Pioneers in Canada Part 7

According to Hearne, the flesh of the musk ox does not resemble that of the bison, but is more like the meat of the moose or wapiti. The fat is of a clear white, "slightly tinged with a light azure". The calves and young heifers are good eating, but the flesh of the bulls both smells and tastes so strongly of musk as to be very disagreeable; "even the knife that cuts the flesh of an old bull will smell so strongly of musk that nothing but scouring the blade quite bright can remove it, and the handle will retain the scent for a long time".

Bisons of the "wood" variety are (or were) found far up the heights of the Rocky Mountains and in the regions south-west of the Great Slave Lake. These "wood buffaloes" delight in mountain valleys, and never resort to the plains. And higher than anything, of course, range the great white mountain goat-antelopes (Oreamnus monta.n.u.s) from northern Alaska to the Columbia River.

The north and the north-west were, of course, pre-eminently the great fur-trading regions, though all parts of the vast Dominion have at one time or another yielded furs for commerce with the white man. The princ.i.p.al fur-bearing smaller mammals of the north and north-west were wolves, foxes, lynxes, gluttons (wolverene), otters, martens (sables) and black fis.h.i.+ng martens, mink (a kind of polecat), ermine-stoats, weasels, polar hares (Lepus timidus), beavers, musquash, lemming, gopher or pouched ground-squirrels, and the common red squirrel of North America. The grey squirrel and striped chipmunk are only found in southern Canada.

The musquash (Fiber zibethicus) is such a characteristic animal of northern Canada that it is worth while to give Hearne's description of it (I would mention it is really a huge vole, and no relation of the beaver):-

"The musk rat or musquash builds a dwelling near the banks of ponds or swamps to shelter it from the bitter cold of the winter, but never on land, always on the ice, as soon as it is firm enough, taking care to keep a hole open to admit it to dive for its food, which chiefly consists of the roots of gra.s.s or arums. It sometimes happens in very cold winters that the holes communicating with their dwellings under the water are so blocked by ice that they cannot break through them. When this is the case, and they have no provisions left in the house, they begin to eat one another. At last there may be only one rat left out of a whole lodge. They occasionally eat fish, but in general feed very cleanly, and when fat are good eating. They are easily tamed and soon grow fond of their owner. They are very cleanly and playful, and 'smell exceedingly pleasant of musk', but their resemblance to the rat is so great that few are partial to them, though of course they are much larger in size, and have webbed hind feet and a flat scaly tail. In Canadian regions farther south the musquash no longer builds on the ice, but in swamps, where it raises heaps of mud like islands in the surrounding water. On the top of these mounds they build their nests, and on the top of the musquash nest, or 'lodge', wild geese frequently lay their eggs and bring forth their young brood without any fear of being molested by foxes."

The YUKON territories of the Dominion, and above all the State of BRITISH COLUMBIA, const.i.tute a very distinct region from the rest of British North America, not only in their tribes of Amerindians but in their fauna, flora, and climate. British Columbia is one of the most beautiful and richly endowed countries in the world. Here, in spite of northern lat.i.tudes, the warm airs coming up from the Pacific Ocean act somewhat in the same way as the Gulf Stream on north-west Europe, and favour the growth of magnificent forests.

All this north-western part of British Columbia is very mountainous, and the rocks are rich in minerals, especially gold in the Fraser and Columbia Rivers, far north in the upper valley of the Yukon, and copper and coal in Vancouver Island.

The rainfall in British Columbia is considerable, and the flora-trees, plants, ferns-richer than anywhere else in North America, with many resemblances to the trees and plants of j.a.pan and northern China. In British Columbia more than in any other part of the world are found the n.o.blest developments of the pines, firs, and junipers (Coniferae).

The coast rivers swarm with salmon, and perhaps because of the abundance of sea fish close in sh.o.r.e there have been developed in the course of ages those remarkable aquatic mammals, the sea lions or fur seals (Otaria), whose relations.h.i.+p to the true seals is a very distant one. On the Alaskan coasts and islands is Otaria ursina, the creature which provides the sealskin fur of commerce. There is also the much larger sea lion (Otaria stelleri), on the coasts of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. Alexander Henry, jun., gives some interesting facts about this remarkable beast.

