CHAPTER X

A SILVER FOXES AND SEACOWS

We go where all must pass—~Portage. We see the scattered town, camp in Montrose, remember Dalton in Tignish, seek seacows, and end at the northern Point.

HE isthmus of Portage! How unlikely it sounds

and how true it is! For every one who goes west

must pass through Portage . . . There is no other way around. In early Indian days this narrow neck of land was a portage route from Cascumpeque Bay to Egmont Bay. Now it is an oasis on the long western road. To have reached Portage is considered one lap of a journey. Portage is noted not only as an isthmus, but also for its mosquitoes. Assuredly, this district must have a mosquito factory hidden some- where, and must distribute its products far and Wide. They are here in countless millions. One native family has partially solved the problem by keeping a pot in the yard with the smoke issuing toward the door. A most excellent idea .

Just beyond this oasis of Portage, and set in the swampy forest growth, lies Portage Lake. The story of this lake might be told very briefly. ”Once there was a lake. Now, there isn’t.” To this might be added a chapter relating how the lake was bottomless; how animals and luckless individuals had floundered there and perished in its unknown interior. But even the best stories are doubted—Alfred the Great did not burn the cakes, and the spider did not spin for Bruce. So the old story of the lake passes into the realm of myths and fairy tales. The government had the lake

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