CRUISE OF THE AURORA
CHAPTER I.
WHICH LEAVES US IN
THE-POT-THAT-WASHES-ITSELF.
"BUT you surely do not propose to make the trip in
that little thing?"
The speaker was not a canoeist; and it was perhaps
natural then that he should express some incredulity
when I explained that my destination was the west
coast of Florida. The proposed route was from Lake
George, New York, via the Champlain and Erie Canals to
Buffalo, thence Coasting Lake Erie to Cleveland, Ohio;
through the Ohio Canal to Portsmouth on the Ohio
River; down that stream to the Mississippi, and so on
to the Gulf. This was the trip. The "little thing" in
which I was to make the voyage was the canoe Aurora.
The boat was sharp at both ends; hull of white Cedar;
deck, quarter-inch red cedar; length over all, 15
feet; breadth of beam, 31 inches at bottom of top
streak; depth amidships, 9 inches; at bow, 19 inches;
at stern, 17-1/2 inches; cockpit, 6 feet in length,
with breadth of 21 inches. The fittings consisted of a
double-bladed paddle 9 feet in length, jointed in the
center, and two lateen sails, of a combined area of
about 55 square feet. This canoe is registered in the
American Canoe Association as a "Princess" model, and
was built expressly for this cruise, by J. H. Rushton,
of Canton, N.Y. Without her fittings the canoe weighed
85 pounds. My companion, S.D. Kendall, of St.
Johnsbury, Vermont, had built his own craft, and his
canoe was of excellent workmanship, but low and rather
broad for easy paddling. Her length over all was 14
feet; breadth of beam, 3 feet. Her fittings were the
same as those of my own boat, except that she carried
a batten lug sail. She was called the Comfort.
One glorious morning in August, 1882, at the close
of the American Canoe Association meet, at the Canoe
Islands, we launched our craft from the shore of
lovely Lorna Island, and glided out over the
shimmering surface of Lake George. The start was
auspicious, and all through the first day, as we
paddled on through scenes of ever-changing beauty and
past one and another spot rich in historic memories,
the sun was bright, the wind fair, and the hours full
of happy portents for the thousands of miles before
us. Down the lake we had passed, through the Narrows
with their hundred islands, on our left the richly
clad slopes of Tongue Mountain, on our right the
overshadowing peak of Black, until the shadows of the
mountains admonished us that a camp must be made. And
selecting an island, the fire was soon burning before
the tent.
On Lake George.
On the following morning we went on past
Black Mountain Point, making a brief halt to inspect
the remains of the once beautiful steamboat Minnehaha,
now converted into a lodging house. With bows toward
the towering Adirondack Mountains, standing in gloomy
grandeur at the gateways of the Northern Wilderness,
every stroke of the paddle carried us through scenes
of romance and song and history.
Passing out from the Narrows, we skirted the shores
of Sabbath-day Point, the scene of some stirring
incidents in the history of these waters. Friend's
Point was decided upon for the last camp on the lake;
and sitting about the campfire on that brilliant
night, we recalled the traditions of the many
skirmishes fought on this ground, during the French
and Indian wars.
After a night of restful sleep, a beautiful morning
greeted us, and soon the curling smoke from our fire
ascended through the heavy canopy of pines and faded
into thin air. Then we paddled out over the
mirror-like surface of the water, here said to be more
than 500 feet in depth. Passing under Anthony's Nose,
we crossed the last broad sheet of water, on the
opposite side of which is Prisoners' Island, where
Abercrombie is said to have imprisoned some of his
captives, who, finding the water shallow, walked
ashore to the mainland and made their escape. A paddle
of one mile brought us to the end of our lake journey,
and we had before us the first portage of the cruise.
