“May 29th.—Off late. Ran three miles. Men went back to town. Found sacks of sugar made a hard bed. Mosquitoes.“May 30th.—The grand start of the big brigade. Running maybe four or five miles an hour. Banks getting lower. Cottonwoods, some brûlée (burned-over forest). Supper 6p.m.Ran until 9.45p.m.Damp camp.“May 31st.—Off at 6. In the morning men on the first boat killed a cow moose and two calves. No game laws north of 53°. Men rejoice over meat. Eight mission scows in fleet, which carry eight to ten tons each. Father Le Fèvre says, except for whitefish, all northern missions would perish. At 2.15 stopped at Pelican Portage, at head of Pelican Rapids, 120 miles below the landing. Head winds yesterday, but favorable now. Two boats collided, and one damaged. Saw two dogs carrying packs—first pack-dogs I ever saw. Priest baptized an Indian baby here. I suppose this is what the brigade goes north for, in part. Lay here until 7 in the evening, and then off for our first rapids, the Pelican. Rough, but not so bad as Columbia Big Bend Rapids. An eighteen-foot canoe would go through; twelve-foot doubtful. Scows do it easily. Fast work close to the shore part of the way. Men know their business.Some system to the brigade. Camp at foot of rapids. Much excitement. Scows crowding one another. Many mosquitoes.“June 1st, Sunday.—No travel to-day. All of the boatmen are Catholics. The priest put up a little chapel and said Mass. Curious scene to see all these half-savages kneeling, hats off, on the ground. After Mass a good many of them got their hair cut; one or two men can do barbering-work. The judge and legal party played cards all the afternoon. John seems to eat more than ever. A good many mosquitoes.“June 2d.—Off at 6, which seems regular starting-time. Ashore for lunch 11.30. Slow and lazy work floating down, but pleasant. Tied up at 6 for supper. Much excitement now, as we are coming down to the head of Grand Island, where we make the big portage. After supper made a mile or so through shallow water among many rocks, to the head of the island. It is low and rocky, covered with cottonwoods, should think about a mile long, and not over half a mile wide. Very fierce water to the left, with quiet water above. No boat ever ran theleft channel alive. Many lost here in the Klondike; they went into that quiet and deep water on the left and got caught. They say we will try to run the right-hand side. Did not put up tent to-night, but slept under mosquito tents. A hundred and sixty-five miles from Athabasca Landing. Now we begin to feel as though we were to see the real work.”
“May 29th.—Off late. Ran three miles. Men went back to town. Found sacks of sugar made a hard bed. Mosquitoes.
“May 30th.—The grand start of the big brigade. Running maybe four or five miles an hour. Banks getting lower. Cottonwoods, some brûlée (burned-over forest). Supper 6p.m.Ran until 9.45p.m.Damp camp.
“May 31st.—Off at 6. In the morning men on the first boat killed a cow moose and two calves. No game laws north of 53°. Men rejoice over meat. Eight mission scows in fleet, which carry eight to ten tons each. Father Le Fèvre says, except for whitefish, all northern missions would perish. At 2.15 stopped at Pelican Portage, at head of Pelican Rapids, 120 miles below the landing. Head winds yesterday, but favorable now. Two boats collided, and one damaged. Saw two dogs carrying packs—first pack-dogs I ever saw. Priest baptized an Indian baby here. I suppose this is what the brigade goes north for, in part. Lay here until 7 in the evening, and then off for our first rapids, the Pelican. Rough, but not so bad as Columbia Big Bend Rapids. An eighteen-foot canoe would go through; twelve-foot doubtful. Scows do it easily. Fast work close to the shore part of the way. Men know their business.Some system to the brigade. Camp at foot of rapids. Much excitement. Scows crowding one another. Many mosquitoes.
“June 1st, Sunday.—No travel to-day. All of the boatmen are Catholics. The priest put up a little chapel and said Mass. Curious scene to see all these half-savages kneeling, hats off, on the ground. After Mass a good many of them got their hair cut; one or two men can do barbering-work. The judge and legal party played cards all the afternoon. John seems to eat more than ever. A good many mosquitoes.
“June 2d.—Off at 6, which seems regular starting-time. Ashore for lunch 11.30. Slow and lazy work floating down, but pleasant. Tied up at 6 for supper. Much excitement now, as we are coming down to the head of Grand Island, where we make the big portage. After supper made a mile or so through shallow water among many rocks, to the head of the island. It is low and rocky, covered with cottonwoods, should think about a mile long, and not over half a mile wide. Very fierce water to the left, with quiet water above. No boat ever ran theleft channel alive. Many lost here in the Klondike; they went into that quiet and deep water on the left and got caught. They say we will try to run the right-hand side. Did not put up tent to-night, but slept under mosquito tents. A hundred and sixty-five miles from Athabasca Landing. Now we begin to feel as though we were to see the real work.”
It was much as Rob had predicted in the last entry of his diary previously quoted. Uncle Dick hurried them through their breakfast.
“We’ll see some fun to-day, boys,” said he.
“How do you mean?” asked Jesse. “Are they going to try to run the boats through?”
