NUNAINGOAK BAY AND FRASER RIVER.
On the next morning we left Nain a little before eight o’clock in the
morning. The entire population had gathered on the wooden wharf to see
us off. The Eskimos still held strongly to their opinion that the only
possible route lay by way of Frank’s Brook and along the Indian trail.
They reiterated their prophecies that we should fail miserably, and be
forced to return and sail south to follow the Frank’s Brook route after
all. One of them indeed gave us his opinion with great lucidity. “You
will go,” said he, “to the head of the Bay and across the first big lake,
then perhaps a little way up the river, but soon, when the river breaks
into many streams flowing between great rocks, you will turn back. You
cannot pack up that valley, for it is steep and choked with alder scrub,
and the trees grow too thickly among great stones. No! you will never
reach the George that way.”
With these joyous predictions in our ears we pushed off in the trap-boat.
A light wind was blowing from the east, which made it necessary to use
the huge sweeps at starting, but which later, if it held, would give us
a fair breeze up Nunaingoak Bay. For a long time until we rounded the
point, the Eskimos remained watching us, and as we turned north one or
two waved their hands to us. I think they believed we had already earned
failure.
[Illustration: Deserted Tepees.]
[Illustration: The Morning of the Start.]
After a few miles we rounded a small rock, shaped like a loaf, and known
as Pikajulak and obtained our first sight of Nunaingoak Bay. Nunaingoak
Bay, we were informed, means no end or endless, and the name is certainly
an appropriate one. Owing to the straightness with which both the bay and
the river valley beyond it follow an almost due westerly course, there
are no hills visible in the background of the notch cut by the river,
and for a long way the water horizon is unbroken in the direction of
the fiord head. On the south side there is little to be seen but grey
precipitous bluffs of bare stone, characteristically rounded by glacial
action; on the north, where a promontory separates Nunaingoak from
the northern fiord, the slopes are gentle and more inviting, and the
hollows are clothed with spruce and larch of no great size, but in some
abundance. At one point on this side, where a wide bay runs in from the
main fiord, the hills cease altogether, and there is a narrow neck over
which a canoe may readily be portaged into Tikoatokak Bay, as indeed was
actually done by Gathorne-Hardy later in the year.
For a mile or more from the head of Nunaingoak, except for a narrow
channel, the water is very shallow, and the bottom showed covered
with round boulders. Following the advice which had been given us, we
navigated this part at high tide, and the rocks, which were just awash,
made progress difficult. In this we were wrong, as at low tide the rocks
are visible and mark the tortuous channel as if it were buoyed, greatly
lessening the chances of shipwreck. All day we carried a light easterly
wind, and, though the two canoes towed badly, we made fair progress
in the lilac-coloured skiff which had been lent us by the Moravian
missionaries. Flocks of eider and black guillemots flew past us, and at
one time a single seal appeared that Boaz said was Oksuk—the grey seal
(_halichœrus gryphus_); this seal was very wild, and though we tried to
come within shot of it, we were unable to do so. All day we sailed on up
the Bay, and late in the evening reached the mouth of the Fraser River;
here, on a low point, silhouetted against the western sky, we found an
Eskimo fishing camp. As we approached, the stumpy figures of the Eskimo
fisherman and his family appeared, and, clambering into their leaky
boat, they piloted us through the narrow channel which forms the outlet
of the Fraser River, and incidentally bumped us on a rock in doing so.
This channel is impassable at low tide. Leaving the Eskimo trout fishers
waving their goodwill behind us, we passed into the first lake-like
expansion of the lower Fraser, and after proceeding a little over a mile
up the river and through another tidal rapid we pitched our first camp
amongst some stunted bushes on the bank. During the day we had been
accompanied by that curse of the Labrador summer, the hosts of the Arctic
mosquito. On the voyage copious applications of Stockholm tar and oil had
enabled us to repel them, but now our veils, our long gloves and tarry
faces, proved but ineffectual defences to their strenuous and unceasing
onslaught. It goes without saying that any part of the skin which was
left uncovered for a moment had to be liberally and instantaneously
anointed with Stockholm tar, but in addition to this, whenever our thick
tweed clothing was drawn tight on arms or legs, the hordes were able to
insert their stings.
