Laird and party bade us good-bye, and an hour
later we set out on our interesting canoe trip to the Wahpoo?›kow,
a journey which led us into the heart of the interior, and
proved to be one of the most agreeable of our experiences.
Chapter X
The Trip To Wahpoo?›kow.
Our route lay first up the Pelican River, the Chach??kew of the
Crees, and then from the "divide" down the Wahpoo?›kow watershed
to the lake. We had six canoemen, and our journey began by
"packing" our outfit over a four-mile portage, commencing with a
tremendously long and steep hill, and ending on a beautiful bank
of the Pelican, a fine brown stream about one hundred feet wide,
where we found our canoes awaiting us, capital "Peterboroughs,"
in good order. Here also were a number of bark canoes, carrying
the outfit of Mr. Ladoucere, a half-breed trader going up to
Wahpoo?›kow. Mr. Prudhomme and myself occupied one canoe, and
with two experienced canoemen, Auger at the stern and Cardinal
at the bow, we kept well up with the procession.
Where the channels are shallow, poles are used, which the men
handled very dexterously, nicking in and out amongst the rocks and
rapids in the neatest way; but in the main the propulsion was by our
paddles, a delight to me, having been bred to canoeing from boyhood.
We stopped for luncheon at a lovely "place of trees" overhanging a
deep, dark, alluring pool, where we knew there were fish, but had
no time to make a cast.
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