"The natives at Oak Point, during the time Mr. Keith was there, killed five very large sea lions by spearing them at night. Two canoes being lashed together, they approach very softly, and throw their spears, which are fastened by a long, strong cord, with a barb so fixed in a socket that, when it strikes the animal and pierces the flesh, it is detached from the shaft of the spear, but remains fastened to the cord. This is instantly made fast between the canoes; the animal dives and swims down river, dragging the canoes with such velocity that they may be in danger of filling, and require great skill in steering. In this manner they are carried down some miles before the animal becomes exhausted with loss of blood, makes for the sh.o.r.e, and lies on the beach, where they dispatch it and cut it up. The price of a sea lion among the natives is one slave and an a.s.sortment of other articles. Mr. Keith bought the flesh of one of these animals, and we had some roasted; it resembles bear's meat. The hair is like that of a horse, in summer of a chestnut colour. The natives, and also the Russians, are particularly fond of marine animals, such as whales, &c.; they drink the oil like milk."

Another notable water beast of the British Columbia coast was the sea otter (Enhydris), described on p. 305. Such an immense value was set on its fur that it is now nearly extinct within British limits.

The huge chocolate-coloured bear of the Yukon valley has already been mentioned; also the very large, blackish-brown wild dog (Canis pambasileus), which from one or two pa.s.sages in the writings of Canadian pioneers may also be found as far south as the British Columbian Rocky Mountains. In the Yukon country the elk (which was formerly very common in British Columbia) grows to gigantic proportions with longer and larger antlers than elsewhere. In the forested mountains of British Columbia (as well as farther north) are the wood bison, the white mountain goat, grizzly bears, black bears, two kinds of lynx, the wapiti red deer, and the large bighorn sheep.

These (Ovis montana) sheep are of a grey or leaden colour; the rump and the inner side of the legs are white; the hoofs black, about one inch long. "The hair is rather soft, and at the roots is mixed with exceedingly fine white wool, which seems to grow only in certain patches. The neck is relatively much thicker than that of other animals of the same size; the legs and hoofs are also strongly built, like the neck." The horns of the female are comparatively small, flat, and have only a small bend backward; they are of a dirty-yellowish white, marked with closely connected annulations to the very tip. The legs are brown, as are also the ends of the hairs about the neck; the hoofs are black. "A ewe will weigh about 100 lb. when in full flesh, with only the entrails taken out. The head bears every resemblance to that of our European sheep." The colour of the males is nearly the same as that of the females, only rather browner; they are much larger and more strongly built, with a pair of enormous horns, which incline backward. As they grow they bend downward, and in the course of time form a complete curve and project forward. At the root the horns are nearly three inches square, the flat sides opposite; they are marked with closely connected ridges and end in a tapering flat point.

When the horns grow to a great length, forming a complete curve, the tips project on both sides of the head so as to prevent the ram from feeding. This, with their great weight, causes the sheep to dwindle to a mere skeleton and die. The bighorn sheep feed much in the caverns of the Rocky Mountains, eating a kind of moss and gra.s.s growing on the floors of these caves, and also a peculiar soft, sweet-tasting "clay", of which the natives also are fond.

The southern part of British Columbia contains the mule deer of western North America (Mazama macrotis), and a very strange rodent, the sewellel or mountain beaver (Haplodon), a creature distantly allied to squirrels, marmots, and beavers, but restricted in its distribution to a few parts of California, Oregon, and British Columbia. Amongst the birds noteworthy in the landscape are the white-headed sea eagles and Californian condors (Pseudogryphus california.n.u.s). Humming-birds range through British Columbia and Vancouver Island between mid-April and October.

In the regions about the upper Kootenay River (Eastern British Columbia), before the railway was constructed, there were wild horses, descended, no doubt, from those which had escaped from the Spaniards in New Mexico and California. They went in large herds, and in the winter when the snow was deep the natives would try to catch them by running them down with relays of fresh horses, or driving them up the mountains into the deepest snow or some narrow pa.s.s. A noose would then be thrown about the exhausted animal, which would be instantly mounted by an Indian and broken immediately to the saddle. Some of these wild horses were exceedingly swift, well-proportioned, and handsome in shape, but they seldom proved as docile as those born in captivity. When in a wild condition they would snort so loudly through the nostrils on descrying an enemy that they could be heard at a distance of five hundred yards.

The provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba-the MIDDLE WEST-represent mainly the great prairie region of the Canadian Dominion. Nearly all the streams here flow from the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains and direct their course to the basin of Lake Winnipeg and to Hudson's Bay. A few turn south-west to the Missouri and Mississippi. The landscapes here remind one more of the middle part of the United States. The climate is severe in winter but very warm and dry in summer. In the extreme south, within the basin of the upper Missouri, the "p.r.i.c.kly pear" (Opuntia) cactus grows in sheltered places, and suggests affinities with distant Colorado and California.

These great plains and river courses of the middle West were, until about fifty years ago, one of the world's great natural parks or zoological gardens. Large numbers of wapiti deer, of the smaller Virginian deer,[4] and of the p.r.o.ngbuck "antelope" [5] thronged the gra.s.sy flats, and elk browsed on the foliage of the thickets along the river banks. Grizzly bears and black bears,[6] large grey wolves, the small coyote wolf, the pretty little kit fox and large red fox preyed on these herbivores, as did also pumas and lynxes. Marmots and prairie hares (Lepus campestris)-often called rabbits by the pioneers, who also named the marmots "wood-chucks"-frolicked in the herbage, and formed the princ.i.p.al prey of the numerous rattlesnakes. By the sh.o.r.es of streams and lakes stood rows of stately cranes: the whooping crane, of large size, pure white, with black quill feathers, the crown of the head crimson scarlet and the long legs black; and the purple-brown crane, somewhat smaller in size. On hot, calm days in the region of Lake Winnipeg the cranes soar to an amazing height, flying in circles, till by degrees they are almost out of sight. Yet their loud note sounds so distinct and near that the spectator might fancy they were close to him.

The air at this season is full of great birds-eagles, buzzards, hawks, and falcons-soaring in circles to look out for prey among the flocks of wild swans, white geese, bernicle geese and brent geese, duck and teal, which cover the backwaters and the marshes and shallow lagoons. Turkey buzzards, coming up from the south, act as scavengers during the summer months. Immense flocks of pa.s.senger pigeons, buntings, grosbeaks, attack the ripening fruits and the wild rice of the swamps. Grouse in uncountable numbers inhabit the drier tablelands and open moors.[7]

INDIANS LYING IN WAIT FOR MOOSE

But-a hundred years ago and more-the dominant features in the fauna of the Middle West was the bison. Between the Athabaska and Saskatchewan Rivers on the north, the Rocky Mountains on the west, and Lake Superior on the east the bison pa.s.sed backwards and forwards over the great plains and prairies in millions, when white explorers first penetrated these lands. They moved in herds which concealed the ground from sight for miles. Here are some word pictures selected from the writings of the pioneers between 1770 and 1810:

"The buffaloes chiefly delight in wide open plains, which in those parts produce very long coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, or rather a kind of small flags and rushes, upon which they feed; but when pursued they always take to the woods. They are of such an amazing strength, that when they fly through the woods from a pursuer, they frequently brush down trees as thick as a man's arm; and be the snow ever so deep, such is their strength and agility, that they are enabled to plunge through it faster than the swiftest Indian can run in snowshoes. To this I have been an eyewitness many times, and once had the vanity to think that I could have kept pace with them; but though I was at that time celebrated for being particularly fleet of foot in snowshoes, I soon found that I was no match for the buffaloes, notwithstanding they were then plunging through such deep snow, that their bellies made a trench in it as large as if many sacks had been hauled through it. Of all the large beasts in those parts the buffalo is easiest to kill, and the moose are the most difficult; neither are the (red) deer very easy to come at, except in windy weather: indeed it requires much practice and a great deal of patience to slay any of them, as they will by no means suffer a direct approach, unless the hunter be entirely sheltered by woods or willows.

"The flesh of the buffalo is exceedingly good eating, and so entirely free from any disagreeable smell or taste, that it resembles beef as nearly as possible."

"The spots of wood along the Park River are ravaged by buffaloes (bison); none but the large trees are standing, the bark of which is rubbed perfectly smooth, and heaps of hair and wool lie at the bottom of the trees ... and even the gra.s.s is not permitted to grow.... The ground is trampled more by these cattle than about the gate of a farmyard."

"The Kris informed me they had seen a calf as white as snow in a herd of buffalo. White buffalo are very scarce. They are of inestimable value among the nations of the Missouri.... There were also some of a dirty-grey colour, but these are very rare."