[Illustration: At the Head of the Long Lake.]
[Illustration: The First Lunch.]
All day long the mosquitoes had made life brisk for us as we toiled at
the oars, but on our landing they redoubled their attentions. More in
hope of escaping them by movement than allured by the chances of getting
any game so near an Eskimo camp, I took my shot-gun and wandered off into
the woods.
The valley bottom, which was here not so narrow as it subsequently
became, was clothed with small spruce and larch, there was also a good
deal of willow, especially in the marshy parts, but not any birch. On the
north side the hills, of no great height, were everywhere accessible, the
slopes and summits carpeted with berry plants. As I walked along by the
edge of the water I saw in the soft sand tracks of both bear and caribou,
but none of these signs was less than a fortnight old. Just as it was
growing dark I flushed and killed a willow grouse, which was immediately
plucked and placed in the soup for the evening meal.
The next day was Sunday, and having had but little sleep during the
previous night we tried to put in a doze during the morning, but with
scanty success, as every moment the burning sun hatched out fresh
thousands of mosquitoes into life, until at length the plague became so
intolerable in camp that we walked up on to the hills, and having lighted
a fire sat in its smoke; but the mosquitoes seemed to object to its
pungency much less than we, and it is a fact worthy of note, that this
rough remedy, so efficacious in Canada and Newfoundland, appears to have
little power over the swarms of Labrador.
On Monday morning, after hauling our boat through a succession of
narrows, we reached the big Lake of which we had been told. Our first
view of it was intensely typical of Labrador beauty. The mountain tops
which surrounded it on every side were not clear of mist, and the
waters shaded to a dark and peaty blue before the sun rising over the
hills turned them to turquoise. Up the lake we sailed all day before
an ever-increasing breeze, which sometimes drove us along at splendid
speed. We were extremely lucky to get two days of easterly wind at this
time of the year, when sometimes it blows from the north-west for weeks
together; had it done so we must have rowed every yard in the face of a
heavy sea. As the day advanced the height of the hills on either side of
us grew loftier. The character of the cliffs changed also, most of them
showing a rusty colour, as if stained with iron, and though on both sides
huge bluffs came down at frequent intervals sheer to the water’s edge, we
noticed that here, as lower down the valley, the more accessible openings
lay to the north rather than to the south.
Throughout the day, in spite of the wind and the fact that we were out
upon the water, the mosquitoes continued with us. When it blew hard they
alighted on the lee side of the sail, and the moment the wind lulled got
to their work. With them came numbers of deer-flies, insects about half
an inch long, which are said to make themselves felt when they bite,
but they seemed too sluggish to trouble us. All day long we carried our
unwelcome passengers, which again found some splendid opportunities of
torturing us; as, for instance, when we were “tracking” the skiff through
the fast tidal narrows at the head of the lake.
[Illustration: Boaz is interested.]
[Illustration: “Tracking”]
Late in the afternoon the Eskimo Boaz pointed out three spots of special
interest. The first was a dark ridge on the northern cliff to which a
sinister history was attached. A party of Eskimo, returning successful
from the deer-hunt, had mistaken this opening for another pass, through
which alone the lower ground may be gained. In the misty darkness of the
evening they drove over it, and men and dogs were dashed to pieces on the
ice and rocks beneath. The second place of interest was a high mountain,
down the precipitous flanks of which a great herd of deer had wandered
one winter and, unable to climb the slippery surface again, had been
butchered by the Eskimo on the sea-ice beneath. The third was Poungassé
itself, a low gap in the southern cliffs, up which the Eskimo haul their
_komatiks_ when on the spring deer-hunt, and thus attain the great
central plateau.
