Late in the afternoon, with a great improvement in the weather, our
canoe was afloat on Aylmer Lake (known to the Indians as the Lake of the
Big Cliffs), over which she had been dragged on a dog-sleigh five weeks
before. The following evening we passed into the short stretch of river
that leaves its east end, and camped late on the south shore of Clinton
Golden Lake, or, as the Yellow Knives call it, the Lake where the
Caribou swim among the Ice. The vast body of water opened out before us
into apparently a perfect circle, and now for the first time we were in
doubt as to our course, for there was nothing to indicate the point at
which the river leaves the far end of the lake; the east shore was
invisible from the slight hill behind our camp, although it was a clear
bright morning. We had two maps with us, one, the latest issued under
the Dominion Government's directions, and the other, an old 1834 map of
Arrowsmith's which we had discovered at the fort; they offered very
divergent opinions as to the general lay of Lockhart's River, and it
says little for later geographical research that the older map should
have been by far the more accurate of the two.
We put out at three o'clock in the morning to take advantage of calm
weather to make the crossing of the lake, and after paddling about eight
miles went ashore on an island to cook breakfast and reconnoitre. From
here we could see the faint outline of land to the east, and made out
that what had appeared a circle consisted in reality of three enormous
bays, one heading east, one south-east, and the third south-west. Which
was the right one to take? An appeal to Saltatha and Noel, who were
supposed to have local knowledge, produced no results; Noel said he
thought the east bay was the right one, while Saltatha, pointing
south-west, said perhaps that was the correct course to follow. It ended
in our taking the middle bay, and, for the benefit of the next party
that crosses this lake, I may state that there is a peculiar conical
butte lying roughly twenty miles south-east from this island; it is just
visible above the horizon, and is a capital leading mark to bring a
canoe into a long narrow arm of the lake, which afterwards broadens
again into a huge round sheet of water, and here, by keeping close to
the east shore for five miles, the entrance to the river will be found.
It was in great uncertainty that we headed our frail vessel across the
broad traverse with a blanket set in front of a light fair wind; at noon
we again put ashore on an island, and, killing a caribou, made a long
halt for dinner. We climbed to the highest point of land but could make
nothing out of our survey, and continued coasting along the island till
we reached its south end, and then found ourselves in the channel I have
mentioned. No current was noticeable, and we pushed on through the
winding waterway, in fear that it might be a _cul de sac_ and we should
have to turn back and try our luck in some other direction. On landing,
however, we saw a sheet of water ahead of us, so broad that the far
shore was below the horizon, and, on passing out of the channel we had
been following, pitched camp on the east side of the lake, still
uncertain as to where the river lay. Very early in the morning we were
under way again, and followed the land to make sure that we did not pass
the opening of the river, if indeed we were anywhere near it. About six
o'clock there came a shout from the bowsman, that he saw a pole planted
among the rocks ashore, and the canoe at once began to feel the
influence of a slight current. Rounding a low point, a reach of strong
running water lay before us, and we landed to see what was the meaning
of the pole. A broken piece of _babiche_ hanging from it told the old
story of a rifled _cache_, another evidence of the wolverine's
handiwork.
Among the Indians who had come to the fort during the winter to trade
fur was a hunter generally known by the name of Pierre the Fool, though
it seems hard to understand how one of the most intelligent Indians in
the country of the Great Slave Lake had earned this _soubriquet_.
Pierre had been much interested in our expedition. Every summer he
pitched his lodge where the river leaves the lake in which the caribou
swim among the ice, to make dried meat to sell at the fort; his hunt
this year had been successful, and, when he broke up his camp, he had
faithfully kept his promise to leave us a _cache_ of pounded meat and
grease, but the wolverines had reaped the benefit. Just below the camp
we saw plain evidence of the slaughter he had made among the swimming
caribou; what we took at first for a bunch of remarkably big willow
sticks proved to be the horns of fifty or sixty bucks, lying in shallow
water at the edge of the stream; and enough meat to keep an Indian
family for a year, if properly cured, was rotting in the sun.
