As the eagle stirs up her nest upon the crags and forces her young over the confines of the inadequate abode, it is then that they spread their wings and soar away to freedom and independence. So is it with the great river of rivers, the St. Lawrence. Born among the Northwest Lakes, and sheltered there for a time, resenting intrusion, it steals away unnoticed from the watershed expanse. Threading its course through the marshes and lowlands, it gathers momentum as it speeds onward, till, the volume growing too great for its confining banks, its waters rebel, and breaking from control, spread forth into the boisterous storm-tossed Erie. Here they are disrupted and buffeted about, driven by the winds and carried onward by a terrible undertow. Now drawn through a narrow, deep channel, swiftly they pass the cities on the shore. Too quickly they are speeding to heed or be disturbed longer by the warring of the elements. Down to the very brink of the awful precipice ahead they charge with ever-increasing speed, then over the Niagara, pouring far beneath into the seething, boiling caldrons.

After surging still onward through jagged, walled raceways, then emerging into a lake of whirling eddies, till finally fought out to exhaustion, the once rampant waters of the tumultuous Erie flow peacefully into the haven of the Lake of Ontario. Here at rest, landlocked by the grape-bearing vineyards of the Niagara and the peach groves of the Canadian Paradise of the West, the St. Lawrence is again reinforced, and again its voyage onward to the sea is begun, this time marked by the dignity of a well-organized body. The blue waters, through their separate channels, glide majestically down their course, passing the islands in their midst with a happy smile and ripples of sunlight laughter. Touching at the wharfs of the numerous cottagers and lapping the white shining sides of the pleasure craft among the Thousand Islands, onward heedlessly flows the beautiful river increasing in strength.

Once more before reaching the haven of the Archipelago, the water channels of the great river are bidden to struggle with one another, to fight for supremacy and swiftness, and demonstrate to the other creatures of nature the mighty forces hidden at other times beneath the tranquil surface of her smiling face. The rapids of the Sioux are now left behind and we come to that part of the majestic river included in these sketches, which territorial lines have placed within the borders of our friendly Canadian ally, the Lake St. Francis. Beginning immediately after the subsiding of the waters from their turbulent passage through the rapids of the Sioux, the river spreads out till its confining banks are in places ten miles apart. There in this wide expanse stretching across toward the blue irregular mountain line of the Adirondacks, far to the southward, then eastward till the vision meets the water line, lie the islands grouped for beauty by nature’s gardener, called by the writer the Arcadian Archipelago.

The very atmosphere of this enchanted region compels the thoughts of peace and freedom. A restful idleness pervades the life of its people; and while they fish and row about through the islands of the group, picnicking with their friends of the Cameron or McDonald Clan from the “Gore,” little do they care for the tending of the farm, the harvesting of the crops, or the speeding of time. The only “walking delegate” whose ruling they recognize, is the rising or setting sun. Upon the interval of time, for them there are no restrictions.

Free from the cares of business, ignorant of the affairs of political intriguing, and shielded by happiness from all social strife, these primitive inhabitants of the Archipelago live on as does the flowering plant-life of the district. They bask in the sun of the Spring and Summer seasons, only to hide away again for months from the Winter’s snows and the icy winds of December and March. As life among the people of Glengarry and the settlers at the “Front” over on the mainland, goes happily on, unchanged by the passing social fads of the century, so also upon the St. Francis Islands nature still retains her original tenants and social customs. The Indians from the tribe of St. Regis at the reservation on the mainland guard with a jealous care their coveted hunting grounds from possession by the white men; and neither thus far has the woodsman’s axe nor the painted cottage of the “first settler” succeeded in gaining an entree into the sacred confines of the St. Francis Archipelago.