about four o'clock
That night our party lay in bivouac , and were up early in the work of the portage . All the goods had to be unloaded and all the scows were hauled up the steep bank by means of a block and tackle . Once up the bank , the team , which had been brought along in one of the scows and forced to climb up the bank , were hitched to a long rope , and with the aid also of men tugging at the ropes they rapidly hauled the boat over the high and rocky ground which made the portage -- a distance of some four hundred yards in all . It was about four o'clock that afternoon when the boats had finished this first portage and had been again loaded below the sharp drop at the farther end . The boys continually hung about the men in this curious and interesting work , and plied Belcore with many questions . He explained to them that the Cassette Falls are on one of four or five different channels into which the Slave River breaks hereabouts . Many of these chutes could not be run at all , nor could a boat be lined down through them by any possibility .