After a mile of strong running stream the river falls into another lake,
and immediately makes a sharp bend to the south-west, and, during the
rest of the descent, we travelled in that direction with little
variation till we reached the Great Slave Lake. Saltatha now began to
recognise the country, and there was no more doubt about the way; but
had we been left to our own judgment, we should have certainly gone
wrong in this first lake, as there is a promising bay heading in to the
south. None of the maps show this bend in the stream at all correctly,
nor do they take any notice of the next lake, the Indians' Ptarmigan
Lake, a large sheet of water fully twenty miles in length, which Pierre
the Fool afterwards told us lies within a short portage of the west bay
of Clinton Golden Lake.
We now fell in again with the big herds of caribou. For the last few
weeks we had only seen enough to provide us with meat, but here they
were in their thousands, and I am sorry to say that our crew did far too
much killing, during the short spell of bad weather which forced us to
camp on Ptarmigan Lake. The excuse was that the hides were now at their
best for coats and robes; but even so, far more were killed than could
be used for this purpose.
We made rather a risky passage down the lake in front of a strong wind
and heavy sea, and at the west end found an ugly rapid six hundred yards
in length: the cargo was portaged and the canoe run light in safety;
and, after crossing a short lake, another rapid was negotiated in the
same manner. In this second portage stood a solitary pine-tree, round
which we all crowded as in welcome of an old friend after our long
journey in a woodless country. Just below there was an impassable rapid,
the only real impediment to navigation from the head of Mackay Lake to
the foot of Artillery Lake, a distance of four hundred miles. Below the
portage we ran five or six miles down a steady swift current,
occasionally widening out into a small lake, with caribou continually
swimming across the river ahead of the canoe, and late at night camped
on the edge of a huge lake with a clear horizon to the west. This
proved to be Artillery Lake, and at four o'clock next morning we were
running down the south shore, in front of a gale of wind with our
smallest blanket set for a sail. The day was much colder, with a few
flakes of snow flying, and everybody was pleased to put ashore in a
clump of pine-trees at dinner-time; the wind moderated towards evening,
and, crossing to the north shore, we camped once again in the strong
woods. The timber line is much more clearly defined here than on the
other routes by which I approached the Barren Ground; the outlying
clumps of pines extend to a very short distance, and their growth ceases
entirely within seventy miles of the Great Slave Lake. If it should ever
again prove necessary to reach the Arctic Sea by way of the Great Fish
River, Artillery Lake would, in my opinion, be by far the best place at
which to build light boats for the voyage; the timber is quite large
enough, and only one portage has to be made to reach the Aylmer Lake
divide.
The next morning we reached the end of Artillery Lake, which we reckoned
roughly at forty-five miles in length, and passed into a narrow channel
with hardly any current. Towards midday a couple of small canoes
appeared ahead of us, and the usual formalities of saluting ensued. When
they came alongside the occupants were asked for the news, and they
informed us that the burnt Indian was drowned, that the caribou had
been passing more thickly than ever known before, and that the fort boat
had not yet arrived at the appointed meeting-place. The burnt Indian
seems to have been badly out of luck. He had rolled into his camp-fire
during a fit, and was found with his feet burnt off; after being
doctored by the missionary for many months, and cured as far as it was
possible to cure such a case, the cripple had left the fort with some of
his relations to get back among the caribou, but on the second day out
was drowned by capsizing his canoe. We could not account for the
non-arrival of the boat, as we ourselves were already a fortnight later
than the day agreed upon for meeting.