To reach the waters of Lake Champlain, 247 feet below
us, our canoes must be transported one and
three-quarter miles, through the village of
Ticonderoga to the creek of the same name. The
services of '"Sardine," a village cartman, were
secured; and the dainty craft, wrapped to protect
their light shells from damage, were transported in a
springless wagon. A few minutes brought us within view
of the ruins of old Fort Ticonderoga; and under the
shadows of its crumbled walls we ate our mid-day
lunch. Passing southward, we had on our right Mount
Defiance, whose heavily-timbered summit has trembled
under the discharge of artillery; while on the far
distant left rose Mount Mansfield, a majestic sentinel
over the fertile country at its base. Hurrah! here
comes a breeze; and gladly do we avail ourselves of
its cooling influences, as the sun has been having it
all its own way since early morning. The paddle is
laid aside, and the white sails spread, and on we go,
until we reach Gurley's Grove, the one available camp
site between Ticonderoga and Whitehall. It is on the
west shore of the lake, seven miles south of "Fort
Ti." This we select for our camp. Our after-supper
pipe being disturbed by the ever restless mosquito, we
arrange the canoes for sleeping in, and, anchored a
few feet off shore, sleep the sleep of the tired
canoeist.
A paddle of twenty miles the next day through an
uninteresting country brought us to within two miles
of Whitehall. While preparing our supper over a small
fire, some young men hailed us with the pleasing
intelligence that the rocks about us were "alive with
rattlesnakes, and that the building, about one hundred
feet above us, was a magazine filled with powder."
Amid Historic
Scenes.
At any other time we might have evacuated,
but tired nature told us to stay; and we live to tell
the tale. The following morning we entered the
Champlain Canal, to follow its tortuous course,
sixty-five miles to West Troy, N.Y. The canal is fed
by the Hudson River at Glens Falls, and again at a
point between Fort Edward and Fort Miller Falls. The
canoeist who is bound south, must go up stream until
he reaches the mouth of the Glens Falls feeder, about
two miles north of Fort Edward, when he will strike
the current to the southward and have the fall in his
favor to the end of the canal. Canal canoeing is
unromantic generally, but a trip through this one
carries one through many localities dear to the
American heart. First we came to the ancient and
famous town of Fort Edward and at dusk of the
twenty-third of August, coming to Schuylerville, we
hauled ashore our canoes on the site of Fort Schuyler,
at the mouth of Fish Creek, the outlet of Saratoga
Lake. Here we spent several days, visiting the
historic ground on which Burgoyne's army laid down
their arms to the American forces.
On the afternoon of the first day of September, the
voyagers again dipped their paddles into the waters of
the canal and headed the canoes to the southward. At
Waterford we emerged from the canal into the Mohawk
River, about half a mile below the Cohoes or Great
Falls. The Champlain and Erie canals form a junction
at West Troy, and we here turned our faces westward
and entered the unpoetical channel of commerce. The
Erie is here provided with a series of eighteen locks
in a distance of about four miles; to avoid these we
made a portage of a mile to Lock Eighteen, at Cohoes.
On Sunday evening we passed through Schenectady and
made our camp on the heel path of the canal on the
outskirts of the city. When pitching the tent a storm
with heavy peals of thunder and vivid flashes of
lightning, poured a deluge of rain down upon us. While
lying down enjoying the after supper pipe, a party of
three footpads were attracted by the light of our
lantern. "Let's clean them out 'o there" we heard one
of them say, to which the others seemed to give a
silent assent. On their approach they were hailed in a
friendly manner and invited to come in out of the
rain. Throwing the tent flap aside, they beheld the
occupants, one cleaning a huge bowie knife and the
other oiling a Colt's revolver. The spokesman of the
trio, after staring at us for an instant, "cleaned
out" his pipe and then said, "Say, boss, give me a
pipe of tobacco, will you?" Evidently a view of our
armament dispelled any desire on their part to act on
the offensive.
After a night of almost continuous rain, the
morning broke clear and bright with a gentle breeze
from the west. Notwithstanding our precautions some of
our cargo had got damp, not to say wet, and about
eleven o'clock, coming to a spot of clean greensward,
we decided to halt, and while Barnacle* was preparing
the ingredients for a stew, I built a fireplace of the
stones lying at hand, and then busied myself with
spreading the tent, blankets, etc., on the grass to
dry and air.
*The cognomen by which my companion was
known during the voyage.
