C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

A Grizzly Bear 143we discussed the next lap of the journey. We decided that we would do away withearly rising and pushful travel, we would get up when we felt like it and not amoment earlier, we would savour leisure to the full, and drift down on thecurrent, or if we did paddle, we would paddle gently, without making any effort.This was our first reaction to release from strenuous travelling but of course in24 hours the mood had passed and we began making for Old Crow, if not infeverish haste, at any rate like travellers with minds set steadily on reaching theirgoal.When we had dried ourselves we dressed again, packed, loaded, pushed off thecanoe and had a glorious, effortless, peaceful, slow-moving day with never amosquito to torment us. We were moving through wooded country. Every nowand then we came to a bend in the river and then we would be looking down along, straight reach ahead, where the water, sloping very gently downwards, waslike a sheet of molten glass. We saw several black eagles, a white-headed one, and asquirrel. Also, a small flock of Canada geese went overhead, their notes echoingand re-echoing among the quiet trees.In the early afternoon we came into the Porcupine River and paddled onquietly, taking an hour ashore to build a fire and make tea and then at 7 we founda perfect site for a camp, on a spit of land with a beautiful view of mountains.There, we unpacked all our personal belongings to find that everything in thecanvas bags was soaked and mildewed, so we hung up each article one by one on awillow tree to dry. Our camp was on mud and mare's-tails but we cut and laid outwillow shoots to keep out the damp. Gwen cooked "puftaloonas" and we turnedin under that strange northern light which had kindled the water and all the treesand their reflections to a dull gold.We slept and slept again as we had not done for many nights and when at last wewoke, to find ourselves in broiling sunshine, in a world still free of mosquitoes,we decided to have a washing-day.We washed ourselves and our clothes in the river and dried the garments onstones and willow boughs. Then, ignoring that lump of bear's meat in the bows,we lunched happily on chocolate, tinned beef and doughnuts and finally, whennoon was already long past, we loaded and launched the canoe and pushed offdown the river again.As a matter of fact we continued to ignore the lump of bear's meat whichLazarus had insisted on our taking with us, until a time came when we couldignore it no longer, and then we dropped it overboard into the Porcupine.