CHAPTER X.
The Trip To Wahpooskow.
Our route lay first up the Pelican River, the Chachakew of the Crees, and then from the "divide" down the Wahpooskow 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 Wahpooskow.

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.

So far the banks of the Pelican were of a moderate height, and the adjacent country evidently dry--a good soil, and berries very plentiful.