An Explosion.
While thus engaged I heard a sharp report
from the galley, and beheld Barnacle in the act of
performing a war dance around the fire and the various
cooking utensils, which lay scattered about.
"What's the matter with you, Barnacle?"
"Matter! Can't you see? You built this fireplace
of limestones, and they have burst and knocked our
stew and coffee all to smithereens; after this I'll
build my own fireplaces."
"All right, old man, have it your own way, you
may live the longer for it."
Soon after my spread of tent, sails and blankets,
etc., attracted the attention of a passing canal boat
captain, who called out to his cook, "I say, Maria,
here we've come on an Irish wash day."
Having once more packed the canoes, we started on
what proved to be a hard afternoon's work against a
wind that came in such strong gusts that we were
driven to an early camp. Notices of our expedition and
our intended route had got into the papers, and the
canalmen had, of course, heard of it, so that it was
not an unusual occurrence for us to be hailed with the
questions:
"Say, boss, you the fellers thet's goin'
round the world?
"How long's it goin' ter take yer?
"Better not steal any ducks 'long the canal, or
ye'll got into inter the County House," etc.
A pleasant word to the canal engineer as we met him
was generally a safeguard against his suddenly
slackening his towline as we were passing under it,
thus saving us from the risk of an upset. We were now
passing through the lovely valley of the Mohawk River,
and at one point we came to an ancient stone building
which had been a stockaded fort in Revolutionary days,
but now bore the sign, "Canal Grocery. Best Spring
Water in the Mohawk Valley." At Canajoharie we
received from the brow of a high hill on our left the
hail, "Canoe ahoy," and soon the wee craft were safely
housed and their skippers were introduced to the
comforts of the substantial brick mansion of one of
Canajoharie's oldest and most influential citizens. A
pleasant evening was spent with our host, and it was
with no little surprise that we heard the town clock
toll out the hour of midnight. At my request, a large
roomy tent had been pitched on the broad lawn before
the house for our sleeping apartment, and to this we
repaired, to the ho little discomfort of the
kindhearted, motherly hostess, who could not
understand why we preferred a bed on the sweet, soft
grass to the luxuries of a well-appointed bedroom. The
following day we visited the locality whence comes the
name Canajoharie, or "The-pot-that-washes-itself."
Here is a hole cut in the rock of solid slate, twenty
feet in diameter. With its vertical walls it resembles
a large well. No doubt the cascade, now a quarter of a
mile above, was at one time directly over it, and the
falling waters, rolling flint stones and pebbles in
the soft slate rock, gradually wore this well-like
cavity.
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH ARE SET FORTH THE DELIGHTS OF CANOEING ON
A CANAL.
AGAIN we launched our craft, and accompanied by our
host in his canoe, the Souvenir, paddled to Fort
Plain, and then on several miles, until a noonday
halt, when the Souvenir turned her head again to the
eastward. As a rule, we are careful not to camp too
near a large town, but we reached Rome before finding
a suitable site for the night, and long after dark,
paddling between tall, somber warehouses, we
approached the locks. The gleam of the lock lamps
revealed us to a lounger, who imparted the information
that "the level above us was full of eastern-bound
boats, and that the locktender said we must wait until
they had passed down." The judicious use of a nickel
was an "open sesame," and in ten minutes' time we were
shooting out of the lock into the darkness beyond. The
locktender's story was simply a scheme by which to
gain a nickel. At Syracuse we were pleasantly
entertained over night by Mr. Charles F. Earle, a
member of my club.
At noon, the next day, while hauling my canoe from
the water, I fell and dislocated my thumb. This
necessitated a camp until the injured member could be
nursed back to a condition of usefulness. The morning
of the third day after the accident I was awakened by
the calling of some men on the towpath; and taking a
peep out of the tent, I aroused Barnacle with the
cry,
"Why, the water is all out of the canal."
"Yes," said a passing man, "you bet it's all
out, and what is more, it won't soon be in
again."
Sure enough, a few hundred yards above us, the
bottom had fallen out of an old, rotten wooden
aqueduct, just as two boats were passing, and the
tremendous suction of the water had drawn both of them
into the enormous breach thus made; one going down
stern foremost twenty feet to the bottom of the creek
below, while the other was broken in two amidships and
doubled up like a jackknife. In the bow of the first
boat a mule was crying piteously for help, but no one
there could devise a way for getting the poor brute
out of his submerged quarters. My companion, an old
sailor, with his many devices for rigging, now became
valuable. Barnacle, directing one man to do this and
another that, soon had a derrick rigged, and a few
minutes later the mule was seen dangling by the neck,
his heels flying as though the air was filled with
canal drivers. Dropped to the soft mud bottom of the
canal he soon scrambled to the bank above, and having
taken a roll, hee-hawed out his approbation of the
efforts to save his life.
A Sunday Visitor.
Here was a dilemma; for four miles to the
east and sixteen miles to the west of us the canal
presented the appearance of a creek at low tide. We
were hemmed in on the west by the broken aqueduct, on
the north by the almost dry canal, and on the east and
south by a dense growth of alders. Half the day was
spent by Barnacle in procuring a team with which to
make a portage to Onondaga Lake, four miles away.
Barnacle came shortly after noon with two teams, and a
road having been cut through the alders the canoes
were hauled out to the waiting wagons, and we were off
in search of water. The lake was reached; we parted
from the kind friends who refused to be compensated
for their trouble, and paddled out on the dark waters
of Onondaga. The outlet into Seneca River was found
without trouble and we were borne on its almost glassy
current toward the city of Oswego. On an island near
the junction of the Seneca and Oswego we camped.
The next day, Sunday, our washing hung up to dry,
attracted the attention of a man from the opposite
side of the river.
"Hello boys, fishing?"
"No."
"Hunting?"
"No."
"Jest havin' a good time eh? They was a party
camped here last summer, and three of us fellows
came over to visit them and we all got drunk. Got
any whisky?"
"No."
"Goin' to stay here all night?''
"Yes."
"Well, I'll bring some of the boys over tonight,
and we'll have a good time."
Now I had had a good time on the canal nursing my
thumb, and I did not care to have any more of it, so
before the sun went down we had passed into the canal
and through the town of Fulton, and its wondering
knots of spectators who had gathered to witness the
passage of the "little ships" through the locks, thus
giving our would-be entertainers the slip, and adding
ten miles to our cruise. The Oswego Canal runs along
the bank of the river, here and there utilizing the
river itself by building a series of dams that cause
slack water. In time of a spring freshet I believe a
canoeist could run his canoe through to the mouth of
the river with but two or three short carries, but we
found it necessary to follow the course for the
greater part of the distance.
At mid-day, September 15, we passed under the
bridge that spans the Oswego in the harbor of the
Flour City. A large steam tug was lying near the
breakwater lighthouse, and I hailed the pilot:
"Captain, can we get out at the west end
of the breakwater?"
"No, you must go out around the lighthouse if
you want to go up the lake."
Outside we went. Oh, what a relief! What a contrast
to the great Erie Canal, with its dead dogs, cats and
mules, is this great swelling inland sea, with its
heaving waters, rolling over the breakwater and
dashing the white spray high up against the
lighthouse. It was nine miles to the only point at
which we could land with any degree of safety, and
then only through the breaking surf, rolling
continuously on the stony shores.
A Midnight Stampede.
Barnacle said:
"I am an old salt-water sailor, and have
never had a very high regard for these inland seas,
but were it not that I know this water to be fresh,
I could readily imagine myself on the sea."
After having paddled about ten miles, my invalid
thumb became so painful that I decided to beach the
canoes. This was accomplished without taking any water
on board. We made our camp for the night in a
picturesque grove.
