It was five o’clock on a Friday afternoon when the tug and the house-boat picked us up at Proctor. By “us” is meant the Preacher and his family, together with the Doctor and his daughter. The wind was blowing fresh from the south, and our destination was twenty miles away. Once out of the river where the wind could get a fair chance at us, and that house-boat began to buck. Perhaps you think there are no possibilities of a heavy sea on an inland lake. If so, you will do well to think again. Kootenay Lake is more than one hundred miles long with an average width of some five miles. Great mountains guard it on either side, and up that long tunnel the wind came with a whoop. The boat was lashed to the windward side of the tug, and so was in position to get the full benefit of any slap that the waves thought best to give. We rose and fell and heaved about. The hawsers were not absolutely taut, and ever and again the boat would be knocked against the tug with a jar that made everything rattle. It was time for supper, and the potatoes were on to boil and the tea-kettle was just beginning to sing, when a huge wave lifted us up and hurled us against the tug. Over went potatoes, tea-kettle, kerosene can and everything else that was not nailed down, while the dishes flew from their resting-places and smashed to pieces on the floor. Who cares? Certain members of the party did not, at any rate, for they had lost all interest in the food supply, and were in retirement. Huge joke, to be sea-sick on a house-boat! The captain yells from the tug that we must abandon the thought of making Midge Creek that night, and heads for Pilot Bay, across the lake. Blessed haven! In a landlocked harbour anchor is dropped and in a short time order is brought out of chaos, and the discouraged members of the party regain their appetites. At four o’clock the next morning we are awakened by the chugging of the tug. Day is just breaking, and the lake is as smooth as the floor of a bowling alley. Three hours later we are tied up to a sandy beach on the west shore of the lake, and vacation has really begun. Not a house is to be seen except two or three in the distance on the opposite shore. Ten rods away, to the north, a mountain stream comes rushing down the canyon and goes billowing far out into the lake. At the south end of the beach a giant mass of bare rock lifts itself into the air, while the mountains are all about us. Here and there a snowy peak looms into the blue. The lake dimples and smiles under a cloudless sky, and murmurs a gentle welcome as it laps upon the gravelly beach. This is a beautiful world, and nowhere more beautiful than on the shores of the Kootenay. [Illustration: 0189]