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Updated: May 25, 2025
North of Michikamats were more smaller lakes, and George showed me our probable route to look for "my river". Squalls and showers had been passing all the afternoon, and as it drew towards evening fragments of rainbow could be seen out on the lake or far away on the hills beyond it.
Great bowlders were strewn indiscriminately everywhere, and the whole country was most barren and desolate. To the south of Michikamats was the stretch of flat swamp land which extended to Michikaman. Petscapiskau, a prominent and rugged peak on the west shore of Michikamau near its upper end, stood out against the distant horizon, a lone sentinel of the wilderness.
No Labrador Indian north of the Grand River will ever disturb a cache unless driven to it by the direst necessity, and even then will leave something in payment for what he takes. We told them of the evidences we had seen of the caribou migration having taken place between Michikamau and Michikamats, and they were mightily interested.
It was cut by many little streams, which, issuing from a tiny lake one mile and a half above camp, wound about among the grassy hummocks of the marsh, collecting half a mile below in a small pond, to break again into innumerable tiny channels leading down to Lake Michikamats. The pond and streams above gave us some paddling. Then came more portaging to the little lake.
We began to live in plenty now and the twittering owls were permitted to go unmolested. Lake Michikamats is irregular in shape, about twenty miles long, and, exclusive of its arms, from two to six miles wide. The surrounding country is flat and marshy, with some low, barren hills on the westward side of the lake.
Early on the third day after parting from the other men, we found ourselves at the end of Michikamau where a shallow river, in which large bowlders were thickly scattered, flowed into it from the north. This was the stream draining Lake Michikamats, the next important point in our journey.
The timber growth in the vicinity is sparse and scrubby, consisting of spruce and tamarack. The latter had now taken on its autumnal dress of yellow, and, interspersing the dark green of the spruce, gave an exceedingly beautiful effect to the landscape. Where we entered Michikamats, at its outlet, the lake is very shallow and filled with bowlders that stand high above the water.
A small river, coming down from the northwest, flowed in at the east end of the lake. Three-quarters of a mile of poling, dragging, and lifting brought us up to another lake, and this proved to be Lake Michikamats. For half a mile or more at its lower end the lake is narrow and shoal.
Michikamau, it might be explained, means, in the Indian tongue, big water so big you cannot see the land beyond; Michikamats means a smaller body of water beyond which land may be seen. So somebody has paradoxically defined it "a little big lake."
The map I carried indicated a number of detached lakes stretching miles northward from Lake Michikamats, and to find among the lakes of this upper plain the one which should prove the source of the George River, promised to be interesting work. Inwardly impatient I waited for the return of the men. Less than two hours later I saw them come down across the marsh to where they had left the canoe.
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