We reached the head of the rapid, and it was beautiful there.  A long terrace stretched away for miles ahead.  It was thinly wooded, as they all were, with spruce and a few poplars, smooth, dry, and mossy, and thirty feet below us was the river with North Pole Brook coming in on the other side.  It was an ideal place for Sunday camp.

Though it rained hard through the night the morning was beautiful, and again I breathed a little sigh of thankfulness that we were not in the other desolate place farther back.  The day would have been a very restful one had it not been for the flies which steadily increased in numbers, coaxed back to life and activity by the warm sunshine.  I wanted very much to climb the mountain behind our camp in the afternoon, but I could not go alone, and the men were taking a much needed rest.  So I wandered about watching the hills and the river for a while, took a few photographs, and lay in the tent.  Towards evening the flies swarmed over its fly front, getting in in numbers one could not tell where or how.  Still they were nothing inside to what they were outside.  At supper I hated to put up my veil.  They were so thick I could hardly eat.  Finally George came to the rescue, and waving a bag round my head kept them off till I finished my meal.

While we were at supper Job walked silently into camp with a rifle under his arm.  He had a way of quietly disappearing.  You did not know anything about it till you found he was not there.  Then suddenly be would appear again, his eyes shining.  He had wonderfuly fine eyes, so bright that they startled me sometimes.  Full of energy, quick, clever, he went straight to the point in his work always without the slightest hesitation.  When you saw these men in the bush you needed no further explanation of their air of quiet self-confidence.

Job had been up as far as the bend of the river where we were to leave the Nascaupee for the trappers’ cross country route to Seal Lake.  A little above this bend the Nascaupee becomes impassable.  It was three miles away, but Job reported, “Fine portage all the way to brook.”

It was just four next morning when I heard voices at the other tent.  Then all was quiet again.  At six the men went past with loads.  They had brought up the outfit that was left behind on Saturday.  The day was fine, and we made good progress.  George said:  “Oh, it’s just fun with this kind of portaging.”  It was nevertheless hot, hard work.  I felt resentful when I looked at the river.  It was smooth, and appeared altogether innocent of any extraordinary behaviour; yet for the whole three miles above North Pole Rapid it flowed without a bend so swift and deep that nothing could be done on it in the canoes.