In the afternoon, after spending some time searching through one or two of the islands, we reached the end of Island Lake and there located Frog Portage on the south shore opposite an island, where the river takes a sharp turn into the north-east. Frog Portage is an overland link into Lake of the Woods, which is the north end of the Sturgeonweir River route, that runs 150 miles south to Cumberland House and thence forty-five miles east to The Pas in northern Manitoba, where, for the present, terminates the railway service on the Canadian Northern branch now under construction to Hudson Bay. I made particular note of the position of Frog Portage, which was difficult to discern until you are almost upon it-as, indeed, are all Indian trails-and I cut a large blaze on a solitary tree which stood on a bare point on the east shore after resuming our journey, so that I would be warned when I approached it on my return and might be sure of finding it, for it was by the above route that I intended to return to civilisation at some distant date in the future.

There were some Crees camped at Frog Portage : four teepees containing one deaf old man and a number of women and children. With the exception of the old man the male inhabitants were away " freighting" stores north from Pelican Narrows for the Hudson Bay Company. I photographed the gipsy-like dwellings, after I had overcome the old man with a gift of tobacco, to the seeming consternation of the female inmates, who in their acute shyness reminded me somewhat of alarmed sheep.

Leaving Frog Portage behind we continued onward in a more north-east direction than hitherto, until approaching darkness bid us camp.

To-day I saw a Mink swimming rapidly ashore with prey in its mouth. With my shot-gun I fired near to the animal as it landed, and it dropped what it carried, which proved to be an eel fifteen inches long, showing by deep-sunk teeth-marks that the strong, squirming thing had been held in vice-like grip across the head to subdue it and prevent its escaping. To-day, too, I again saw a Porcupine swimming in the water.

Previously, on June 11, I had noted a similar occurrence.

June 27

This was our last day on the Churchill River, for about 2 p.m., after portaging at Kettle Falls, we came to the mouth of Reindeer River and turned north up that broad stream of crystal-clear water that cut a well-defined line where it joined the more brownish water of the Churchill.

Stiff paddling henceforth lay ahead : against current we must now journey onward ; no longer was our course downstream.

Somewhat reluctantly we bid good-bye to the stream whose name and character had grown familiar and given us pleasure, and thereafter faced the dim trail into the distant North. Always, on such travelling as this, the familiar scene and the knowledge and experience you collect go back to the Past, while ahead, round each bend, and island, and point in your course, lies the alluring, unravelled unknown of the Future. So like our lives !-the plan unfinished, the map of our course to be drawn as each day leads onward. Unseeing what is in front of us, yet in faith picturing scenes as we imagine them to be, and as we would like best to find them.

But so far as the Churchill River was concerned our travels there were ended, at least for the present. We had voyaged by lake and stream for forty-seven days, twenty-seven of which had been spent on the broad, beautiful waterway which I have endeavoured to describe.

Below I give a summary of the Churchill River from Lake Ile a la Crosse to Reindeer River: