Volume 1

PORTAGE OF THE HEIGHT OF LAND.
II
not yet stirring, and soon after came to Martin portage,
which is only 20 paces from the small lake. We then
followed Portage des Perches about 500 paces to the lake
of the same name. Having passed this we came to Portage
du Hauteur des Terres [Land's Height], which is about
700 paces. At this place the men generally finish their
small kegs of liquor an(^ fight many a battle. We reloaded
the canoes and proceeded on Lac du Hauteur des Terres
to the D^charge des Epingles, where we carried down half
our lading about 50 paces. Thence we continued to
Flint " lake, through which we passed. A fine wind aft
portage, only 18 yards, on the left, into the very small lake to which he refers.
Immediately on crossing this we reach Perche portage, of 320 yards, which
conducts into the lake to which Henry applies the same name. But this is now
known as South 1., to distinguish it from the adjacent North 1.; and between
these two is the Height of Land. The course in South 1. is about 3 m. westerly
to near its end, then turning N. to the portage of the Height of Land over into
North 1. Hauteur des Terres (or de Terre) is a more general name of the high
land, full of small lakes, which occupies the region between the waters of
Pigeon r., flowing eastward, and those of Rainy r., taking the opposite direction.
Land's Height portage itself is about 400 yards long, and strikes Lac du
Hauteur des Terres (present North 1.) not far from its lower end ; so that,
though North 1. is much longer and wider than South 1., the course in it is
crooked and short, being only about 2 m. to the Decharge des Epingles. (In
voyageurs' language a discharge is a place where the canoe must be unloaded
wholly or in part, and can then be handed down by a rope, the cargo or a part
of it being carried on land ; but at a portage everything is carried, including
the canoe.) This discharge is 40 yards long, and from this place the distance
is only about i^ m. to the large lake next to be named.
" Flint 1. is more fully Gun Flint 1., a term translating the F. phrase Lac des
Pierres a Fusil ; Harmon renders Flinty 1. The length is 7 m., with a width
of a mile or two in different places. It is traversed its whole length, about
W. S. W., to near the end, where the track turns N. W. through a narrow place
about 6 yards wide for 15 yards. This constriction marks off a part of what
was Gun Flint 1. of old, but is now distinguished by the modern name of Magnetic
1., about a mile long, N. N. W. The Duluth, Port Arthur, and Western
Ry. crosses this narrow place to go to Gun Flint iron mine. Magnetic 1. is
succeeded by a course 8 yards wide with a fall of 12 or 14 feet in three ridges
or steps, where there is a carriage of 40 yards to be made over a point of rocks
on the right, formerly known as Escalier or Ladder portage, now called Little
Rock portage. From this place onward quite to Saganaga 1. the route is simply
a succession of little lakes with intervening narrows, like beads on a string.