But long before we came to Poungassé we had seen the low black line of
trees which marked the western end of the lake. As we approached vast
stretches of sand came into view, and as some of this had silted up into
a bar we had great difficulty in getting the skiff to her moorings. At
last, however, by wading and poling we forced her to the main channel of
the river, and having anchored her from both bow and stern, we landed
on the wide sandy beaches strewn with driftwood, which at this point
form the banks of the upper waters of the Fraser. Among the driftwood
we observed the first signs of birch trees, which, however, we were not
destined to find growing till we were a day or two higher up the stream.
Larch was scarcer here, and among the spruce were noticeable a certain
number of small balsam firs; but these last disappeared again higher up.
Imprinted on the sand we saw numerous fox tracks of all sizes and dates,
but nothing more interesting; nor did any success attend Gathorne-Hardy’s
efforts with the rod, though later in the year we had magnificent sport
with sea trout at this very spot.
I left the others preparing the canoes for the morrow, and walked up the
north bank of the Fraser. The valley of the river at this point is wide,
but the waters come down with some velocity. On the great virgin beaches,
the comings and goings of all wild creatures for the past few weeks could
be read. Here, a week ago, a fox had stalked some bird, and further on
a bear with cubs had come down to the water’s edge. Later, leaving the
banks, I climbed some high ground and saw that the river valley stretched
away almost due west, the cliffs still growing higher and higher, while
the low ground was densely wooded with spruce and juniper and what we
later discovered to be alder, some of the trunks of which were as thick
as a man’s leg. Indeed, so dense was the undergrowth that I was reminded
of the Eskimo pessimist, “You cannot pack up that valley, for the trees
grow too thickly among great stones.” Were we travelling to an impasse?
Well, as to that time alone could show.
[Illustration: A Nasty Place.]
[Illustration: The Cliffs of the Fraser.]
Next morning we awoke to find the rain falling, both cold and heavy, but
we got off in fair time. Porter, who is an expert, and Hardy, went in one
canoe; Boaz Obed the Eskimo and myself in the other. As Boaz had never
been in a canoe before, and I—though I have travelled a good deal in
these craft—cannot pretend to any skill, it seemed likely that the pair
of us might have an exciting time. This turned out to be the case, and we
were more than once on the verge of upsetting, especially after the first
few reaches, for the river then grew shallower and more rapid, running
down over one steep incline after another, and sometimes in several
separate streams. But his long practice in _kayaks_ stood Boaz in good
stead, though at first he was loth to exchange the paddle for the pole
until he found that the former was of little value in the fast converging
currents which we had to negotiate time and again. After a particularly
heavy bit of work we stopped for lunch, and while it was preparing Hardy
and I each shot a squirrel, which was the only sign of game that we had
seen all day. Though the squirrel is a small animal, we found that a
couple added to the soup made a desirable change from the bacon, which
was our only alternative. After lunch it rained harder than ever, and,
truth to say, no upset could have made us much wetter than we were, for
the rain beat strongly down, both morning and afternoon, and the wading
was often deep and the stones slippery. The mosquitoes also were with us,
and revelled in the fact that for such quick-water work we could not wear
our veils. The tar mixture was useless, since it washed off in the rain
and ran down into our eyes, temporarily blinding us. That evening Boaz,
to our surprise, produced and dined off some dried white whale meat;
after which he took a copious draught of seal oil from a bladder. This
provision he had brought with him; and thereby hangs a tale to come clear
presently.