Round the next bend of the stream were six lodges, and the first
greeting we received was from old Syene, the Medicine Man. There was no
doubt that the caribou had been passing, as the children and dogs were
rolling fat, and an unmistakable air of plethora from much feasting hung
over the camp. Only four days before there had been one of those big
slaughters, which one would think could not fail in a short time to
exterminate the caribou. A large band had been seen to start from the
opposite bank, and was soon surrounded by seven hunting-canoes; the
spears were kept going as long as there was life to take, with the
result that three hundred and twenty-six carcasses were hauled ashore,
and fully two hundred of these left to rot in the shallow water. Every
lodge was full of meat and grease in various forms, and there would be a
cargo for the boat to take back to the fort. Pierre the Fool, who was
camped here, was in great form, and at once presented us with a bunch of
smoked tongues and a bladder of marrow grease. He gave us a great deal
of information about the country eastward of Clinton Golden Lake, and in
a much more intelligent manner than the usual Indian method of constant
repetition; he told us there were fewer lakes in that direction than in
any other part of the Barren Ground that he had visited, but he was
always obliged to take a small canoe with him, to cross a big stream
running in a southerly direction, three days' easy travel from Clinton
Golden Lake. Once, when he had pushed out farther than usual, he had
seen smoke in the distance, and came upon a camp that the Esquimaux from
Hudson's Bay had just left; they had been cutting wood for their sleighs
in a clump of well-grown pines, and Pierre, who shares the dread which
every Yellow Knife has of the Coast tribes, had been afraid to follow
them. From the fact of his having seen the pine-trees, which are said
not to extend far from the salt water of Hudson's Bay, he must have been
within a short distance of the coast.
On the day after our arrival in the encampment a general movement was
made; the lodges were thrown down, and the women and dogs received heavy
loads to carry to the Great Slave Lake. Lockhart's River on leaving
Artillery Lake becomes a wild torrent, falling several hundred feet in
twenty miles, and is quite useless for navigation, so we had to make use
of a chain of lakes, eight in number, lying to the south of the stream.
This is by far the prettiest part of the country that I saw in the
North, and it was looking its best under the bright sunshine that
continued till we reached the fort. Scattering timber, spruce and birch,
clothed the sloping banks down to the sandy shores of the lakes; berries
of many kinds grew in profusion; the portages were short and down hill;
and caribou were walking the ridges and swimming the lakes in every
direction. A perfect northern fairyland it was, and it seemed hard to
believe that winter and want could ever penetrate here; but on the shore
of a lovely blue lake Pierre the Fool pointed out a spot where the last
horrors of death and cannibalism had been enacted within his memory.
Sometimes a column of smoke would be seen ahead, and we paddled by a
lodge where the fat sleepy children were revelling in the abundance of
grease. Late on the second day a white object on the shore attracted
general attention: "It is a wolf, a white caribou; no, a man, a man in a
white shirt,--it must be one of the boat's crew"; and so it proved to
be. The white shirt was a libel, but the clean canvas jumper quite
deserved the admiration it had received, especially in contrast with our
own rags. The boat had arrived from Fort Resolution in charge of
François Mandeville, another brother of Michel the fort interpreter.
François had been alarmed at not finding us at the meeting-place, and
had immediately dispatched four of the crew in a large canoe, with a
supply of tea, tobacco, and flour, to ascend the river in hopes of
finding us. But the relief party had come across the fresh tracks of
caribou in the first portage; it was long since they had tasted meat, so
the canoe was put down in the woods, and the "big masters," who were
supposed to be lost in the Barren Ground, were forgotten. The man we met
had come on to see some relations who were camped among the lakes, and,
as he was discovered to be possessed of tobacco, we made him share up,
and sat on the beach enjoying the first smoke for many days, and hearing
the accounts of what little events had happened during a short summer on
the Great Slave Lake. But it was getting late, and we still had the
longest portage to make. At the end of the last lake we abandoned the
canoe that had done me such good service on two long journeys, and with
loads on our backs followed the well-worn trail that the Indians have
used from time immemorial as a route to their hunting-grounds. A natural
pass with a steep descent led between the rough broken hills on each
side, and a three-mile walk brought us within sight of the waters of the
big lake. Below us, close by the edge of the bay, there were already
several lodges planted, and over a white tent floated the old red
ensign bearing in the corner the letters H. B. C. so well known
throughout the whole dominion of Canada. A shot from the last ridge
aroused the encampment, and soon a general fusillade took place; a fleet
of canoes, running with blankets set to a fair wind far across the bay,
took up the firing and headed for the shore, while every Indian within
sound of gun-shot hurried to hear the news and join in the trading which
was sure to take place on our arrival.
