In the afternoon my perplexities were cleared up. 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. Its bed is a mass of jagged rocks, many of which rise so near to the surface that it was a work of art to find a way among them. A low point ran out north on our left, and from this point to the eastern shore stretched a long line of boulders rising at intervals from the water. This line marks the edge of the shallows, and beyond it the lake is deep and broad and stretches away northeast for more than eight miles of its length, when it bends to the northwest. As we entered it we saw that the low range of wooded hills on our left formed the western boundary of the lake, and over the flat wooded shore on the right we could see the tops of big, barren hills of a range stretching northward. These are a continuation of the round-topped hills which border the east shore of Michikamau south of where the lake narrows. For some miles of our journey up northern Michikamau we could see these hills miles back from the low shoreline. Now we seemed to be turning towards them again. Beyond a point one mile and a quarter north from where we entered the lake a deep bay runs in to the east, and here the hills came into plain view though they were still far back from the shore. Their rounded tops were covered with moss, and low down on the sides dark patches showed where the green woods were. It was a glorious afternoon, and the canoes scudded at racing pace before a heavy south wind. At a point on the east shore, six miles up the lake, I landed to take bearings. Here we found a peculiar mound of rocks along the edge of the water which proved to be characteristic of the whole shoreline of the lake. The rocks had been pushed out by the ice and formed a sort of wall, while over the wall moss and willows grew, with here and there a few stunted evergreens, the whole making an effective screen along the water's edge. Back of this were swamps and bogs with low moss-covered mounds running through them, and grown up with scattered tamarack and spruces. On the west shore the hills reached quite to the wall itself. Behind this wall, at the point, we found a family of ptarmigan. When we appeared the mother bird tried vainly to hurry her flock away to a place of safety. Her mate flew across to an island a short distance north, leaving her alone to her task, but she and her little ones were all taken. Here the first wolf tracks we had seen on the trip were found.