We continue our journey for three miles. We feel the contrast between this comfortable advance compared to our efforts of last week. The glacier-fed river, the grand wide banks and the dim distant hills, with the snow-covered mountains far behind them, presented a panorama as striking as it is rarely seen. At noon we passed a tributary which has been called “Wait-a-bit,” suggestive as the spot where travelling parties rest and adjust the loads in their canoes before passing the three miles of descending rapids which lay before them. In twenty minutes we have passed the rapids and reach the landing. We have crossed the outlet of a clear stream from the east discharging its bright blue water far into the turbid flood of the Columbia. The landing is at the upper end of a canyon through which the river passes between rocky bluffs at the foot of the mountains. At this point we have overtaken our pack train. George and Dave speedily unload the canoe and we make preparations for a twelve mile march on foot or saddle. The sun has been hot the whole day. The air is smoky and the distant mountains are not visible. The trail we follow passes up the hillside for some little distance and then descends to a lower level, and for this locality is comparatively good. It continues for six miles alongside the canyon, so called, but which, really, is no more than a series of rapid descents through the contracted portion of the river. There is nothing to prevent them being safely run by canoes and boats, as many of the rapids of the Saint Lawrence are so passed over. Indeed, I believe that a steamer could descend them, for the water is less turbulent than the rapids overcome by the Beauharnois canal. Once down, however, ascent would be impossible. As far as I can learn, the Indians of this territory do not use canoes to any extent. Generally they depend on the Indian ponies, and mounted upon them they follow known trails through the forest. We followed the flats of the river to our camping ground, some thirty miles north-westerly from the mouth of the Kicking-Horse River, opposite the mouth of the Beaver River on the Selkirk side.