Here we found everything that a man in the wilds longs for, flour,
bacon, tea, tobacco, sugar, a packet of letters from England written
many months before, and a bottle of brandy, the first "fire-water" that
had come our way for a year. Women and dogs heavily loaded with bales of
meat and bladders of grease kept dropping in from across the portage; a
dance was set on foot and kept up all night round the huge camp fires,
while the tall pine-trees looked down on a scene of feasting and revelry
such as had probably never been known on the shores of this pleasant
bay.
Poor Saltatha, who had been very bad for the last week, crawled into our
lodge late at night, and threw himself down on a blanket in a state of
utter exhaustion. In spite of the best law in Canada, which forbids a
white man to give an Indian any intoxicating drink, under penalty of a
$200 fine, I determined to try if brandy could do him any good.
Saltatha had never tasted the strong water, but had heard much of its
wonderful qualities, and made no objection to trying the cure. I gave
him a small dose, but it had a wonderful effect; his eyes became round
and big, and once again he started the dismal chant that he had been so
fond of during our musk-ox hunt last winter. He was hopelessly drunk,
and, when he was seized with a violent fit of coughing and his head fell
on the blanket like a dead man's, I thought I had made a sad mess of my
doctoring. Early in the morning I got up to see if he was dead, and was
relieved to find him much better and keen for some more brandy, which I
refused; he had had very pleasant dreams he said, and the pain had gone
from his chest to his head. From that time he improved in health, his
strength came back rapidly, and when I left the fort a week later, he
looked as well as ever.
Two days were spent in trading for the meat which kept coming in, and
during this time we sent out a hunting-party to kill fresh meat, which
we hoped would keep till we reached the fort if we made a good passage.
At Resolution times were very hard; few fish were being caught, and the
return of the boat was anxiously expected. Many caribou were killed, and
our ship was well loaded with fresh meat, besides over three thousand
pounds of dried meat, two hundred pounds of grease, bunches of tongues,
coils of _babiche_ and sinew, and a little fur that had been killed
during the spring.
The Indians all left on the evening of the second day, and early the
following morning we put to sea in a flat calm. Before leaving we went
through the ceremony of cutting a lop-stick, as is the fashion of the
North, to commemorate our expedition. A conspicuous pine was chosen, a
man sent aloft to lop off the lower branches, while Mackinlay and myself
cut our names on the trunk; then everybody discharged their guns at the
tree, and the performance was ended. Often in the lonely waterways of
the Northern country one sees a lop-stick showing far ahead on the bank,
and reads a name celebrated in the annals of the Hudson's Bay Company or
in the history of Arctic exploration. These lop-sticks are easily
distinguished landmarks, well known to the _voyageurs_, and many an
appointment has been kept at Campbell's, Macdougal's, or Macfarlane's
tree. In giving directions to a stranger it is hopeless to describe the
points and bends of a monotonous river highway, but a lop-stick does the
duty of a signpost and at once settles the question of locality.
Two hundred miles of the Great Slave Lake lay between us and the fort,
but a steady wind came from the north, and the shallow-draught York boat
ran in front of it so well that on the fourth night we camped on the
Mission Island within a couple of miles of Fort Resolution. A worse
boat for the navigation of the lake could hardly be imagined. A huge
square sail, set on a mast shipped right amidships, does good work so
long as the wind is abaft the beam; but when a head-wind springs up, too
strong to row against, it is a case of hauling ashore on the beach, as
no anchor is carried. Steep cliffs on a lee shore have to be carefully
avoided, for it is impossible to propel such a vessel to windward in a
heavy sea. On the present occasion, however, we were in great luck, and
I never remember a more pleasant voyage in a sailing-boat. A run up the
English Channel in a well-found yacht, with fair wind and sunshine, is
enjoyable enough; but there are seldom any blankets to lie about in on
deck, and there is always some stray peak or jib-halliard that wants
pulling on, besides continual threats of setting or stowing a topsail,
which prevents your settling down into a comfortable position. Here we
had nothing to worry us; the wind blew fair, and we lay in our blankets,
smoking and looking at the land, as the boat glided along the narrow
blue lanes, among islands that the foot of white man had never pressed.
