The Black Cañon.--An ugly prospect.--The vanished boat.--We
struggle on.--A forlorn hope.--We fail again.--An unhoped
for meeting and a feast of joy.--The Black Cañon conquered.
Casting off from camp, on the morning of the 12th, we pushed right into
the mouth of the cañon. At once our troubles began. The steep walls
of smooth rock rose directly out of the water--sometimes washed by a
torrent, at others beaten by a back-whirl and foaming eddy. In the
centre ran a rush of water that nothing could stem. Poling, paddling,
clinging with hands and nails to the rock; often beaten back and always
edging up again, we crept slowly along under the overhanging cliff,
which leaned out two hundred feet above us to hold upon its dizzy
verge some clinging pine-tree. In the centre of the chasm, about half
a mile from its mouth, a wild cataract of foam forbade our passage;
but after a whole morning’s labour we succeeded in bringing the canoe
safely to the foot of this rapid, and moored her in a quiet eddy behind
a sheltering rock. Here we unloaded, and, clambering up a cleft in
the cañon wall two hundred feet above us, passed along the top of the
cliff, and bore our loads to the upper or western end of the cañon,
fully a mile from the boat. The day was hot and sweltering, and it was
hard work.
In one of these many migrations between camp and canoe, it chanced one
evening that, missing the trail, my footsteps led me to the base of a
small knoll, the sides and summit of which were destitute of trees.
Climbing to the top of this hill I beheld a view of extraordinary
beauty. Over the sea of forest, from the dark green and light green
ocean of tree-tops, the solid mountain mass lay piled against the east.
Below my standpoint the first long reach of the cañon opened out; a
grim fissure in the forest, in the depths of which the waters caught
the reflection of the sun-lit skies above, glowing brightly between the
walls of gloomy rock deep hidden beneath the level rays of the setting
sun. I stood high above the cañon, high above the vast forest which
stretched between me and the mountains; and the eye, as it wandered
over the tranquil ocean upon whose waves the isles of light green shade
lay gold-crested in the sunset, seemed to rest upon fresh intervals
of beauty, until the solid ramparts rent and pinnacled, silent and
impassive, caught and rivetted its glance; as their snow-white,
motionless fingers, carved in characters that ever last, the story of
earth’s loveliness upon the great blue dome of heaven.
We pushed through the dense underwood, loaded down with all the
paraphernalia of our travel, and even Cerf-vola carried his load of
boots and moose-meat. When we had finished carrying our loads, it was
time for dinner; and that over, we set to work at once for the stiffer
labour of hauling the canoe up the rapid of the cañon; for, remember,
there was no hope of lifting her, she was too heavy, and the rocky
walls were far too steep to allow of it. Up along shore, through rapid
and eddy we dragged our craft, for here the north side had along its
base ledges of rock and bits of shore, and taking advantage of these,
sometimes in the canoe and sometimes out of it in the water, we reached
at length the last edge or cliff round which it was possible to proceed
at the north shore.
For a long time we examined the spot, and the surrounding cañon.
Jacques and I climbed up to the top above, and then down on hands and
knees to a ledge from which we could look over into the chasm, and scan
its ugly features. Beyond a doubt it was ugly--the rock on which we lay
hollowed down beneath us until it roofed the shore of the cañon with a
half cavern, against which a wild whirlpool boiled up now and again,
sinking suddenly into stillness. Even if we could stretch a line from
above the rock to where our canoe lay below it, she must have been
knocked to atoms in the whirlpool in her passage beneath the cavern;
but the distance was too great to stretch a line across. The next and
only course was to make a bold crossing from below the rock, and gain
the other shore, up which it was possible to drag our canoe. Once over,
the thing would be easy enough for at least a couple of hundred yards
more.
