Armed with iron-shod poles to shove up the rapids, and paddles for the deeper pools, our Canadians took their places and we commenced our ascent. My companion was an expert canoeman, but for myself it was my first real lesson in the unsteady little shells, and seated upon the bottom I awaited every moment a sudden bath. Here the water was comparatively smooth, and little was I prepared for the falls and rapids that were ere long to steady my nerves for anything, and prove what a canoe can do when it is well handled.
While our head guide, with the musical taste that is inherent in the French nature, rang forth--
the paddles were being plied vigorously, and we shot into the narrow cleft that forms the bed of the La Val. Straight up from the water’s edge sprung the hills on each side, their grey rocks scarcely half covered with stunted spruce, pine and hemlock, and rarely leaving margin enough for underwood to grow upon the bank. The water, now limpid as crystal, poured down in an ever increasing current, and here and there boiled over a hidden rock. On we forced our way, a bald eagle the only contestant for our sole occupancy of the river, past the grey cliffs, the sombre trees, through dark pools, up rapid currents, by banks of clay greyer than the granite hills themselves. On, on, with steady exertions, at every moment ascending toward the source of the wild stream. The water became shoaler, the currents stronger, and the rapids more rocky as we advanced.
Poling up the rapids was strange indeed. Imagine a torrent pouring, hissing and boiling down over rocks, where the foam glistened and the spray danced into the air, sweeping through narrow channels and leaping up and curling over in crested waves; imagine a light, fragile boat, that a man could lift with one hand, forced against such a current, between or even over the rocks, swayed about, swept hither and thither, and once in a while caught broadside on, and, unless quickly righted, carried to instant destruction. Imagine the excited efforts, the quick directions of the steersman, or forward boatman, whose care it is to head the canoe straight, to choose at a glance the deepest channel, and to keep her clear as possible from the rocks. “_Arrête! avance! pousse! à droite! à gauche!_” with a thousand others, come streaming forth as she touches, swings round, or tries to take her own head. At times she stops entirely, and by main force alone is she pushed over; the rock being distinctly felt as it bends the thin bark, that by its elasticity gives to the pressure and springs to its place the next instant. The men stand erect, exerting all their strength, and handle their poles like a Paddy his shillelah, first on one side, then on the other, then in front and then behind, the iron taking a firm hold of the slippery rocks. Such was our ascent, and deeply interesting it proved to me, although at first it seemed inevitable that the foaming water must ingulf us all, and, destroying our provisions, leave us, if we escaped at all, shipwrecked mariners upon a desolate coast.