After Reaching The Point Where The Canoes Could Again Be Launched, It Was But A Few Minutes Till We Were In The Rapids.

They seem very innocent to me now, but then running rapids was a new experience, and it was tremendously exciting as the canoes sped down the current, the men shouting to each other as we went.

Two more short portages, which led down over a fine bear trail cut deep into the white moss; two brisk little runs in the canoes, and we reached smooth water, where, rounding the last bend in the brook, we could look straight away eastward into Seal Lake. A little way below the bend our brook joined a river, coming down from the northwest, which the trappers call Thomas River.

The lake was little more than a mile wide where we entered it, and extended southward nearly two miles. Gilbert pointed out the opening in the hills to the southwest where the Nascaupee River leaves the lake, and I had George and Job paddle across that I might see it. A continuation of the hills, south of the valley we had passed in the morning, swung round the south shore of the lake and culminated in what I called Santa Claus Mountain; for the outline of its rugged top looked as if the tired old fellow had there lain down to rest, that he might be ready to start out again on his long winter journey. I knew then that the beautiful valley, through which we had just passed, must be that vale where his fairies dance when it is moonlight.

About the outlet the country was wild and rugged, and from the point where the river leaves the lake the water breaks into a tossing foaming rapid. According to the trappers, the river from this point to Bald Mountain rushes down a continuous rocky slope, the hills in many places rising perpendicular from its edge.

Turning again we passed northward up the lake. It proved to be a succession of lake expansions, narrowing in one part, where it is bordered by the cliffs, and the current is very rapid. The lake is surrounded by hills of solid rock, some of those on the west arising abrupt and separate, one, Mount Pisa, distinctly leaning towards the east. Much of the surrounding country has been burned over, being now grown up with white birch and poplar, and at the narrows the angles in the cliffs are marked by lines of slender birch reaching from the water's edge to the summit. A short distance above, two large brooks enter from the east. Many of the long, low points which reach out into the lake are spruce covered, but away on the hills could be seen only the more delicate green of the birch and poplar. There are a number of islands lying mainly near the shore; and from its northern extremity an arm, which according to the trappers is thirty miles long, stretches away to the west.

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