Like Lake Marsh, Kluk-tas-si is full of mudbanks along its shores; its issuing waters being clear as a mountain stream, while its incoming tributaries are loaded with earthy deposits. So full of these is Kluk-tas-si, and so much more contracted is the waterway through them, that we thought we could detect a slight current when making our way along in the blue water. This was especially noticeable when the wind died down to a calm. In spite of all this, Kluk-tas-si offered fewer difficulties in the way of making landings than Lake Marsh. It seemed to me that but a brief geological period must elapse before these lakes are filled with deposits, their new shores covered with timber, and their beds contracted to the dimensions of the river. Such ancient lakes appear to occur in the course of the stream further on.
We started at seven in the morning and were occupied until eight in rowing and sailing through the tortuous channel which led to blue water in the deep portion of the lake. To keep this channel readily we sent the Indians ahead in the canoe, who sounded with their long paddles, and by signals indicated the deepest parts. In spite of their exertions we stuck a couple of times, and had to lower sail and jump overboard. The wind kept slowly increasing and by the time we set the full spread of our sail in bold water, we were forging along at such a rate that we put out a trolling spoon, but nothing was caught, the huge craft probably frightening every thing away. The wind died down and sprang up again several times during the day, but every time it arose it was in our favor. That evening by the time we reached Camp 21, on the eastern shore of the lake, we had scored about thirteen miles, a very good reckoning for lake travel any time.
The west bank of this lake is very picturesque about fourteen or fifteen miles from its southern entrance, large towers and bastion-like projections of red rock upheaving their huge flanks upon what seems to be a well-marked island, but which is in reality a part of the mainland, as our Indians assured us. According to the same authorities a river comes in here at this point, having shores of the same formation, and called by them the Red River. The frequency of this name in American geographical nomenclature was to me sufficient reason for abandoning it; and I gave the name of Richthofen to the rocks and river (the latter, however, not having been seen by us), after Freiherr von Richthofen of Leipsic, well known in geographical science. The next evening was a still and beautiful one, with the lake's surface like a mirror, and the reflection of the red rocks in the quiet water made the most striking scene on our trip; two warm pictures of rosy red in the sinking sun joined base to base by a thread of silver, at the edge of the other shore. The eastern shores of the lake seem to be formed of high rounded hills of light gray limestone, picturesquely striped with the foliage of the dark evergreen growing in the ravines. From the lake the contrast was very pretty, and showed a regularity that scarcely seemed the work of nature. I named them the Hancock Hills after General Hancock of the army. A number of salmon-trout were caught in this lake (the first one was caught in Lake Nares), the largest of which weighed over eight pounds, that being the limit of the pocket scales of the doctor. Saturday the 7th gave us the most conflicting winds, and although we were upon the waters of Kluk-tas-si, for twelve hours we made but nine miles, a head wind driving us into Camp 22.