"I brought home two buffalo calves alive; they no sooner lost sight of the herd than they followed my horse like dogs, directly into the fort. On chasing a herd at this season the calves follow it until they are fatigued, when they throw themselves down in high gra.s.s and lie still, hiding their heads if possible. But seeing only a man and his horse they remain quiet and allow themselves to be taken. Having been a little handled, they follow like dogs."

In the spring, when the ice melted, innumerable buffaloes were killed through attempting to cross the rivers on the melting ice. They would drift by an observer (such as Alexander Henry, jun.) in entire herds of drowned corpses. Vast numbers perished. They formed one continuous line on the current for two days and two nights.

"By this time the river was crowded with them, swimming across, bellowing and grunting terribly. The bulls really looked fierce; all had their tails up, and each appeared eager to land first. The scene would have struck terror to one unaccustomed to such innumerable herds. From out in the plains, as far as the eye could reach, to the middle of the river, they were rus.h.i.+ng toward us, and soon began to land about ten yards off. I shot one dead on the spot, my ball having broken his neck; my hunter and guide only wounded theirs. This discharge suddenly halted those on the south side, and turned those that were still in the water."

In the autumn:-"Plains burned in every direction and blind buffalo seen every moment wandering about. The poor beasts have all the hair singed off; even the skin in many places is shrivelled up and terribly burned, and their eyes are swollen and closed fast. It was really pitiful to see them staggering about, sometimes running afoul of a large stone, at other times tumbling down hill and falling into creeks not yet frozen over. In one spot we found a whole herd lying dead."

Throughout British North America, from the Yukon to Newfoundland, and from Labrador to Vancouver's Island, the rivers and freshwater lakes swarm with fish, and fish that in most cases is exceedingly good to eat. Salmon are most strikingly abundant in the rivers of British Columbia and Newfoundland, but they also ascend most of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic and Hudson's Bay. In the great lakes of Canada and of the middle west there are trout and white fish (Coregonus), pike, ba.s.s, chub, barbel, and five species of sturgeon. In the rivers and lakes of the far north-west is found the blackfish (Dallia).

Hearne writes of Lake Athabasca that it swarms with fish, such as pike, trout, perch, barbel, and other kinds not easily identified. Apparently there is also a form of gar-pike found here (see p. 74); this is described as having scales of a very large and stiff kind, and being a beautiful bright silver in colour. The size of these gar-pike range from two feet to four feet in length. Their flesh was delicately white and soft, but so foul and rank in taste that even the Indians would not eat it. The trout in Lake Athabaska seem to have been enormous, weighing from 35 to 40 pounds, while pike were of about the same weight.

The Amerindian tribes and the early European explorers lived mainly on fish, which was a palatable and easily obtained food. Yet it must be admitted that they had a splendid array of large and small game from which to take their toll.

Nor was the whole Dominion, from west to east and up to the Arctic zone, wanting in wild vegetable produce fit for man's consumption. The sugar maple (Acer saccharinum) and its ally the Negundo maple provided a delicious syrup; the bark of certain poplars and the bast of the sugar pine were chewed for their well-flavoured sweetness; the wild rice of the marshes will be further described in the next chapter. The wild fruits included delicious strawberries, cherries, gooseberries, currants, black currants, grapes (in the south only), blackberries of many kinds, whortleberries, cranberries, pears of the service tree (Pyrus canadensis[8]), and raspberries of various types-red, yellow, and black. Southern Canada and Nova Scotia contained various nut trees of the walnut order (hickories, b.u.t.ter-nuts, &c.), and hazel nuts were found everywhere except in the north.

We have left undescribed what is still politically the most important part of the whole of British North America-UPPER and LOWER CANADA. These regions lie within the basin of the great St. Lawrence River, beyond all doubt the most important waterway of North America, more important even than the Mississippi. The main origin of the St. Lawrence in the west is Lake Superior, the largest sea of fresh water in the world, which is connected with Lake Nipigon on the north. The waters of Lake Superior are carried over the Sault Ste. Marie rapids into Lake Huron and find a huge backwater in Lake Michigan.[9] Out of Lake Huron again they flow past Detroit into Lake Erie. From Duluth, at the westernmost extremity of Lake Superior, to Buffalo, on the easternmost point of Lake Erie, including all Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, with its bays and channels, a steamer can pa.s.s with just the one difficulty (easily surmounted) of the rapids at Sault Ste. Marie between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. But after you have left Lake Erie on the east you find yourself in the Niagara River, which at the Niagara Falls plunges several hundred feet downwards into Lake Ontario. From Lake Ontario to the sea along the St. Lawrence there is uninterrupted navigation, though there are rapids that require careful steering both with steamers and boats. Quebec marks the place where the St. Lawrence River suddenly broadens from a river into a tidal gulf of brackish or salt water. Ocean steamers from all over the world can come (except during the height of the winter, when the water freezes) to Quebec. But for the ice in wintertime Quebec would be the great sea-port of eastern Canada.