We climbed back to the canoe and imparted the result of our
investigation to the other two men. From the level of the boat the
proposed crossing looked very nasty. It was across a wild rush of
water, in the centre of the cañon, and if we failed to make a small
eddy at the farther shore we must drive full upon the precipice of rock
where, below us boiled and seethed the worst rapid in the cañon--a mass
of wave, and foam, and maddened surge. Once out of the sheltering eddy
in which we lay watching this wild scene, we would be in the midst of
the rush close above the rapid. There was no time to get headway on the
canoe. It would shoot from shelter into furious current, and then, if
it missed yon little eddy, look out; and if you have any good angels
away at home, pray that they may be praying for you--for down that
white fall of water you must go broadside or stern on.
[Illustration: RUNNING STERN FOREMOST THE BLACK CAÑON.]
The more we looked at it, the less we liked it; but it was the sole
means of passing the cañon, and retreat came not yet into our heads.
We took our places--Kalder at the bow, Jacques at the stern, A---- and
I in the middle; then we hugged the rock for the last time, and shoved
out into the swirl of waters. There was no time to think; we rose and
fell; we dipped our paddles in the rushing waves with those wild quick
strokes which men use when life is in the blow; and then the cañon
swung and rocked for a second, and with a wild yell of Indian war-whoop
from Kalder, which rose above the rush of the water, we were in the
eddy at the farther shore.
It was well done. On again up the cañon with line from rock to rock,
bit by bit, until, as the sun began to slope low upon the forest, we
reach the foot of the last fall--the stiffest we had yet breasted.
Above it lies our camp upon the north shore; above it will be easy
work--we will have passed the worst of the Ominica River.
Made bold by former victory we passed our line round the rock, and bent
our shoulders to haul the canoe up the slant of water. Kalder with a
long pole held the frail craft out from the rock. A---- and I were on
the line, and Jacques was running up to assist us, when suddenly there
came upon the rope a fierce strain; all at once the canoe seemed to
have the strength of half a dozen runaway horses. It spun us round, we
threw all our strength against it, and snap went the rope midway over
the water; the boat had suddenly sheered, and all was over. We had a
second line fastened to the bow; this line was held by Kalder at the
moment of the accident, but it was in loose coils about him, and of
no service to stay the downward rush. Worse than all, the canoe, now
going like an arrow down the rapid, tightened the tangled coils around
Kalder’s legs, and I saw with horror that he ran every chance of being
dragged feet foremost from the smooth rock on which he stood, into the
boiling torrent beneath.
Quicker than thought he realized his peril; he sprang from the
treacherous folds, and dragged with all his strength the quick-running
rope clear of his body; and then, like the Indian he was, threw all his
weight to stay the canoe.
It was useless; his line snapped like ours had done, and away went
the canoe down the surge of water--down the lip of the fall--away,
away--bearing with her our sole means of travel through the trackless
wilderness! We crouched together on the high rock, which commanded
a long view down the Black Cañon, and gazed wistfully after our
vanishing boat.
In one instant we were reduced to a most wretched state. Our canoe
was gone; but that was not half our loss--our meat and tent had also
gone with her; and we were left on the south shore of the river, while
a deep, wide and rapid stream rolled between us and our camp, and we
had no axe wherewith to cut trees for a raft--no line to lash them
together. Night was coming on; we were without food, shipwrecked in the
wilderness.
When the canoe had vanished, we took stock of all these things, and
then determined on a course. It was to go back along the upper edge
of the cañon to the entrance opposite our camping-place of the last
night, there to make a raft from some logs which had been collected for
a _cache_ in the previous year, then to put together whatever line or
piece of string we possessed, and, making a raft, endeavour to cross to
the north shore, and thus gain our camp above the cañon.
It was a long piece of work, and we were already tired with the day’s
toil, but it was the sole means by which we could hope to get back to
our camp and to food again. After that we would deliberate upon further
movements.
When men come heavily to grief in any enterprise, the full gravity of
the disaster does not break all at once upon their minds; nay, I have
generally found that the first view of the situation is the ludicrous
one. One is often inclined to laugh over some plight, which means
anything but a laughing matter in reality.
We made our way to the mouth of the cañon, and again held a council.
Jacques did not like the idea of the raft; he would go down through the
Beaver swamps along the south shore, and, it might be, find the canoe
stranded on some beach lower down. Anyhow he would search, and next
morning he would come up again along the river and hail us across the
water in our camp with tidings of his success: so we parted.