During the night I was roused from a sound sleep by
a noise resembling a tornado, and a moment later the
tent came down with a rush about about our heads,
leaving us to scramble out as best we could, to find
that a herd of cattle, stampeded by some dogs, had
come upon us, and tripping over the guy ropes, brought
our house about our ears. Fortunately the canoes were
out of their track or the result might have been
damaging to the expedition. As it was four o'clock we
did not pitch the tent again, but prepared breakfast,
and by six o'clock had succeeded In launching our
craft through the wild waves, not, however, without
shipping some water. All about us there were
indications of the approach of a severe storm. The
entrance to Little Sodus Bay was a mile distant. To
reach this before the storm broke we bent all our
energies. Hurriedly we hauled the canoes out on shore
and pitched the tent over them. No sooner was this
accomplished than the gale struck us with all its
fury, compelling us to stand for two hours, holding on
to the poles, that we might prevent the tent's being
blown into the bay beyond us. The storm continued
three days, making it impossible for us to launch our
canoes, and finally it was decided to make a portage
by railway track twenty-two miles to the Erie Canal.
Midnight found us at the railroad station at
Weedsport, an eighth of a mile from the canal. We
fastened a couple of boards to the bottom of each
craft, and hauled away, over the railroad tracks and
down a steep incline into the canal. We paddled on
into the night, passing a line of boats three miles in
length, waiting for the repair of the broken aqueduct.
It was not until near daylight that we found a spot on
the heel path side where we could haul our canoes out
and turn into them for a little refreshing sleep. A
heavy rain storm, accompanied by a high wind, broke
upon us shortly after daylight, and we thanked our
stars that we were not on Ontario's troubled waters.
The following night we camped on the canal bank, and
toward morning were awakened by some heavy article
falling on the roof of our tent. A moment after two
half-naked bipeds rushed out into the fog to find a
knight of the towpath, on the opposite side of the
canal, pelting stones at our domicile. Two, and in
this case three, could play at that game; and it must
have been a ludicrous sight, that of two disciples of
the paddle, sans culotte, pelting stones at the
towpath fiend sheltered behind his moving
fortification of three mules. This duty attended to,
we set about preparing our breakfast, and by five
o'clock were afloat.
Buffalo Ahoy!
The monotony of canal navigation was relieved
now and then by conversations with the officers of the
canal boats, and the commandants of the mule teams. Of
course, we received much chaff, especially at the
locks, where such questions as "Where yer boun',
boss?" "How much does such a boat cost?" "Where's yer
cook?" "Goin' roun' the world?" "Aint yer doin' it on
a bet?" "How do yer make any money out of it any way?"
Now and then we would come across a gentleman who
would be in thorough sympathy with us, and who would
chat pleasantly of the route and on the canoeing
literature of the day. One little boy told me he had
read Macgregor's and Bishop's books, and some day he
hoped to make a canoe voyage and write an account of
it.
Three hundred and thirty-three miles of paddling on
this canal had now brought us to the mountain of
masonry at Lockport, the greatest feat of engineering
skill on the entire length of the canal. After
traveling over a level of sixty miles, we here struck
the mountain ridge, over which the canal is carried by
five combination; locks, each twelve feet deep by one
hundred in length.
Three days more and we were at the end of the
monotonous canal journey of nearly four hundred miles,
and paddled out into the clear waters of Lake Erie,
and around under the long wharves and towering
warehouses of Buffalo. In less time than it takes me
to write it, we were surrounded by a horde of wharf
rats in all descriptions of water craft, from the dry,
goods box to the shapely ship's yawl, who gathered
about us, pushing and hauling, swearing and fighting
to see who could get the nearest to us, and offering
all sorts of advice. One bright-eyed, curlyheaded
little fellow offered me fifty cents for the pulp hat
that I wore, while another warned me "not to get too
near the paddle wheels of the steamer near which I had
drifted, as, if the engine should start up, the wheels
would grind my little boat to pieces." I afterward
learned that there was no engine in this vessel, and
there had not been for several years. On the wharf had
collected a crowd of several hundreds to witness the
landing of the "little ships," and it required the aid
of two policemen to force them back and open a way
through which the canoes were carried to the warerooms
of a friend. Here they were visited by hundreds of
people during the three days of our stay. The canoes
attracted no small amount of attention on the day
succeeding our arrival as we sailed about among a
crowd of boats and yachts assembled to witness a
rowing match in the harbor. On my arrival in Buffalo I
was induced to make a change in my route, owing to the
tempestuous weather on Lake Erie, and to make a
portage of seventy-two miles to Olean, N. Y., near the
headwaters of the Allegheny River. I was loth to do
this, as it would deprive me of the pleasure of
meeting some canoeing friends at Cleveland, Ohio; but
as the season was rapidly advancing, I could not risk
being detained on the shores of the lake by
storms.
