Immediate steps should certainly be taken to punish and
prevent poaching, or this band, the only really wild one on the
continent, will soon be extinct.
We were now on our boats again, and heading for the Chutes, as they
are called, the one obstruction to the navigation of Peace River
for over six hundred miles. We debarked at the head of the rapids
above the Grand Fall, and walked to their foot along a shelving
and slippery portage, skirting the very edge of the torrent. The
Crees call this Me??tina Po???istik--"The Real Rapid"--the cataract
farther on being the Nepegabak??etik--"Where the Water Falls."
Returning to the "Decharge," I ran the rapids with Cyr and Baptiste
in one of the boats, a glorious sensation, reminding one, though
shorter, of the Grand Rapids of the Saskatchewan, the waves being
great, and the danger spiced by the tremendous vortex ahead. The
rapids are about four hundred yards in length, and extend quite
across the river, which is here of an immense width. A heavy but
brief rainstorm had set in, and it was some time before we could
reload and drop down to the head of the "Chaudiere," if I may call
it so, for the vortex much resembles the "Big Kettle" at Ottawa.
That night we spent in the York boat, its keel on the rocks and
painter tied to a tree, and, lulled by the roar of the cataract,
slept soundly until morning.
These falls cut somewhat diagonally across the river, the vortex
being at the right bank, and close in-shore, concentred by a limestone
shelf extending to the bank, flanked on the left, and at an acute
angle, by a deeply-indented reef of rock.
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