



Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover]




                          BY CANADIAN STREAMS


                                   BY

                           LAWRENCE J. BURPEE




                                TORONTO
                    THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED




                              _Entered at_
                           _Stationers Hall_
                                  1909




                          THE RIVERS OF CANADA


Who that has travelled upon their far-spreading waters has not felt the
compelling charm of the rivers of Canada? The matchless variety of their
scenery, from the gentle grace of the Sissibou to the tempestuous
grandeur of the Fraser; the romance that clings to their shores--legends
and tales of Micmac and Iroquois, Cree, Blackfoot, and Chilcotin;
stories of peaceful Acadian villages beside the Gaspereau, and fortified
towns along the St. Lawrence; of warlike expeditions and missionary
enterprises up the Richelieu and the Saguenay; of heroic exploits at the
Long Sault and at Vercheres; of memorable explorations in the north and
the far west?  How many of us realise the illimitable possibilities of
these arteries of a nation, their vital importance as avenues of
commerce and communication, the potential energy stored in their rushing
waters?  Do we even appreciate their actual extent, or thoroughly grasp
the fact that this network of waterways covers half a continent, and
reaches every corner of this vast Dominion?

Two hundred years ago little was known of these rivers outside the
valley of the St. Lawrence.  One hundred years later scores of new
waterways had been explored from source to outlet, some of them ranking
among the great rivers of the earth.  The Western Sea, that had lured
the restless sons of New France toward the setting sun, that had
furnished a dominating impulse to her explorers, from Jacques Cartier to
La Verendrye, was at last reached by Canadians of another race--and the
road that they travelled was the water-road that connects three oceans.
In their frail canoes these tireless pathfinders journeyed up the mighty
St. Lawrence and its great tributary the Ottawa, through Lake Nipissing,
and down the French river to Georgian Bay; they skirted the shores of
the inland seas to the head of Lake Superior, and by way of numberless
portages crossed the almost indistinguishable height of land to Rainy
Lake and the beautiful Lake of the Woods.  They descended the wild
Winnipeg to Lake Winnipeg, paddled up the Saskatchewan to Cumberland
House, turned north by way of Frog Portage to the Churchill, and
ascended that waterway to its source, where they climbed over Meythe
Portage--famous in the annals of exploration and the fur trade--to the
Clearwater, a branch of the Athabaska, and so came to Fort Chipewyan, on
Lake Athabaska.  Descending Slave River for a few miles, they came to
the mouth of Peace River, and after many days' weary paddling were in
sight of the Rocky Mountains.  Still ascending the same river, they
traversed the mountains, and by other streams were borne down the
western <DW72> to the shores of the remote Pacific.

The world offers no parallel to this extraordinary water-road from the
Atlantic to the Pacific; nor is the tale all told.  From that great
central reservoir, that master-key to the whole system of water
communications, the traveller might turn his canoe in any direction, and
traverse the length and breadth of the continent to its most remote
boundaries: east to the Atlantic, west to the Pacific, north to the
Arctic or to Hudson Bay, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.

The story of Canadian rivers would fill several volumes if one attempted
to do justice to such a broad and varied theme. One may only hope, in
the few pages that follow, to give glimpses of the story; to suggest,
however inadequately, the dramatic and romantic possibilities of the
subject; to recall a few of the memories that cling to the rivers of
Canada.




                                CONTENTS


      I. The Great River of Canada
     II. The Mystic Saguenay
    III. The River of Acadia
     IV. The War Path of the Iroquois
      V. The River of the Cataract
     VI. The Highway of the Fur Trade
    VII. The Red River of the North
   VIII. The Mighty Mackenzie




                          By Canadian Streams



                                   I


                       THE GREAT RIVER OF CANADA


    He told them of the river whose mighty current gave
    Its freshness for a hundred leagues to ocean's briny wave;
    He told them of the glorious scene presented to his sight,
    What time he reared the cross and crown on Hochelaga's height,
    And of the fortress cliff that keeps of Canada the key,
    And