CHAPTER III.
IN WHICH IS SHOWN THE BENEVOLENT NATURE OF
BARK-PEELERS.
"You can't go down the river in your little boats,
mister," said a man to me as we were unloading the
canoes from the freight car at Olean.
"Why?"
"Cause they ain't water enough."
Oh, my canoeing brothers, have you ever been placed
in a similar situation? Have you ever experienced that
feeling of alloverishness that comes upon one after he
has made a portage of many miles to find water, and
then is told that "they ain't water enough?" However,
we found this man mistaken; there was water enough. At
two o'clock we portaged to the river and said goodbye
to Olean, and our bonny craft were headed toward the
Gulf of Mexico, more than 2,600 miles away. We had now
left behind us the great watershed that drains into
the Atlantic via the chain of great lakes, the swiftly
flowing St. Lawrence and the noble Hudson, and were on
the southern shed, which pours its waters into the
Gulf of Mexico by the mighty Mississippi. About five
miles below our starting point a cleared space of the
high bank induced us to camp, just as stray drops of
rain came pattering on our decks. In our dunnage we
had a "watch tackle," a miniature of what is used on
large sailing vessels, and by which the watch on deck
may alter the position of the ponderous spars without
the aid of the watch below. By this we hauled the
loaded canoes to the top of the bank, and soon had
them under shelter with their skippers.
We had now started down the Ohio's northern
tributary, which takes its rise in northern
Pennsylvania, but whose winding course leads it across
a large area of the State of New York, when it again
enters Pennsylvania, through which it winds until it
joins its waters with those of the Monongahela,
forming the Ohio at Pittsburgh. The night was passed
without rain, but a heavy fog enveloped everything the
following morning.
The smoke from our breakfast fire, settling to the
ground, attracted the attention of a bark-peeler on
his way to the cutting, and with the remark that "Thet
ere bacon smells good," he put in an appearance, and
gave the welcome intelligence that in less than five
miles we would find the water having a depth of three
feet, and five miles beyond that point, we could hoist
sails and go to Pittsburgh without an obstruction. For
this good news we could not help but feel grateful,
and we gladly invited the bark-peeler to stand by and
join us in a slice of the sizzling bacon; and
afterward he sat by the fire and smoked a pipe of our
tobacco, the while relating his experiences of life on
a raft.
Down the Allegheny.
The fog lifting, we pushed off, and with
light hearts renewed our course. Why should not our
hearts have been light? Had we not reached that point
below which there was an uninterrupted course to the
Gulf? Why had that fellow at Olean warned us that
before we had gone many miles we would find very
little water? He evidently knew nothing of the river,
but our companion at breakfast had "rafted the river
since he was knee-high to a grasshopper," and was
thoroughly familiar with it, "knew every stone and
snag in it." To him we felt so grateful that we parted
with one of our last two plugs of fine smoking
tobacco. Why should we not? Had he not relieved our
minds of the impression that we must again "look for
water," and make another long portage perhaps?
