



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