle and almost lifted to his feet. The canoe catches the right
current and is catapulted past the roaring place where rocks make the
water white. Instantly all but the steersman drop down, flat in the
bottom of the canoe, paddles rigid athwart. No need to pull now! The
waters do the work; and motion on the part of the men would be fatal.
Here the strongest swimmer would be as a chip on a cataract. The task
now is not to paddle, but to steer--to keep the craft away from the
rocks. This is the part of the steersman, who stands braced to his
paddle used rudder-wise astern; and the canoe rides the wildest plunge
like a sea-gull. One after another the brigades disappear in a white
trough of spray and roaring waters. They are gone! No human power can
bring them out of that maelstrom! But look! like corks on a wave,
mounting and climbing and riding the highest billows, there they are
again, one after another, sidling and lifting and falling and finally
gliding out to calm water, where the men fall to their paddles and
strike up one of their lusty voyageur songs!

The Company would not venture its peltry on the lower rapid where the
river rushes down almost like a waterfall. Above this the cargoes were
transferred to the portage, and prosaically sent over the hil