Again "the Real Hill Difficulty" is encountered above the lake at the "Big Hill" portage and rapids--one of the sudden descents of this alarming stream.

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.