Those coming toward Oxford Lake run it
at the very risk of their lives, but the painful portages impress
themselves on all going up the "Height of Land," which is reached after
passing through a narrow gorge between hills and mountains of rocks, the
stream dashing headlong down from the mile-long Robinson Portage.
This region is an elevated, rugged waste, with no signs of animal life
about it. It is the terror of the voyageurs. This eerie tract culminates
in the ascending "Haute de Terre," as the French call it--the dividing
ridge between the waters running eastward to Hudson Bay and those
running westward and descending to meet the Nelson River, on its
headlong way to Hudson Bay as well. The obstacle known as the "Painted
Stone" being passed the Colonists' brigade was now on its way to the
inland plain of the Continent.
The portage led from this string of five small lakes to the head waters
of a trifling, but very interesting stream called the "Echimamish
River." A doubtful but curious explanation has been given of the name.
On the stream are ten beaver dams; which ever of these filled first gave
the voyageur the opportunity to launch in his canoe or boat and go down
the little runway to Black Water Creek.
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