Before leaving, the men had a few careless, ineffectual
shots at a crow which had alighted near the camp, the first of its
kind we had seen on the trip. The marsh was one mile wide from
east to west, and reached almost two miles northward from the upper
end of the lake. It was cut by many little streams, which, issuing
from a tiny lake one mile and a half above camp, wound about among
the grassy hummocks of the marsh, collecting half a mile below in a
small pond, to break again into innumerable tiny channels leading
down to Lake Michikamats.
The pond and streams above gave us some paddling. Then came more
portaging to the little lake. Below it lay a stretch of higher
ground which was a queer sort of collection of moss-covered
hummocks, crisscrossed by caribou trails cut deep into the soft
soil. Here cloudberries grew in abundance, and though not yet
ripe, they were mature enough to taste almost as good as the green
apples I used to indulge in surreptitiously in the days of my
youth. They seemed a great treat now, for they were the first
fruit found in abundance on the trip, though we had seen a few that
were nearly ripe on an island in Lake Michikamau, and on the 8th of
August Gilbert had gathered a handful of ripe blueberries on
Caribou Hill.
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