FIGHTING FIRE IN THE TUNDRA
The next day, June 12th, with Roger at the bow and Harry at the stern of
the leading canoe, they started down the Kanuti River. The stream was
swift, shallow, and full of boulders, and for the first couple of days
more of the work was done wading in the stream than by paddling. The
second day, particularly, it seemed to the boy that he had not been out
of the water at all during the fourteen hours of the march, except for
the brief halt at noon.
The next day, however, was travel of the kind that he liked. Two small
tributaries of the Kanuti, mere mountain streams, flowed in and raised
the water to a height where it was possible to shoot the rapids instead
of wading them, carrying the canoes. Ever since the canoe slide on the
Cantwell, Roger had felt quite proud of his powers as a canoeist, and
this pride was considerably heightened as he found how able he was to
handle the boat on this new stream. It was different, too, for while
the first set of rapids had been a torrent foaming between jagged
upstanding crags of rock, this was a swift river running over heaps of
boulders, and the Indian had to judge by the swirl of the water just
what was below.
A broad valley, through which the river wound in a very crooked way,
afforded a quick day's journey, but bad rapids were then met with, which
taxed the resources of the party to the utmost, and proved all in vain
to prevent the boats from being swamped. Twice the boats went over, once
the leading boat to Roger's great chagrin, and the second time the
second boat, which in consequence made the boy feel much better. No
serious harm resulted as the supplies were always packed in watertight
bags. There was a fall of eight hundred feet in the thirty miles of
these rapids, so that, as Magee said, "it was a case of whistling for
brakes all the time."
The mosquitoes became very bad in the lower reaches of the river, the
only redeeming feature of which part of the trip was the immense
abundance of ducks and geese, which, being shot, were a welcome and
toothsome addition to the larder. With this to aid the quiet progress,
the party soon arrived at Arctic City, at the junction of the Kanuti
and Koyukuk rivers, and thence one day's paddling up the latter broad
stream brought them to Bergman. This is a central trading post, and
there again they secured supplies for the last stage of the journey.
As it was already June 23d, and the hardest stretch was yet to come,
little time was lost at Bergman, and three days later the voyagers
crossed the Arctic Circle and touched at Bettles, at the junction of the
Koyukuk and John (or Totsenbet) rivers. There Roger saw the last white
face he would see, other than the members of the party, until he had
crossed the great Arctic Divide, made his bow to the not-distant North
Pole, reached the frozen ocean, and returned to civilization.
But when they came to the John River and Roger saw the force of the
waters of the stream, and learned that there was one hundred and
forty-five miles of up-stream work against that current, he realized
that all his previous experience of labor had been child's play compared
to it.
"That's going to be a pretty stiff pull, Mr. Rivers, isn't it?" said
Roger to the geologist, as he was standing by the edge of the river
just as the boats were being launched.
"It would be, Doughty," was the answer, "that is, if it wasn't for the
milking."
"Milking?" questioned the boy in surprise, doubting if he had heard the
word aright.
Just then Magee replied over his shoulder.
"Yes, milking, of course. Didn't you know they had cows here to do all
the work? Sure! You've read of the cleverness of ants? Well, they're no
better than fools compared to John River cows. They have a regular
system. The cows up here have immensely long horns and two of them catch
the end of one horn in the bow of the canoe, and another one, a mooley
cow, shoves behind, and there you are. That's what they call
milking--milking the brush, up here. Don't you expect to go up the John
by milking the brush?" he added, turning to Rivers.
"Certainly," replied the geologist, then, seeing the lad's confusion, he
continued, "but you mustn't mind Magee; milking the brush isn't quite
that. It's a term used to specify that way of traveling which consists
of pulling the canoes up stream by the boughs of branches along the
bank. You see the John River is so swift that, if we were to depend only
on paddling and poling, progress would be extremely slow."
"But how about tracking?" suggested the boy. "What is to prevent the
canoes being pulled along by ropes from the shore?"
