That morning I had found myself with only a few films left, for the
fascination of taking the first photographs of the region traversed
had betrayed me into using my material more lavishly than I should;
but now I squandered two films in celebration of the achievement,
taking one picture looking out over the waters flowing South to
Lake Melville and the Atlantic and facing about, but without
otherwise changing my position, one over the waters which I felt
sure we should find flowing north to Ungava Bay.
In a wonderfully short time the outfit had been portaged across,
and we were again in the canoes, the quest now being, not for the
inlet but for the outlet of the lake, a much less difficult task.
Less than an hour's paddling carried us to the point where the
George River, as a tiny stream, steals away from its source in Lake
Hubbard, as if trying to hide in its rocky bed among the willows,
to grow in force and volume in its three hundred mile journey to
Ungava, till at its discharge there it is a great river three miles
in width.
Here at its beginning on the boggy margin of the stream we went
into camp. Here I saw the sun set and rise again, and as I lay in
my tent at dawn, with its wall lifted so that I could look out into
the changing red and gold of the eastern sky, I heard a splashing
of water near, and looking up saw a little company of caribou cross
at the head of the stream and disappear towards the sunrise.
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