Four times a day we put ashore to boil the kettle, and at night slept by
the side of a huge fire in the thick pine-woods; darkness lasted many
hours now, and prevented navigation among the countless islands and
outlying rocks. On the fourth day we crossed the Grand Traverse, and,
leaving the Ile de Pierre after nightfall, ran for Mission Island with
a strong wind blowing in from the open lake. Crossing the mouth of the
big river was rather risky work in the dark, as the sandy battures ran
far off to sea and the waves were breaking heavily in the shallow water;
the sounding-pole gave only four feet in one place, but we ran across
without touching, and at midnight camped at the back of Mission Island.
The sun was just rising on Sunday, August the 24th, when we ran the boat
on the beach in front of Fort Resolution, and a glance at the faces that
gathered round told us that living had been none too good, and that a
man is sometimes better off among the caribou than depending upon an
uncertain fishery for a livelihood. With all thanks to priest and
parson, Indian and half-breed, for the kind welcome they gave us, I
noticed many an eye glancing furtively at our rich cargo from the land
of plenty; and the rejoicings that day may be attributed equally to joy
at our safe arrival and to the influence of a feast of fresh meat after
many weeks of short allowance.
I could afford to make only a short stay at Resolution, as the season
was far advanced, and I had to start at once to avoid the chance of
being caught by the winter during my long journey. Of the three routes
that might enable me to do this I should have preferred the ascent of
the Liard River, which falls into the Mackenzie at Fort Simpson. From
its head-waters at Dease Lake, in the once celebrated mining district
of Cassiar, the Pacific Coast is reached at Fort Wrangel in Southern
Alaska without difficulty; but the Liard itself is full of terrors, even
for the hardy _voyageurs_ of the North, and although Mr. Camsell offered
every inducement to men to accompany me he was unable to get together a
crew. Formerly the Company had an establishment at Fort Halket on the
west branch of the Liard, but the difficulties of conveying supplies,
and the frequent occurrence of starvation, made it a hard post to
maintain; finally a boat's crew were drowned by a capsize in one of the
worst rapids, and the fort was abandoned. The Athabasca I had seen, and
not caring to go over old ground I decided on ascending the Peace River
to its head-waters in the neighbourhood of Macleod's Lake on the west
side of the Rocky Mountains, and, crossing the small divide, to run down
the Fraser River to Quesnelle a small town on the southern edge of the
Caribou Gold Fields of Northern British Columbia.
The _Wrigley_ had made her last up-stream voyage for the year, and was
daily expected from Fort Smith. I was thus obliged to depend on canoe
travelling to reach Chipeweyan on the Athabasca Lake, some three hundred
miles distant; if we had arrived at the fort ten days earlier I could
have saved much valuable time by making this part of my journey by
steamer.
Taking advantage of frequent experience that it is better to leave a
fort overnight, even if camp be made within a couple of miles, than to
trust to an early start in the morning, it was after sundown on the 26th
when I said good-bye to Resolution, not without a feeling of regret, and
the hope of seeing at some future time the place where I had been so
well treated. There are few spots in the world in which one can live for
a year without making some friends, and when I left this lonely
trading-post there were many faces on the beach that I should like to
see again. Saltatha was the last man to shake hands with me as I stepped
into the canoe; he tried to extract a promise from me to come back the
next summer for another expedition in the Barren Ground, and was much
disappointed when I told him that I certainly could not return for two
years, and perhaps not even then. No need to feel pity for the people
left behind, although I was going to civilization and all the good
things that this word comprises. A man who has spent much time under the
influence of the charm which the North exercises over everybody wants
nothing better than to be allowed to finish his life in the peace and
quietness which reign by the shores of the Great Slave Lake. Ask the
priest, when you meet him struggling against a head-wind and driving
snow on his way to some Indian encampment, whether he ever sighs for his
sunny France. "No," he will tell you; "here I have everything I want and
nothing to distract my thoughts; I enjoy perfect health, and I feel no
desire to go back to the worries of the great world." So it is with the
fur-trader; the mysterious charm has a firm hold on him, and if he is in
charge of a post where provisions are fairly plentiful and the Indians
not troublesome he has a happy life indeed. I was sorry to have missed
seeing the Mackenzie River, La Grande Rivière en Bas, as they call it at
Fort Resolution, but to do this meant spending another winter and
another summer in the country, and I could not afford the time.
