and prominent spruce trees that had been cut into peculiar forms
as below. These were known as "lob-sticks," or "lop-sticks," and
are usually the monuments of some distinguished visitor in the
country or records of some heroic achievement. Thus, one would be
pointed out as Commissioner Wrigley's lob-stick, another as John
MacDonald's the time he saved the scow.

The inauguration of a lob-stick is quite a ceremony. Some person
in camp has impressed all with his importance or other claim to
notice. The men, having talked it over, announce that they have
decided on giving him a lob-stick. "Will he make choice of some
prominent tree in view?" The visitor usually selects one back from
the water's edge, often on some far hilltop, the more prominent the
better; then an active young fellow is sent up with an axe to trim
the tree. The more embellishment the higher the honor. On the trunk
they then inscribe the name of the stranger, and he is supposed
to give each of the men a plug of tobacco and a drink of whiskey.
Thus they celebrate the man and his monument, and ever afterwards
it is pointed out as "So-and-so's lob-stick."

It was two months before my men judged that I was entitled to a
lob-stick. We were then on Great Slave Lake where the timber was
small, but the best they could get on a small island was chosen
and trimmed into a monument. They were disappointed however, to
find that I would by no means give whiskey to natives, and my treat
had to take a wholly different form.

Grand Rapids, with its multiplicity of perfectly round pot-hole
boulders, was passed in four days, and then, again in company with
the boats, we entered the real canyon of the river.