The next morning, the 26th, the rain, which had continued all night,
still beat down wearily; nor did it cease all day. Once again we had
very difficult water to contend with, and there were but few reaches
where we were not forced to wade and shove the canoe up-stream. Speaking
generally, I may say that the whole of the upper Fraser is rapid, and
though not actually a very difficult river, it is at all times a nasty
one for canoes, as the currents and the slippery stones make the keeping
of one’s feet a continual effort. After about ten miles the river began
to show an increased tendency to split up into a number of very shallow
streams, flowing over a shifting bed of coarse shingle and treacherous
boulders. The banks for the most part were clothed with spruce on a
carpet of white reindeer moss, which began to be interlaced everywhere
with bear paths, the unmistakable signs of these animals being very
numerous, while on every mudbank their curiously human footprints
were impressed. Of other life we saw but little, always excepting
the squirrels, which we hunted eagerly for the pot. The ubiquitous
whiskey-jack, or Canada jay, appeared as usual, as did also an occasional
ermine or weasel. Fishing, on the whole, was a failure; the sea trout
were not yet up, and except at one place, where Hardy caught a few
small trout, and in returning from which he had the great misfortune to
lose the reel of our smaller and more useful rod, our efforts, though
unflagging, proved practically fruitless.
On the third day, when quite fifteen miles up the river, the leading
canoe with Porter and Hardy suddenly came in sight of a seal. It was the
Labrador bay or harbour seal, an animal identical with our British common
seal (_Phoca vitulina_). Hardy, thinking of the treat in store for Boaz,
could he succeed in slaying the seal, did his best to stalk it; but the
animal, which had come up from the sea, had evidently had experience of
the Eskimo and their _kayaks_, and, diving under the canoes, disappeared
down-stream.
For five days the rain never ceased, but this, whilst it made things
uncomfortable, was probably a blessing in disguise, as it filled up the
river, and so enabled us to pass over shallows, which at ordinary times
would have presented insurmountable difficulties.
[Illustration: The Valley of the Fraser.]
[Illustration: Where the Fraser begins to grow shallow.]
By July the 30th we were well up the river, which, however, was growing
continuously more rapid and shallow, indeed, a mile a day was all the
progress we could make, though Boaz and I had improved considerably in
our canoe work, and now faced water which at the beginning would have
driven us to unload. On this day Hardy and Porter had what might have
been a nasty accident. They were working up an extremely fierce channel,
when Porter’s iron shod pole of maple, from Prae Wood in Hertfordshire,
slipped upon the rocks, causing him to fall headlong out of the canoe.
The cargo was fortunately well fixed in, and covered with a large
water-proof tent sheet, so, as the water was not deep, the two men were
able to slip their hands underneath and, holding the cargo inside, to
right the canoe, and so to save its whole contents.
All this time, though we had seen two or three rifts leading up to the
plateau, on the north side of the river, on the south the line of cliffs
had remained practically unbroken. They were now on both sides, fully
1,500 feet in height, and we began to wonder whether we should ever find
a practicable ascent. Once we climbed a valley on the north side full
of huge fragments which had fallen from the cliffs, but at its head
were confronted by a precipice. This part of the valley of the Fraser
remained, during most of the hours of the day, both dark and gloomy. The
sun was shining many an hour upon the plateau before its rays pierced to
the bottom of the deep chasm up which we were journeying, and early in
the afternoon it sank behind the opposite cliff which threw a huge black
shadow right across the river. From time to time vast masses of rock came
thundering down the flanks of the mountain, sometimes with so resonant
a sound as to wake us. We were always careful to camp well in the middle
of the valley, as it would have been a daunting experience to face even
for a single night the possibility of being crushed to death, for there
are few men whose imaginations are so much under control that they could
sleep peacefully within the zone of an unnecessary danger.
On the 31st, while we were lunching among some birch trees in the pouring
rain, Boaz came to me, and the following conversation took place:—
“Me want more monee.”
I replied I did not understand that, as he had agreed to come with us for
$1.50 a day.
“Much work, little monee. Cut wood, much work, little monee. You give me
more monee?”
“Certainly not; go away.”
“Plenty fish, Nain,” said Boaz.
This was, of course, a threat, meaning that, if I did not accede to
his demand, he was thinking of returning to Nain to take part in the
cod-fishing. I then told him very distinctly that I never altered a man’s
wages during a trip.
