LAKE NIPISHISH IS REACHED
As already stated, the Indians at Northwest River Post had informed us
that the Crooked River had its rise in Lake Nipishish, and I therefore
decided to follow the stream from the point where we were now encamped
to the lake, or until we should come upon the trail again, as I felt
sure we should do farther up, rather than retrace our steps to the
abandoned cache on the island in the expansion below, and probably
consume considerable time in locating the old portage route from that
point.
Accordingly, on Monday morning we began our work against the almost
continuous rapids, which we discovered as we proceeded were
characteristic of the river. A heavy growth of willows lined the
banks, forcing us into the icy water, where the swift current made it
very difficult to keep our footing upon the slippery bowlders of the
river bed. Tracking lines were attached to the bows of the canoes and
we floundered forward.
The morning was cloudy and cool and resembled a day in late October,
but before noon the sun graciously made his appearance and gave us new
spirit for our work. When we stopped for dinner I sent Pete and Easton
to look ahead, and Pete brought back the intelligence that a half-mile
portage would cut off a considerable bend in the river and take us into
still water. It was necessary to clear a portion of the way with the
ax. This done, the portage was made, and then we found to our
disappointment that the still water was less than a quarter mile in
length, when rapids occurred again.
As I deemed it wise to get an idea of the lay of the land before
proceeding farther, I took Pete with me and went ahead to scout the
route. Less than a mile away we found two small lakes, and climbing a
ridge two miles farther on, we had a view of the river, which, so far
as we could see, continued to be very rough, taking a turn to the
westward above where our canoes were stationed, and then swinging again
to the northeast in the direction of Nipishish, which was plainly
visible. The Indians, instead of taking the longer route that we were
following, undoubtedly crossed from the old cache to a point in the
river some distance above where it took its westward swing, and thus,
in one comparatively easy portage, saved themselves several miles of
rough traveling. It was too late for us now, however, to take
advantage of this.
Pete and I hurried back to the others. The afternoon was well
advanced, but sufficient daylight remained to permit us to proceed a
little way up the river, and portage to the shores of one of the lakes,
where camp was made just at dusk.
Field mice in this section were exceedingly troublesome. They would
run over us at night, sample our food, and gnawed a hole as large as a
man's hand in the side of the tent. Porcupines, too, were something of
a nuisance. One night one of them ate a piece out of my tumpline,
which was partially under my head, while I slept.
The next morning we passed through the lakes to the river above, and
for three days, in spite of an almost continuous rain and wind storm,
worked our way up stream, "tracking" the canoes through a succession of
rapids or portaging around them, with scarcely any opportunity to
paddle.
On the afternoon of the third day, with the wind dashing the rain in
sheets into our faces, we halted on a rough piece of ground just above
the river bank and pitched our tent.
When camp was made Pete took me to a rise of ground a little distance
away, and pointing to the northward exclaimed: "Look, Lake Nipishish! I
know we reach him to-day."
And sure enough, there lay Lake Nipishish close at hand! I was more
thankful than I can say to see the water stretching far away to the
northward, for I felt that now the hardest and roughest part of our
journey to the height of land was completed.
"That's great, Pete," said I. "We'll have more water after this and
fewer and easier portages, and we can travel faster."
"Maybe better, I don't know," remarked Pete, rather skeptically.
"Always hard find trail out big lakes. May leave plenty places. Take
more time hunt trail maybe now. Indian maps no good. Maybe easier
when we find him."
Pete was right, and I did not know the difficulties still to be met
with before we should reach Michikamau.
Duncan was of comparatively little help to us now, and as I knew that
he was more than anxious to return to Groswater Bay, I decided to
dispense with his further services and send him back with letters to be
mailed home. When I returned to the tent I said to him:
"Duncan, I suppose you would like to go home now, and I will let you
turn back from here and take some letters out. Does that suit you?"
"Yes, sir, that suits me fine," replied be promptly, and in a tone that
left no doubt of the fact that he was glad to go.
"Well, this is Thursday. I'll write my letters tomorrow, and you may
go on Saturday."
"All right, sir."