We at once set to work to make our raft. We upset the logs of the old
_cache_, floated them in the water, and lashed them together as best
we could, with all the bits of line we could fasten together; then we
got three rough poles, took our places on the rickety raft, and put
out into the turbid river. Our raft sank deep into the water; down,
down we went; no bottom for the poles, which we used as paddles in the
current. At last we reached the shore of a large island, and our raft
was thrown violently amidst a pile of driftwood. We scrambled on shore,
broke our way through drift and thicket to the upper end of the island,
and found a wide channel of water separating us still from the north
shore. Wading up to our middles across a shallow part of this channel,
we finally reached the north shore and our camp of the previous night;
from thence we worked through the forest, and just at dusk we struck
our camp of the morning. Thus, after many vicissitudes and much toil,
we had got safely back to our camp; and though the outlook was dreary
enough--for three large rivers and seventy miles of trackless forest
lay between us and the mining camp to which we were tending, while
all hope of assistance seemed cut off from us--still, after a hearty
supper, we lay down to sleep, ready to meet on the morrow whatever it
might bring forth.
Early next morning the voice of little Jacques sounded from the other
side. He had had a rough time of it; he had gone through slough and
swamp and thicket, and finally he had found the canoe stranded on an
island four miles below the cañon, half full of water, but otherwise
not much the worse for her trip. “Let us make a raft and go down, and
we would all pull her up again, and everything would yet be right.” So,
taking axes and line with us, we set off once more for the mouth of the
cañon, and built a big raft of dry logs, and pushed it out into the
current.
Jacques was on the opposite shore, so we took him on our raft, and away
we went down current at the rate of seven miles an hour. We reached
the island where our castaway canoe lay, and once more found ourselves
the owners of a boat. Then we poled up to the cañon again, and, working
hard, succeeded in landing the canoe safely behind the rock from
which we had made our celebrated crossing on the previous day. The
day was hot and fine, the leaves of the cotton-wood were green, the
strawberries were in blossom, and in the morning a humming-bird had
fluttered into the camp, carrying the glittering colours which he had
gathered in the tropics. But these proofs of summer boded ill for us,
for all around the glittering hills were sending down their foaming
torrents to flood the Ominica.
On the night of the 13th the river, already high, rose nearly two feet.
The morning of the 14th came, and, as soon as breakfast was over, we
set out to make a last attempt to force the cañon. The programme was
to be the same as that of two days ago; to cross above the rapid, and
then with double-twisted line to drag the canoe up the fatal fall! We
reached the canoe and took our places the same as before. This time,
however, there was a vague feeling of uneasiness in every one’s mind;
it may have been because we went at the work coldly, unwarmed by
previous exercise; but despite the former successful attempt, we felt
the presage of disaster ere we left the sheltering rock. Once more
the word was given, and we shot into the boiling flood. There was a
moment’s wild struggle, during which we worked with all the strength of
despair. A second of suspense, and then we are borne backwards--slowly,
faster, yet faster--until with a rush as of wings, and amid a roar of
maddened water, we go downwards towards the cañon’s wall.
“The rock! the rock!--keep her from the rock!” roared Jacques. We might
as well have tried to stop an express train. We struck, but it was the
high bow, and the blow split us to the centre; another foot and we must
have been shivered to atoms. And now, ere there was time for thought,
we were rushing, stern foremost, to the edge of the great rapid. There
was no escape; we were as helpless as if we had been chained in that
black cañon. “Put steerway on her!” shouted Jacques, and his paddle
dipped a moment in the surge and spray. Another instant and we were in
it; there was a plunge--a dash of water on every side of us; the waves
hissed around and above us, seeming to say, “Now we have got you; for
two days you have been edging along us, flanking us, and fooling us;
but now it is our turn!”
The shock with which we struck into the mass of breakers seemed but
the prelude to total wreck, and the first sensation I experienced
was one of surprise that the canoe was still under us. But, after the
first plunge she rose well, and amidst the surge and spray we could
see the black walls of the cañon flitting by us as we glanced through
the boiling flood. All this was but the work of a moment, and lo!
breathless and dripping, with canoe half filled, we lay safe in quiet
eddies where, below the fall, the water rested after its strife.