“You not give me more monee?”
“No.”
Both Hardy and I were amazed at his impudence, for he had proved himself
to be a thoroughly lazy fellow, who took an hour over every little
piece of work that came his way; also, when during the last days he had
complained of a cold, I had doctored him, giving him both quinine and
brandy, and had done as much of the wading as possible myself in order to
save him. In the circumstances, we felt he was behaving very badly, and
when, at the close of an afternoon of toil, he again approached me, I
would not listen to him. At night, however, he visited the tent in which
Hardy and I, wrapped in our blankets, were smoking our pipes, and at once
took up the sing-song cry, “More monee.” I thereupon made him understand
straightly and as clearly as possible that his veiled threat would have
no effect upon us. He went away muttering, and we to sleep.
[Illustration: Hardy crossing the Upper Fraser.]
The next morning, Porter woke me with the words: “Well, Husky Boaz has
gone all right.” It was quite true. He and Porter had been sleeping in
the lean-to, and Porter had noticed Boaz collecting his belongings on the
previous evening, but had thought nothing of it. When in the early hours
of the morning he awoke, the Eskimo was lying asleep beside him, but when
Porter woke again just before dawn, Boaz had vanished.
A hasty search showed that he had carried off his whale meat and seal-oil
with him; probably he had brought this food in view of just such an
emergency. There seemed to be no reasonable doubt but that from the
outset he had planned to go with us for a certain distance into the
country, and then, on threat of deserting us, to extort higher pay. He
probably thought that, having two canoes, we could not do without him; I
had seen that he was a very surprised man when we refused to raise his
wage; moreover, the presence of the Eskimo camp of trout-fishers played
into his hands, as it was not much more than a couple of days’ walk for
an unloaded man.
Of course he had, like the rest of us, been kept pretty continuously
wet with wading in the river while forcing the canoe over shallows,
and though the Eskimo sealskin boots, which we all wore, are very
water-proof, this is little advantage when the water is constantly high
enough to run over the tops of them. Still, in our opinion, which was
fortified by later experience, the real hard work had not begun, so his
desertion was quite unjustifiable. Moreover, it gave us a certain amount
of rather grave anxiety, as it seemed quite on the cards that he might
take the trap-boat which we had anchored in the mouth of the upper river,
in which case, when we came out of the country at the end of our trip, we
should be greatly delayed, for we should be obliged either to _cache_ all
our belongings at the head of the long shelterless lake of the Fraser and
walk a weary way into Nain, or else attempt to run down the lake and bay
in our canoes at a season when we might be storm-bound for a considerable
period. Moreover, we could not guess what sort of a story Boaz would
relate in Nain, where he would be obliged to explain his sudden
re-appearance, and we did not wish to have a scare circulated. Scares
grow from small seeds. It would only need some gossip to say in reply to
a question as to our whereabouts, “I do not know; the Eskimo who went
with them came back alone.” A chance speech of this kind travels fast and
grows in importance in places like Labrador, and within a short space of
time might be depended upon to reach St. John’s, Newfoundland, and from
there to be reported home. None of these things happened, however, for
Boaz joined the Eskimo trout-fishers at the head of the bay, and with
them returned to Nain on August 5th. He did not even report himself at
the Mission house, but departed as soon as possible to the outer islands,
where he was still absent on his cod-fishing adventure, when we ourselves
came back to Nain in the autumn. We heard, I fear without regret, that
after all he had not done well at the fishing.
[Illustration: Down the Fraser.]
It is but fair to say that the Eskimo in general have the reputation of
being very faithful; we must have struck the exception in Boaz, though
he was highly recommended to us in every way; and now, as the Sagas say,
“Boaz is out of the story.”