[Illustration: Starting Up the Peace River]
The first evening out from the fort we camped near the mouth of the
Slave River, on the same spot where I had spent a night with King
Beaulieu and his family more than a year before. My crew now consisted
of Murdo Mackay and three half-breeds, while Mackinlay, who had proved
such a trusty companion during our summer journey, was to accompany me
till we met the steamer. This happened the next morning, and after an
hour of hurried questions and answers, and farewells to men who seemed
more like old friends than comparative strangers whom I had met once the
year before, the _Wrigley_ put her head down-stream, and we continued
our voyage through the wilderness of pines, cotton-wood, and willow.
Pierre Beaulieu was captain and guide of the canoe, and a right good
traveller he proved to be; no lying snug in your blankets in the early
morning, but breakfast in black darkness, and the paddles or
tracking-line in full swing at the first sign of the coming day.
Sometimes he would put ashore and start us off through the woods, with
canoe and cargo on our backs, to drop on the river again at the end of
the portage, and find that we had saved many miles of laborious
up-stream work by cutting across a bend of the river. The tracking till
we reached Fort Smith was bad, as the banks were usually soft muddy
sand, while the land-slips had sent so many trees into the river that it
was often easier to paddle against the stream than to pass the line
round the obstruction. Ducks and geese were plentiful enough, but
Mackinlay had been liberal in the matter of provisions for our voyage,
so we only took the most tempting shots, but if it had been necessary we
could have made our own living without difficulty. Early on the sixth
day we came in sight of Fort Smith, and found Mr. Flett in charge, with
the house much improved and made fairly comfortable in readiness for the
winter; but there was no time to be spared, and the next day saw us
driving across the portage in a waggon to take a fresh crew to
Chipeweyan. No canoe was available, but José Beaulieu, another of King's
numerous brothers, lent us a skiff, which answered the purpose well
enough. Mr. Flett took the opportunity of going up to headquarters, and
enlivened the journey with many stories of over forty years' experience
in the North. Among the new crew was a deaf and dumb half-breed, a
capital worker and always good-tempered, in spite of the cold drenching
rain that continued till we reached Chipeweyan; some of his
conversations by signs were very amusing, and one could almost wish that
all these boatmen were deaf and dumb to avoid the constant chatter which
they keep up round the camp-fire when they know that you understand
them. One day we made a splendid run in front of a gale of north wind,
but nearly came to grief through our steersman's recklessness in trying
to force the boat over a rapid under canvas; she took a sheer in the
swirl of an eddy, and the sail jibbed with such violence that we were
within an inch of a capsize. Provisions ran short on the last day, but
just as we were talking of camping early and going after duck for supper
a little black bear turned up on the bank; I was lucky enough to kill
it, and we enjoyed a royal feast of fat bear's meat instead of a night's
starvation. On the fourth day we entered the Athabasca Lake, and forced
our way to the fort against a strong head-wind; it was another Sunday
arrival, and we did not show to advantage in comparison with the bright
dresses and gaudy belts and moccasins of the dwellers at the chief post
of the Athabasca district. A little snow was whitening the ground, the
goose-hunt was at its height, and the array of nets showed plainly
enough that it was time to make preparation for the Fall fishing. Dr.
Mackay was away inspecting Fort Vermillion on the Lower Peace River,
and would not be back for several days. An unexpected difficulty now
turned up; there was no crew forthcoming for the next part of my
journey, and everybody advised me to take the ordinary route by the
Athabasca River. However, two of my Fort Smith crew, José and Dummy,
finally agreed to go to Vermillion, although neither of them had been
there before, and Murdo, who was very anxious to accompany me across the
mountains, obtained leave to come with me till we should meet Dr. Mackay
on Peace River; if he could get extended leave from the head officer of
the District he was to come right through.