By and by we encountered the Long Rapids--Ka??kinwauk Powestik--and,
some hours afterwards, entered the Middle Rapid--Tuw??o Powestik--the
worst we had yet come to, full of boulders and sharp rocks, with a
strong current. Very dexterous management was required here on the
part of steersman and bowman; a snapt line or a moment's neglect,
and a swing to broadside would have followed, and spelled ruin.
It was evening before this rapid was surmounted, and all hands,
dog-tired with the long day's pull, were glad to camp at the foot
of the Boiler Rapid, the next in our ascent, and so called from
the wrecking of a scow containing a boiler for one of the Hudson's
Bay Company's steamers. It was the most uncomfortable of camps,
the night being close, and filled with the small and bloodthirsty
Athabasca mosquito, by all odds the most vicious of its kind.
This rapid is strewn with boulders which show above water, making
it a very "nice" and toilsome thing to steer and track a boat
safely over it, but the tracking path itself is stony and firm,
a fortunate thing at such a place. There are no exposures of rock
at the foot of this rapid; but along its upper part runs a ledge
of asphalt-like rock as smooth as a street pavement, with an outer
edge as neatly rounded as if done with a chisel. This was the finest
bit of tracking path on the river, excepting, perhaps, the great
pavement beneath the cliff at the Long Rapids.
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