"If pitiless rock is commonly understood by an 'iron-bound sh.o.r.e', then the coasts of the River St. Lawrence along the northern side of the Gulf may truly be so styled, as nothing scarcely is to be seen for hundreds of leagues but bare rocky mountains, capes and cliffs in various shapes and figures, some of which are dotted with a few spruce firs, while others present their bald pates deprived of covering by the unmerciful hand of time." (James M'Kenzie).

The winters of the Quebec province are extremely cold, but the summer and autumn are warm and sunny. The best winter climate, possibly, in all Canada (though not as good as that of Vancouver Island, British Columbia) is to be found in the small peninsula region, on the sh.o.r.es of Lakes Erie and Huron, between Toronto and Detroit. This is the district which the Jesuit missionaries described as "an earthly paradise" even during the winter-time.

The following extracts, mostly from the journals of Alex. Henry, jun., give a good idea of the difference in climate and temperature between the western and the central parts of the Canadian Dominion.

The late spring of northern Canada (Lake Nipigon, 50 N. lat.):-About May 15, the tops of the poplars begin to appear green, with fresh buds; the hills are changing their hue from a dry straw colour to a delightful verdure, and fragrant odours greet us.

"Early in March, 1800, in the a.s.siniboin country (Manitoba, about 29 N. lat.) the snow was entirely gone, for this winter had been an abnormally mild one for central Canada. The birds soon realized the openness of the season, for, on the 7th of March, turkey-buzzards began to arrive from the south, and cormorants, ducks, swans, and other spring birds; indeed, by the 24th of March not only had the snow quite melted, but the meadows had grown so dry with the hot sun that some accidents set them on fire. By April the 11th the weather had become excessively hot, and immense flocks of the traveller-pigeon (Ectopistes) flew northwards over the country."

In somewhat similar lat.i.tudes (50) the spring bursts on the Pacific coast region of British Columbia towards the end of February. "The tall raspberry bushes were in blossom with a beautiful red flower, which appeared more forward than the leaf (Rubus spectabilis). The elder had sprouts an inch long, the alder was also beginning to sprout, and willows were budding."

Although nowhere in Upper and Lower Canada (or in the maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) are the forests so splendid as in parts of British Columbia, yet nevertheless when this region was first discovered the magnificence of its woodlands greatly impressed even the explorers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who were not as much given to praise of landscape beauty as are we of later times. These Canadian forests include oaks, elms, pines and firs, chestnuts and beeches, birch trees and sycamores, maples and poplars, willows, alders, and hazelnuts (these last sometimes growing into tall trees with thick trunks). The trees and low-growing plants are partly like those of the north-eastern United States, and partly resemble those of northern and central Europe.

Nowadays, owing to two centuries of incessant killing, the beasts and birds of Upper and Lower Canada are not nearly so abundant as they were a hundred years ago. When Canada proper was first discovered, the wapiti red deer was still found in the basin of the St. Lawrence; it has long since been extinct. There are, however, still lingering, reindeer in the north, and elk in the forests of the east. There are also Virginian deer (Mazama), but there is no bison (and, so far as we know, never has been). There is no p.r.o.ngbuck, and many other creatures characteristic of the United States and British Columbia are not found in Upper and Lower Canada or in the maritime provinces. The tree porcupine (Erethizon dorsatus), which the Canadians call "Urson", or "Little Bear" is found still in the well-wooded regions of eastern and southern Canada, as well as in British Columbia and Alaska. In southern Canada there is the wood hare (Lepus sylvaticus), and in the east and north the varying hare (L. america.n.u.s) which turns white in winter.

