to their safety. Each boat was equipped with a pair of oars, a paddle
and about one hundred feet of small line for tracking purposes.
Proceeding about three miles the first camp was made on the south
shore of Goose Bay, amid an abundance of mosquitoes. The next day
twenty-five miles were made through shoals that nearly close the
river's mouth, leaving but one good channel through which the water
flows very swiftly, by the house of Joe Michelin, the trapper, at
which six weeks later two very gaunt and much used up men were most
hospitably received. Here another night was spent almost without
sleep, owing to the mosquitoes.

Tuesday a large Indian camp was passed, the big "pool," at the foot of
the first falls and some three miles long, rowed across, and at noon
the carry was begun. It was necessary to make seventeen trips and four
and one half hours were used in the task. When the last load had been
deposited at the upper end of the carry, the men threw themselves down
on the bank utterly weary, and owing to the loss of sleep the two
previous nights, were soon all sound asleep. In consequence camp was
made here, and the first comfortable night of the trip passed.
Including the carry eight miles was the day's advance.

The twenty-five miles of the next day were made rowing and tracking up
the Porcupine rapids through a series of small lakes, one with a
little island in the centre deceiving our boys for awhile into
thinking they had reached Gull Island Lake, and then up another short
rapid at the head of which the party encamped.

Sixteen miles were made next day by alternate rowing and tracking, the
foot of Gull Island Lake was reached, and after dinner it was crossed
in one and a half hours. Then the heaviest work of the trip thus far