No less than ten brigades, each numbering twenty canoes, used to pass through these scenes during the summer months… I have seen four canoes sweep around a promontory suddenly and burst upon my view, while at the same moment the wild romantic song of the voyageurs, as they plied their brisk paddles struck upon my ear; and have felt thrilling enthusiasm on witnessing 30 or 40 of these picturesque canoes…half shrouded in spray that flew from the bright vermillion paddles.
Alas! The forests no longer echo to such sounds… and naught save narrow pathways over the portages, and rough wooden crosses over the graves of such travellers, who perished by the way, [nothing else] remains to mark that such things were.”
R.M.Ballantyne: Hudson’s Bay Company
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