Three times in my experience I have been faced with this same demand
for more pay, when the asker believed that he held me cornered; but as,
at the outset of a trip, I always arrange the wages well in accordance
with—or a fraction in advance of—the local rates, and to the entire
satisfaction of the men engaged, I decline on principle to yield to
subsequent exaction, which, indeed, is never made unless the applicant
thinks he has his employer at a disadvantage.
We had now to reconsider our position, as we could no longer provide
adequate crews for both the canoes. The valley still presented on either
side an almost unbroken wall of inaccessible cliff. There had certainly
been two possible openings on the north side: and now, about a mile
beyond the camp in which Boaz deserted us, we at length perceived the
only vestige of an opening which we had seen since Poungassé—to the
south. This gulch or ravine we proceeded to investigate after breakfast.
It proved to be very steep, and choked with what in Cumberland are termed
screes, “the tumbled fragments of the hills” on either side, fragments,
moreover, many of them so recently fallen that time had neither worn away
the knife-like sharpness of their edges nor allowed them to settle into a
trustworthy stability. Some of them were many tons in weight, and there
were uninviting holes and gaps between them. In the few places where
stones had not fallen in abundance the valley bottom was choked with
alder, which grew upon the banks of a small torrent.
We made our way about two miles up this gorge and were about to turn
back when Hardy suddenly espied a large black bear. This was the first
we had seen, but as we had not our rifles, the bear escaped unchallenged
and unscathed. Altogether on our first visit Bear Ravine did not strike
us as at all a desirable exit from the valley to the plateau, and we
determined to see what we could do to get further up the river with our
one canoe to a spot where, some five miles ahead, we could see what
looked like a second great rift in the southern precipices. The next day
was spent in preparation for departure. As there were now but three of
us we determined to leave a portion of our provisions, and in order that
the supply left behind might not be devoured by bears, Porter constructed
a long-legged _cache_, ten feet above the ground, on the trunks of four
spruce trees. On this was deposited the superfluous canoe and a first
instalment of reserved provisions. Meanwhile, Hardy, who had gone fishing
to a small pond which contained some very diminutive trout, had sighted
another bear. The animal, however, escaped out of effective range as the
rifle was being withdrawn from its cover.
On August 2nd we were once more ready to try conclusions with the river,
and having loaded the canoe Hardy and Porter put out into the stream
while I took my rifle and started to cut across Bear Valley, in the hope
of seeing the bear and perhaps securing what we were beginning to crave
for—in spite of fish and squirrels—a good supply of fresh meat. I was not
more than a few hundred yards from camp before I heard a cry and saw
that Hardy and Porter were in dire trouble. Hardy, who was “tracking”
from the gravelly shallows at the end of a long rope, slipped, and
Porter, who was wading waist deep, lost control of the canoe as it was
passing around a very awkward curve of fast water. In a moment it filled
and, though Hardy retained hold of the line, was carried into the worst
and deepest part of the rapid. Porter, who had rushed into the water
after it, was trying to pull the canoe to land, when he and it were swept
over the rapid into a nasty hole. At once the bags containing our outfit
were dotted over all the surface of the river, the canoe was floating
bottom upwards, and Porter had disappeared.
[Illustration: We _cache_ the first Canoe.]
I had an excellent view of the whole disaster, as I had gone on ahead,
and when the canoe upset had run back towards the scene of the accident.
While I was still rushing down to their help, and after, as it seemed to
me, an age, Porter’s head came into sight again and he staggered ashore.
It had been a very close call for him, as an eddy had taken him under and
beaten him against the stones. Meanwhile Hardy had run down-stream, and I
could see him like a man possessed, dashing in and out of the shallows,
making salvage of our goods. Before I could get near him Porter had
turned the water out of the canoe, which had fortunately been driven into
the bank, and started back towards our old camp to aid in the salvage
operations.
