It
would be almost if not quite a three hundred mile journey to
Ungava, and it might be more. Could we make the post by the last
week in August? The men appeared confident; but for me the days
which followed held anxious hours, and the nights sleepless ones as
I tried to make my decision whether in case it should become
evident we could not reach Ungava in time, I should turn back,
leaving the work uncompleted, or push on, accepting the consequent
long winter journey back across Labrador, or round the coast, and
the responsibility of providing for my four guides for perhaps a
full year. At least the sun shone on the beginning of the journey,
and about nine o'clock, the last pack having gone forward, I set
off down the portage below Lake Hubbard, a prayer in my heart that
the journey might be swift.
The prayer seemed doomed to remain unanswered at first. Before
noon of that day the sun was hidden, and for nearly a week we did
not again see his face. Violent storms of wind and rain and snow
made progress difficult or impossible, and on August 16th we were
camped only thirty miles from the Height of Land.
The upper river proved a succession of lake expansions of varying
sizes, their waters dropping from one to the other down shallow
rapids.