The river bed had now widened to a breadth of at
least five hundred feet, and the banks had lowered to
a height of a few feet only. The current was sweeping
us along at a delightful speed on the smooth, unbroken
surface, when all at once our ears were greeted by the
sound of falling waters. A dam? No, it could not be
that; but in less than a minute we found our canoes
hard aground on the gravelly bottom of the river. This
was at about the point where we were to find the water
so deep that we could not "touch the bottom with our
long paddles," and could "hoist our sails and go down
without interruption." As far ahead as our vision
extended was one continuous rift, with an average
depth of three inches of water. There are two ways of
getting out of such a difficulty; we could get a team
and carry around, or track, i.e., haul the canoe along
on the bottom, through the rocks and stones. The
latter was our only alternative. Having made fast one
of the stout masts to the end of the painter, we
jumped overboard and hauled away. It was tremendously
hard work, especially when the gravel had got on the
wrong side of the wading shoe. Now and then we struck
a channel, where the water was an inch or two deeper,
and gave us a respite by floating the canoe for a
short distance. More than half a mile of this kind of
"paddling" had been put in before we found sufficient
depth of water. The banks had now become higher and
the stream narrower and deeper. Finally we resumed our
places, and Barnacle expressed the feeling of both
when he said: "I'd give something to have that lying,
tobacco-chewing raftsman by the throat for five
minutes; I'd give him something by which he'd remember
this sail."
Having run about three miles in a channel hardly
sufficient to float us, we suddenly came upon deeper
water, while our ears caught the sound of falling
water and the harsh screech of circular saws, as we
came into view of an extensive board camp, with
immense sawmills. Stopping at the camp store, we
purchase a box of grapes and replenish our stock of
tobacco, and then haul the canoes over the boom, which
is stretched athwart the river, and go on to the low
dam, a few hundred feet below, over which we jump our
canoes, without even so much as wetting their decks,
and have left Bullis City, Pa., with its screeching
saws, behind us.
A Foot Too Long.
The river bed now broadens and the depth of
water is lessened, and again we resort to tracking.
Two days later, at Corydon, we come upon the second
dam in our course, it having a height of about seven
feet, with a broad apron. As this is Sunday, almost
the entire flow is rushing over the dam at one wing.
We drop the canoes to the pool at the foot of the
apron. Cautiously easing the Aurora toward the edge,
so that I can get a secure foothold, I take a turn
with the stern painter about a projecting log and ease
her down until she is within the strength of the
current, then let go all, and she darts into the
boiling waters and bobs up serenely at the edge of the
ledge of rocks. Barnacle prepares his craft for the
plunge, and having got her fore and aft the rush of
water, lets go all; and as she shakes herself in the
sudsy waters, he remembers that he forgot to make fast
his only pair of shoes, which had been drying on the
deck. With some difficulty we get into a store, but
Barnacle meets with a bitter disappointment -- his
foot is too long by an inch for the longest shoes in
the town, and he must go barefooted until we strike a
longer-shoed place. Rounding the extremity of an
island, we come without any warning upon a third dam
at Salamanca. The water of the river is divided and
led through a canal, and is again emptied into the
river a short distance below.
Our arrival seemed to have been telegraphed over
the town, and in a few moments a score of small boys,
with their chums, had assembled on the bridge, a few
yards below the dam, and manifested much interest as
to how we would overcome the obstacle. Fortunately
there was a dry chute for rafts at an angle of twenty
degrees, and it was easy to slide the canoes into the
deep pool at its foot. Here we had not more than three
inches of depth, and another haulover was necessary.
The bottom here was filled with large stones and
gravel, therefore the damage to the planking of our
frail craft would be serious if coming in contact with
the stones. We cleared a channel by rolling the large
stones to one side and digging into the gravel for a
hundred and fifty yards. Then we reached the bridge;
and here we had to remove, in addition to the stones,
three thousand and seventy empty corned-beef cans,
other thousands of sweet corn and Boston baked bean
cans, while one side of our channel was built up with
thousands of sardine, deviled tongue, turkey, chicken
and ham boxes, to say nothing of barrels of broken
glassware, old stoves and decaying vegetable matter,
together with the inevitable dead cat. The remarks of
the gathered populace were highly entertaining, and
the advice showered down upon us would fill pages. But
it became our turn to laugh when we had completed our
labors and hauled the canoes into the canal, broke
away the little dam at its head, and the rush of water
carried our barks down to the deep pool below the
bridge, where we again boarded them and waved an adieu
to the consumers of canned goods, to whom we had
afforded so much amusement.
© 2000 Craig O'Donnell
May not be reproduced without my
permission.
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