"The timber and brush come right down to the water's edge," was the
reply. "There are no bars and level banks such as there were in the
upper part of the Dall River, just before we came to the portage, and of
course it is almost out of the question to pull or tow a canoe, when the
banks are so thick that you would have to cut a trail in order to get
through yourself. The trees and undergrowth overhang the river for quite
a distance. Therefore all that can be done is to pull the boats up along
the branches, hand over hand, one man poling in the stern. Of course,
every few yards the boats get entangled and have to be pushed and pulled
out. It's the only way, but it's back-breaking work."
It was, there was no doubt about that, and Roger added another chapter
to his ideas of what hard work meant. The current of the river was so
swift that it was useless to try and paddle up against it, while keeping
in the middle of the stream, the banks were so thick and wooded that
tracking was impossible, and "milking the brush" required incredible
labor, because it meant keeping the canoe so near the bank that it was
grounding or striking snags or becoming entangled in roots constantly,
or misbehaving itself in some way.
[Illustration: IN ICY WATER UNDER A BURNING SUN.
Taking a canoe up a glacier-fed current in the height of an Alaskan
summer.
_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]
Then to make a change, a long rapid would appear, and the only way to
negotiate it was to lift the canoes shoulder-high, all the party
together under the one canoe, and climb up that rapid with the ice water
perhaps up to the waist, and a cruel, drenching spray whipping into
their faces. In the meantime, if the mosquito veils were thrown
back--and few things are more uncomfortable than a wet mosquito veil
flopping about the face, why, then those torturing pests got in a full
day's work; the while that a hot Alaskan summer sun blazed above them
and blistered face, arms, and neck, exposed alternately to vivid sun and
icy spray.
On July 5th, the spruce, which had thinned out rapidly during the couple
of days preceding, came to a sudden end, the northern limit of timber
having been reached. Nothing seemed to impress on Roger so clearly the
fact that he was now in the Arctic Circle as the thought that he was in
a climate so rigorous and gale-swept in winter that no tree could grow.
A few stunted willow bushes, here and there, still remained, when
sheltered on the bank of the river, but trees, as such, worthy of the
name, there were none of any sort whatever.
"I never realized," said Roger, "that there was no timber of any kind in
the far north. What do the Eskimos burn for fuel?"
"Have you ever seen pictures of stoves or fireplaces in the Eskimo snow
hut?" was the answer. "They depend on the heat of their own bodies in a
hut without any ventilation, on the flame of blubber lamps, and
occasionally, on a little driftwood which may have come down into the
Arctic Ocean from some immense stream like the Mackenzie, which, flowing
thousands of miles, has passed in its upper reaches through a timbered
country."
But by the time that the boy had reached this northern limit of spruce
he had lost all idea of time. The days and nights seemed one perpetual
nightmare. When asleep he dreamed that he was wading, or tracking, or
poling, and when awake he felt as though he were working in his sleep.
It seemed to him that he had spent years and years on an icy river, and
that fate had tied him to it for ever and ever. By the time that two
full weeks of it had passed by, the boy no longer had any thought of
reaching the summit, that this toil could stop was a thought incredible,
and though his muscles, stiffened and well-trained, continued to do
their full man's share of the work, the mental strain was intense.
Rivers and Gersup were considerably troubled over the fact that the
boy's strength showed no signs of giving way, and they would almost
rather have seen him break down physically than continue his work
doggedly, yet like a machine. It became hard, toward the end of the
trip, to make him answer a question, and it would have to be repeated
several times before the boy could grasp it. Orders regarding the work
he seemed to understand at once, but other matters fell on deafened
ears.
The older men tried to sting him into life in many ways. They attacked
his pride, they endeavored to insult him, they reasoned with him, but
there was no response, the heavy and sunken eyes regained no luster, the
hard-set jaw never relaxed, and the channels of speech seemed frozen.
This went on as the river shallowed until, when the John had become so
small that further work by water was impossible, Rivers gave word for a
portage.
