channel deeply worn into the limestone strata.  The stream, rushing with impetuous force over a rocky and uneven bottom, presents a sheet of foam and seems to bear with impatience the straightened confinement of its lofty banks.  A flock of pelicans and two or three brown fishing-eagles were fishing in its agitated waters, seemingly with great success.  There is a good sturgeon fishery at the foot of the rapid.  Several golden plovers, Canadian grosbeaks, crossbills, woodpeckers and pin-tailed grouse were shot today; and Mr. Back killed a small striped marmot.  This beautiful little animal was busily employed in carrying in its distended pouches the seeds of the American vetch to its winter hoards.

The portage is eighteen hundred yards long and its western extremity was found to be in 53 degrees 08 minutes 25 seconds North latitude and 99 degrees 28 minutes 02 seconds West longitude.  The route from Canada to the Athabasca joins that from York Factory at the mouth of the Saskatchewan, and we saw traces of a recent encampment of the Canadian voyagers.  Our companions in the Hudson’s Bay boats, dreading an attack from their rivals in trade, were on the alert at this place.  They examined minutely the spot of encampment to form a judgment of the number of canoes that had preceded them; and they advanced, armed, and with great caution, through the woods.  Their fears however on this occasion were fortunately groundless.

By noon on the 12th, the boats and their cargoes having been conveyed across the portage, we embarked and pursued our course.  The Saskatchewan becomes wider above the Grand Rapid and the scenery improves.  The banks are high, composed of white clay and limestone, and their summits are richly clothed with a variety of firs, poplars, birches and willows.  The current runs with great rapidity and the channel is in many places intricate and dangerous from broken ridges of rock jutting into the stream.  We pitched our tents at the entrance of Cross Lake, having advanced only five miles and a half.

Cross, cedar and pine island lakes.

Cross Lake is extensive, running towards the north-east it is said for forty miles.  We crossed it at a narrow part and, pulling through several winding channels formed by a group of islands, entered Cedar Lake which, next to Lake Winnipeg, is the largest sheet of fresh water we had hitherto seen.  Ducks and geese resort hither in immense flocks in the spring and autumn.  These birds are now beginning to go off owing to its muddy shores having become quite hard through the nightly frosts.  At this place the Aurora Borealis was extremely brilliant in the night, its coruscations darting at times over the whole sky and assuming various prismatic tints of which the violet and yellow were predominant.