"
The directions we had received enabled us to find the river without
difficulty, and passing down through a succession of small
expansions with low, swampy shores where the wood growth was almost
altogether tamarack, we camped in the evening ten miles below
Resolution Lake, at the point where the river drops down through
three rocky gorges to flow with strong, swift current in a distinct
valley.
The lakes of the upper country were here left behind, and when we
resumed our journey the following morning it was to be carried
miles on a current in which the paddles were needed only for
steering. Stretches of quiet water were succeeded by boisterous
rapids, and sometimes I walked to lighten the canoe where the rapid
was shallow. Tributaries entered on either hand, the river
increased in force and volume, and when we halted for lunch some
ten miles below Canyon Camp, the George had come to be a really
great river.
We were getting down to the hills now and the country, which had
been burned over, was exceedingly barren and desolate. On the
slopes, which had been wooded, the grey and blackened tree trunks
were still standing like armies of skeletons, and through their
ranks the hills of everlasting rock showed grey and stern, stripped
even of their covering of reindeer moss.
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