Behind the rock we lay for a few minutes silent, while the flooded
canoe rose and fell upon the swell of the eddy.
If, after this escape, we felt loth to try the old road again, to
venture a third time upon that crossing above the rapid, let no man
hold our courage light.
We deliberated long upon what was best to be done. Retreat seemed
inevitable; Kalder was strongly opposed to another attempt; the canoe
was already broken, and with another such blow she must go to pieces.
At last, and reluctantly, we determined to carry all our baggage back
from the camp, to load up the boat, and, abandoning the Black Cañon
and the Ominica altogether, seek through the Parsnip River an outlet
towards the South. It was our only resource, and it was a poor one.
Wearily we dragged our baggage back to the canoe, and loaded her again.
Then, casting out into the current, we ran swiftly down the remainder
of the cañon, and shot from beneath the shadows of its sombre walls. As
we emerged from the mouth into the broader river, the sheen of coloured
blankets struck our sight on the south shore.
In the solitudes of the North one is surprised at the rapidity with
which the eye perceives the first indication of human or animal
existence, but the general absence of life in the wilderness makes its
chance presence easily detected.
We put to shore. There was a camp close to the spot where we had built
our first raft on the night of the disaster; blankets, three fresh
beavers, a bundle of traps, a bag of flour, and a pair of miner’s
boots. The last item engaged Jacques’s attention. He looked at the
soles, and at once declared them to belong to no less an individual
than Pete Toy, the Cornish miner; but where, meantime, was Pete? A
further inspection solved that question too. Pete was “portaging”
his load from the upper to the lower end of the cañon--he evidently
dreaded the flooded chasm too much to attempt its descent with a loaded
canoe. In a little while appeared the missing Pete, carrying on his
back a huge load. It was as we had anticipated--his canoe lay above
the rapids, ours was here below. Happy coincidence! We would exchange
crafts; Pete would load his goods in our boat, we would once again
carry our baggage to the upper end of the cañon, and there, taking his
canoe, pursue our western way. It was indeed a most remarkable meeting
to us. Here were we, after long days of useless struggle, after many
dangers and hair-breadth escapes amid the whirlpools and rapids of the
Black Chasm, about to abandon the Ominica River altogether, and to seek
by another route, well known to be almost impassable at high water, a
last chance of escape from the difficulties that beset us; and now, as
moody and discouraged, we turned our faces to begin the hopeless task,
our first glance was greeted, on emerging from the dismal prison, by a
most unlooked-for means of solving all our difficulties. Little wonder
if we were in high spirits, and if Pete, the Cornish miner, seemed a
friend in need.
But before anything could be done to carry into effect this new
arrangement, Pete insisted upon our having a royal feast. He had
brought with him from the mining camp many luxuries; he had bacon, and
beans, and dried apples, and sugar, and flour, and we poor toilers had
only moose-meat and frozen potatoes and sugarless tea in our lessening
larders. So Pete set vigorously to work; he baked and fried, and cut
and sliced, and talked all the time, and in less than half an hour laid
out his feast upon the ground. I have often meditated over that repast
in after-time, and wondered if Pete really possessed the magic power of
transmuting the baser victuals known to us as pork, beans, and molasses
into golden comestibles, or had scarcity and the wilderness anything
to say to it? It was getting late when we broke up from the feast of
Toy, and, loading once more all our movables upon our backs, set out
to stagger for the last time to the west end of the portage. There the
canoe of the Cornish miner stood ready for our service; but the sun was
by this time below the ridges of the Ominica Mountains, and we pitched
our camp for the night beneath the spruce-trees of the southern shore.
At break of day next morning we held our way to the west. It was a
fresh, fair dawn, soft with the odours of earth and air; behind us lay
the Black Cañon, conquered at last; and as its sullen roar died away
in distance, and before our canoe rose the snow-covered peaks of the
Central Columbian range, now looming but a few miles distant, I drew a
deep breath of satisfaction--the revulsion of long, anxious hours.