I was unluckily not on the side of the river towards which the current
set, nor could I cross it, as it was a roaring torrent, several feet in
depth; so seeing that I could be of no use to the others, I hurried back
to the camp and lit a large fire, which I knew would be needed presently,
as the snow-fed river was bitterly cold. Before long Porter came up
in the canoe, and shouted that he did not think much was lost, except
his own bundle, Hardy’s rifle and one of the flour bags. Later on we
recovered the bundle and the bag, and, wonderful to say, our only losses
in this untimely accident were limited to Hardy’s ·303 rifle, and a ·22
of mine, two gun covers, and a cleaning rod; added to which, though at
the time we did not know it, some of Hardy’s films were slightly damaged.
Both his camera and mine were fortunately on our respective backs. Upon
the whole I doubt if ever a party got out of an awkward mischance much
more cheaply, though of course the loss of Hardy’s rifle was extremely
serious. We were lucky, nevertheless, in that we did not lose my old
Purdey shot-gun, which, though insecurely lashed in the canoe, was held
in place by a flour bag, jammed under one of the thwarts. This old gun
seems to bear a charmed life, as it once spent six days at the bottom of
the river De Los Antiguos in the Andes of Patagonia.
I lit a second fire, and soon everything was drying nicely, when heavy
rain came on. After it had cleared off, Porter made an effort in the
empty canoe to recover the rifle, but unfortunately the current had
driven it down into a deep hole beneath a rock, and as the river swirled
by at the rate of eight knots, it was impossible, with his extemporised
grappling apparatus, to come within striking distance; so that we were
finally obliged to give up the attempt.
In the evening more rain fell, and the discomfort it entailed about
filled our cup of disagreeable experiences for that particular day.
[Illustration: The beginning of the last navigable stage.]
[Illustration: Drying out.]
On the morning of August 3rd we were up early, intent upon a second
attempt to get through the rapid water that had undone us. First Porter
inspected it in the empty canoe, and while doing this once again saw the
buckles of Hardy’s rifle case glimmering far below. It was sunk to a
depth of many feet, and the current above it was so fast that all idea
of regaining it had for the time to be given up, though when the river
receded we had hopes of recovering it, as, from the Eskimo at the fishing
camp, we knew that there had been a month or so of continuous rain in
that locality, and the river was, therefore, much higher than it usually
is at that season.
I may here state, however, that when we once more passed this spot in the
autumn the river had fallen so much that we were able to fish Hardy’s
rifle up from its lurking place. As it was in its case, it was hardly
damaged, and after a thorough cleaning it shot as well as ever.
On Porter’s return from his reconnaissance we loaded up the canoe, and
all three of us spent the whole morning in tracking, poling, and pushing
her up-stream, only to find that the further course of the river was
quite unnavigable, and that to attempt to continue our journey with
the canoe would be to court disasters similar to those we had twice
experienced. By this time we found ourselves about abreast of Bear
Ravine, and made camp in the mouth of it. We had now to decide on one
of two alternatives. On the one hand, we could pack up the bed of the
Fraser, in search of a less precipitous outlet on the south. But, in the
river bed, the alder scrub grew so thick that we should have to cut our
way through and also make several relays. On the other hand, we could
attempt the ascent of Bear Ravine. We were inclined to the latter, and
arranged that Porter should climb the ravine to reconnoitre, while Hardy
and I, after pitching camp, went out with rifle and shot-gun to look for
the fresh meat that we greatly needed. This plan we carried out; but our
hunt proved unsuccessful, for we killed nothing more interesting than
the usual squirrel. After nightfall, just as we were beginning to wonder
whether he had not met with an accident on the screes, and were indeed
about to start in search of him, Porter returned. He told us that, after
a break-neck climb, he had reached the top of the ravine, and come out
upon a great rolling plateau, over which the view extended for miles.
Away to the west he had seen in the distance a doe caribou, and also a
series of small lakes trending in a south-westerly direction. The country
he described as good for walking, the only obvious disadvantage being the
apparently total absence of fuel. On his way down he had again seen a
bear. Such was his report, and in the circumstances we determined to try
to portage up Bear Ravine to the plateau.