But the chief was far too wise a leader not to be prudent as well as
urgent, and he knew that there were times when a rest would be wise for
most of the party, and imperative for Roger. He had not dared to give
anything to the boy, because of the need of travel the next day, but now
that a short rest was in sight, he mixed up from the little medicine
chest a sleeping draught of triple strength, and made the boy take it
down. Through the entire night and the whole of the next day Roger slept
unmoving, and when evening came, Rivers and Gersup discussed whether
they should wake him.
"Let him sleep, if he wants to," put in Magee, who had heard the talk;
"sure he can't be gettin' into any harm while he's asleep, an' if it's
rest he wants, I think it's better not to wake him."
"But, Magee," said the chief, "sometimes a man gets into one of those
sleeps and nothing will rouse him after."
"Of course, there's a risk, but if the boy's brain needs sleep so bad
as all that, I should think the shock of waking him would be bad."
And so it was decided to let the lad sleep as long as he would. All
through that second night he slept, though it was almost full daylight
the whole night through, and all the next morning, till about three
o'clock in the afternoon, when he stirred, looked around languidly, and
fell to sleep again. He woke at five o'clock, and sat right up, his eye
clear and the leaden weight upon his tongue loosened.
The men crowded round with questions, and Roger learned that they had
reached the head of the pass, but he had retained no memory whatever of
the last ten days of the trip. He buckled to and ate steadily for an
hour and a half, to the huge joy of the cook, and then curled up for
some more sleep, awakening the next morning bright and chipper as though
he were in Washington before the trip had been begun.
On July 17th, therefore, the lad being quite himself again, three days
after their arrival at Anaktuvuk Pass, at the head of the John River,
Rivers gave the word for the portage to be begun. It was a twelve-mile
portage and hard going, for though, unlike all the previous carries,
there was no timber to intercept, and through which a trail must be cut,
the entire work was over the tundra.
The moss-plains of the Arctic slopes, brilliant with wild flowers and
fragrant with heather and gorse, which surround the Polar Seas the world
around, come almost first in the list of objectionable travel. Even in
the blazing heat of a summer where the sun shines for twenty-two hours
out of twenty-four and the heat is nothing short of tropical, two feet
below the surface the spade would touch perpetual frost, a factor of no
importance to the branching-rooted tundra moss. Centuries of centuries
of growth and decay have created a network of roots, rotten, spongy, and
wet, so that walking over it resembles treading on soaked sponges two
feet deep.
But that nothing may remain to be thought of in the viciousness of that
footing, every six or eight inches apart, tufts of grass and moss, known
as "niggerheads," hard and round, stick up a foot high. If the unwary
traveler decides to walk on these as on the stones of a ford crossing,
he finds them slippery and insecure, they turn under his foot, and give
him the experience of a twisted ankle; while, on the other hand, if he
should endeavor to walk between them he runs a fair chance of tripping
upon those hummocks and falling headlong in the oozy moss. Indeed, he
can hardly walk at all.
[Illustration: THUS FAR WITH THE BOATS, AND NO FARTHER!
The beginning of a portage at the summit of a divide; often a road must
be cut through the brush.
_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]
The portage took two days, Rivers making a forced march, and the cook
was left at the new camp with the first day's supplies, the carry being
to Cache Lake, a large slough which forms the headwaters of the
Anaktuvuk River. Early the next morning the rest of the party returned
to the old camp, where they had left the canoes, to bring them over to
the Lake for their trip down to the Arctic Ocean.
Towards evening, as they were returning, and had just ascended a little
knoll, Roger hurried up to the chief of the party.
"Mr. Rivers," he said, "there seems to be a lot of smoke over there, in
the direction of the camp."
The geologist looked up sharply and then turned.
"Quick, boys," he said, "take the boats to that pond"--the tundra was
dotted with small stretches of water--"and anchor them in the middle.
The tundra is on fire, and if it's going to spread the boats must be
saved. Harry, you go ahead to the camp." He dropped his pack and broke
into a run.
Bulson, grasping the situation, stuck one of the punting poles deep into
the shallow bottom and made fast the canoes to it in the middle of the
slough. Then, with the rest of the men he followed the Indian and the
chief for the camp. Roger's light weight and his training on the track
had made him a good runner, but he did not try to outdistance the other
men, and of course Harry was out of sight.