The letters were all written and ready for Duncan on Friday night, and
he packed sufficient provisions into a waterproof bag I gave him to
carry him out, and prepared for an early start in the morning. But the
rain that had been falling for several days still poured down on
Saturday, and he decided to postpone his departure another day in the
hope of better weather on Sunday. He needed the time anyway to mend
his sealskin boots before starting back, for he had pretty nearly worn
them out on the sharp rocks on the portages. The rest of us were well
provided with oil-tanned moccasins (sometimes called larigans or
shoe-packs), which I have found are the best footwear for a journey
like ours. Pete's khaki trousers were badly torn; and Richards and
Easton, who wore Mackinaw trousers, were in rags. This cloth had not
withstood the hard usage of Labrador travel a week, and both men, when
they bad a spare hour, occupied it in sewing on canvas patches, until
now there was almost as much canvas patch as Mackinaw cloth in these
garments. Richards, however, carried an extra pair of moleskin
trousers, and I wore moleskin. This latter material is the best
obtainable, so far as my experience goes, for rough traveling in the
bush, and my trousers stood the trip with but one small patch until
winter came.
Sunday morning was still stormy, but before noon the rain ceased, and
Duncan announced his intention of starting homeward at once. We raised
our flags and exchanged our farewells and Godspeeds with him. Then he
left us, and as he disappeared down the trail a strange sense of
loneliness came upon us, for it seemed to us that his going broke the
last link that connected us with the outside world. Duncan was always
so cheerful, with his quaint humor, and so ready to do his work to the
very best of his ability, that we missed him very much, and often spoke
of him in the days that followed.
We had made the best of our enforced idleness in this camp to repack
and condense and dry our outfit as much as possible. The venison, at
the first imperfectly cured, had been so continuously soaked that the
most of what remained of it was badly spoiled and we could not use it,
and with regret we threw it away. The erbswurst was also damp, and
this we put into small canvas bags, which were then placed near the
stove to dry.
A rising barometer augured good weather for Monday morning. A light
wind scattered the clouds that had for so many days entombed the world
in storm and gloom, and the sun broke out gloriously, setting the
moisture-laden trees aglinting as though hung with a million pearls and
warming the damp fir trees until the air was laden with the forest
perfume. It was as though a pall had been lifted from the world. How
our hearts swelled with the new enthusiasm of the returned sunshine! It
was always so. It seemed as if the long-continued storms bound up our
hearts and crushed the buoyancy from them; but the returning sunshine
melted the bonds at once and gave us new ambition. A robin sang gayly
from a near-by tree--a messenger from the kindlier Southland come to
cheer us--and the "whisky jacks," who had not shown themselves for
several days, appeared again with their shrill cries, venturing
impudently into the very door of our tent to claim scraps of refuse.
I was for moving forward that very afternoon, but some of our things
were still wet, and I deemed it better judgment to let them have the
day in which to dry and to delay our start until Monday morning.
After supper, in accordance with the Sunday custom established by
Hubbard when I was with him, I read aloud a selection from the
Testament--the last chapter of Revelation--and then went out of the
tent to take the usual nine o'clock weather observation. Between the
horizon and a fringe of black clouds that hung low in the north the
reflected sun set the heavens afire, and through the dark fir trees the
lake stretched red as a lake of blood. I called the others to see it
and Easton joined me. We climbed a low hill close at hand to view the
scene, and while we looked the red faded into orange, and the lake was
transformed into a mirror, which reflected the surrounding trees like
an inverted forest. In the direction from which we had come we could
see the high blue hills beyond the Nascaupee, very dim in the far
distance. Below us the Crooked River lost itself as it wound its
tortuous way through the wooded valley that we had traversed. Somewhere
down there Duncan was bivouacked, and we wondered if his fire was
burning at one of our old camping places.
Darkness soon came and we returned to the tent to find the others
rolled in their blankets, and we joined them at once that we might have
a good night's rest preparatory to an early morning advance.
Before seven o'clock on Monday morning (July twenty-fourth) we had made
our portage to the water that we had supposed to be an arm of Lake
Nipishish, but which proved instead to be an expansion of the river
into which the lake poured its waters through a short rapid. This rapid
necessitated another short portage before we were actually afloat upon
the bosom of Nipishish itself. There was not a cloud to mar the azure
of the sky, hardly a breath of wind to make a ripple on the surface of
the lake, and the morning was just cool enough to be delightful.
It was the kind of day and kind of wilderness that makes one want to go
on and on. I felt again the thrill in my blood of that magic something
that had held possession of Hubbard and me and lured us into the heart
of this unknown land two years before, and as I looked hungrily away
toward the hills to the northward, I found myself repeating again one
of those selections from Kipling that I had learned from him:
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges--
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"