Perhaps the most characteristic animal of this region was and is still the beaver, though the beaver is found all over British North America as far north as the Saskatchewan province and westwards into British Columbia.

It is curious that the Indians of central Canada had a belief (recorded by French and English pioneers) that occasionally in the dusk, or at night, they have seen an enormously large beaver in the water, so large that at first sight they have taken it for a moose. Travellers who have related this have surmised that the Indian perhaps saw a bear swimming, or a female moose, and in the dim light mistook it for a giant beaver. But as we know that there were once giant beavers (Trogontherium) as large as a bear, existing in England, it is just possible there may have been a gigantic type of beaver lingering in Canada before the opening up of the country by Europeans.

The beaver of North America is a very similar animal to the beaver which used to exist wild in Wales, England, France, Germany, and central Europe, and which still lingers in some parts of the Rhine valley, Poland, Russia, and Siberia; but the American form is cla.s.sified as a separate species-Castor canadensis.

Beavers were sometimes exterminated or diminished in numbers by an epidemic disease, which, according to JAMES TANNER[10], destroyed vast quant.i.ties of them.

"I found them dead or dying in the water, on the ice, and on the land; sometimes I found one that, having cut a tree half down, had died at its roots; sometimes one who had drawn a stick of timber halfway to his lodge was lying dead by his burthen. Many of them which I opened were red and b.l.o.o.d.y about the heart. Those in large rivers and running water suffered less; almost all of those that lived in ponds and stagnant water, died. Since that year the beaver have never been so plentiful in the country of Red River and Hudson's Bay as they used formerly to be."

The great attraction which Canada offered to France and England as a field of adventure lay in its wonderful supply of furs. The beaver skins were perhaps the commonest article of export, and were generally regarded as a unit of value, such as a s.h.i.+lling might be. Other skins were valued at "so many beavers," or the smaller ones at half or a quarter of a beaver each. Besides beaver skins, which were used for making hats, as well as capes and coats, the following furs and skins were formerly, or are still, exported from Canada. "Buffalo" robes-the carefully rubbed-down hides of the bison, rendered, by shaving and rubbing, so thin and supple that they could be easily folded; reindeer and musk-ox skins treated in the same way; marten or sable skins; mink (a kind of polecat); ermine (the white winter dress of the stoat); the fis.h.i.+ng marten, or pekan; otter skins; black bear and white polar bear skins; racc.o.o.n, muskwash, squirrel, suslik, and marmot skins, and the soft white fur of the polar hare; the white skins of the Arctic fox, the skins of the blue fox, black fox, and red fox;[11] wolf skins, and the furs of the wolverene or glutton, and of the skunk-a handsome black-and-white creature of the weasel family, which emits a most disgusting smell from a gland in its body. (The skunk only comes from the south-central parts of the Canadian Dominion). At one time a good many swans' skins were exported for the sake of the down between the feathers, also the skins of grebes.

A general fact that must not be forgotten in studying the adventures of the pioneers of Canada was the means which Nature and savage man had provided or invented for quickly traversing in all directions this enormous area of nearly half North America. These means consisted (1) of the distribution of salt and fresh water in such a way that by means of ocean-sailing s.h.i.+ps explorers coming from the east could enter through straits and bays of the sea into the heart of Canada; and (2) the facility, on quitting the seash.o.r.e, of pa.s.sing up navigable rivers in boats or canoes into big lakes, and from these lakes into other rivers leading to other lakes. Moreover, the different river systems approached so closely to one another that even the Amerindians and the Eskimo, long before the white man, had realized that they had only to pick up their light canoes and carry them a few miles, to launch them on fresh waters which might provide hundreds or even thousands of miles of continuous travel. These are the celebrated "portages" of Canadian history, from the French word porter, to carry, transport. Sometimes the portages were made still easier for loaded canoes by a road being cleared through the scrub and over the rocks, and wooden rollers placed across it. Strong men could then easily haul a loaded canoe over these wooden rollers until it could be launched again in the water. Often these portages were made to circ.u.mvent dangerous rapids or waterfalls. The Indians and the French Canadians soon learnt how to steer canoes down rushes of water-rapids-which we should think very dangerous on an English river; but of course many of the rivers were obstructed at intervals by descents of water which no canoe could traverse up or down, and in these cases a path was cut from one smooth part of the river to another, and the canoe carried or hauled overland.