Plunging over and through the tundra, however, with veins swollen almost
to bursting with the heavy going, the men kept on, no one speaking,
though once, as a sheet of flame shot up, Gersup pointed with his
finger. It was a welcome sight, on topping a small rise, to see in the
distance that two of the three tents were still standing, though ringed
round with a smoldering fire; in the foreground the blackened figures of
the cook and the Indian, working for their lives, and the chief just
pounding into the camp. With never a pause, save when some fellow
tripped and fell, the men tore over the rough ground until they reached
the flames. Under the vigorous work of all hands an impression began to
be made, and two hours later the fire was under control.
"How did it happen, George?" the chief asked.
Twice the cook tried to answer, but the pungent smoke and the exertion
had made him almost speechless, and he could only whisper hoarsely.
Though the fire was officially out, every few minutes a puff of smoke
would reveal a smoldering root of moss, and all night through two men
watched, two hours apiece, to see that it did not break out anew. And
these men never had five minutes' quietude, for the fire, which had been
burning unseen in the network of roots for hours, would suddenly send up
a flame, and the whole line of that smoldering glow would have to be
beaten and drenched out.
As the cook described it later, the fire did not appear for over an hour
after the party had left, and when the smoke first arose, he did not pay
much attention to it, merely thinking that it was one of the circles of
"smudges" which had been lighted the night before all round the camp to
keep the mosquitoes away, and which had not been properly put out. He
looked up a couple of times, but not for another hour did he notice any
change, and then he saw a faint vapor rising near the first.
Thinking by this time that it might be as well to go and keep the fire
from spreading, he strolled over to the column of smoke. But he had not
come within thirty feet of the place when he found that he was walking
over a glowing furnace, the tundra being red hot between the green moss
above, which would not burn, and the wet roots below. Each step he took,
of course, put out the fire under his footstep by pressing the glowing
moss into the substratum of water, but it created a current of air to
the moss around that footstep, and looking behind he saw smoke arising
from every impress of his foot.
At this point he became alarmed, and instead of making a circle around
the camp of moss thoroughly beaten down and soaked, he started to try to
beat out the existing fire, an almost hopeless task, for the reason that
the flames crept under the surface unseen and almost unfelt, only
betraying their presence by a faint film of vapor. By the time that he
realized that he should have devoted his energy to making a fireguard
around the camp, the tundra was burning too close to the tents for him
to be able to dare stop checking it long enough to start protective
remedies.
In spite of all his labor, however, the fire reached one of the smaller
tents, where some of the maps were kept, and the dry canvas and mosquito
netting, catching alight suddenly, went up in the air as though it had
been a fire balloon, and blazing fragments of the tent, falling on the
tundra about, gave source to a dozen more fires. George rushed over the
red-hot tundra and carried the maps, which, though scorched, were not
badly injured, to the main tent, and then devoted himself to encircling
that tent thoroughly with beaten and wetted moss, watching to see that
no spark crossed and that no treacherous fire crept along between the
roots of the moss.
Matters were at this point when the Indian appeared, and with one man
watching the tents and the other beating out the fire progress was made,
the danger being entirely averted when the whole party arrived. The
peril over, the other members of the party went back for the canoes,
bringing them into the camp late in the evening.
The next morning all boarded the canoes to cross Cache Lake, which,
connected with a score of other sloughs, led to the initial streams of
the Anaktuvuk, the main tributary of the Colville, which latter river
flows into the Arctic Ocean. They had paddled perhaps two miles when the
Indian gave a guttural grunt and pointed to the shore that they had
left. There, rising high in the clear air, was a column of faint blue
smoke.
"They say you can't put out a tundra fire," said Rivers, "and I begin to
believe it."
"Then how long do you suppose that will burn?" asked Roger.
"Until the winter puts about a foot of snow over it, I suppose," the
geologist answered, "and it'll hate to quit even then."