“They’ll have to run the scows through light, so François tells me. There isn’t water enough to take them through loaded, so practically each one will have to unship its cargo here.
“You see that wooden tramway running down the island?” He pointed toward a crooked track laid roughly on cross-ties, the rails of wood. “That is perhaps the least expensive railroad in the world, and the one which makes the most money on its capital. I don’t think it cost the Company over eight hundred dollars. It couldn’t be crookeder orworse. And yet it pays for itself each year several times over, just by the outside trade which it does!
“They built this railroad after the Klondike rush came through here. Previous to that all the goods had to be taken over the ‘short portage’—you see that place over on the steep hillside at the right side of the river—a mile and a half of it, and every pound of the Company and Klondike baggage that went north had to be carried on men’s backs along that slippery footing. It was necessary to run these rapids and to build this railroad. You will see how both ideas will work to-day.”
Some of the boats had been loaded so heavily that part of the cargo had to be left above the shallow water—one more handling of the freightage necessitated in the north-bound journey, but each boat, carrying as much as could be floated, now came poling down through the rocks to the head of the island.
The men, half in and half out of the water, began to unload this cargo and to pile it in a great heap at the head of the wooden railroad. There were two flat-cars, and rapidly these were loaded and pushed off to the foot of the island, half or three-quarters of a mile. There every pound of the baggage had to beunloaded once more, and after that once more carried from the landing into the boats at the foot of the island.
“Well, are they going to take the boats down on the cars, too?” demanded Jesse.
“They have done that for others,” answered Uncle Dick, “and charged them ten dollars a boat for doing it, too. But as I said, we’ll have to run our scows down on the right-hand passage. That’s the fun I was talking about.”
Rob came up to him now excitedly. “Tell me, Uncle Dick, can’t I go through—couldn’t I go through with you in the very first boat?”
His uncle looked at him for a time soberly before he replied. “Well, I don’t like to mollycoddle any of you,” said he, “but I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll have to leave John and Jesse here on the island. If François says it’s safe I’ll let you go through with me on the first boat. It’s no place for us to be in this country if we’re going to sidestep every little bit of risk there is. That isn’t a manly thing to do. But the other two boys will have to wait for a while.
“There’s bad news,” he said to Rob, a little later, aside. “Word has just come up by canoe from the Long Rapids below here that four men were drowned day before yesterday. They were going down to McMurray,and although they had a native pilot they got overturned in the rapids and couldn’t get out. The Mounted Police are looking for the bodies now.”
It was with rather sober faces that our young travelers now watched the boatmen at their portage-work, although the latter themselves were cheerful as always, and engaged, as before, in friendly rivalry in feats of strength. Everything was confusion, yet there was a sort of system in it, after all, for each man was busy throughout the long hours of the day. As a scow came in its cargo was rapidly taken out, as rapidly piled up ashore, and quite as rapidly flung on top of the flat-cars for transport across the great portage.
Our young adventurers saw with interest that a good many of the boatmen were quite young, boys of fifteen, sixteen, and eighteen years of age. Some of these latter did the full work of a man, and one slight chap of seventeen, with three sacks of flour, and another youth of his own weight on top of it all, stood for a time supporting a staggering weight of several hundred pounds while Jesse fumbled with his camera to make a picture of him.
At about eleven o’clock in the morning of the second day Uncle Dick came to Rob and drew him aside.
AN ENCAMPMENT OF ESKIMOS ON THE BEACH AT FORT McPHERSONAN ENCAMPMENT OF ESKIMOS ON THE BEACH AT FORT McPHERSON
“The first boat is going through,” said he. “François will take it down. It’s a Company scow with about a quarter of its cargo left in. Cap. Shott says it is all right. Are you still of a mind to go, or do you want to stay here?”
“Not at all, sir!” rejoined Rob, stoutly. “I’ll go through, of course.”
So presently they both stepped into the lightly loaded scow which lay at the head of the island. The men consisted of the steersman, François; a bowman, Pierre; and four oarsmen. They all were stripped to trousers and shirts. At a word from François the boat pushed out, the men poling it through the maze of rocks at the head of the island to a certain point at the head of the right-hand channel where the current steadied down over a wide and rather open piece of water.
The bowman carried in his hand a long lance-like shaft or pole, and stood with it upon the short bow deck. At the stern of the boat there was a plank laid across which acted as a bridge for the commodore, François, who walked back and forward across it as he worked his great steering-oar, which ran out at the back of the scow.
If the men had any anxiety about their undertaking, they did not show it. François smoked calmly. It was to be noted that Cap.Shott did not go through on the first boat, but remained on the shore. The skill of his wild calling had been passed down to the next generation.
François at last gave a short word or so of command in Cree. The oarsmen straightened out the boat. François motioned now to all the occupants to keep to the side, so that he would have a clear view ahead.
Little by little, as the current caught it, the scow began to slip on faster and faster. By and by waves began to come up alongside, almost to the gunwale. Rob had the vague impression that this boat was made of astonishingly thin boards, and that the water made a great noise upon it. Under the oars it creaked and strained and seemed very frail.
The men were silent now, but eager. François, pipe in mouth, was very calm as he stood at the oar, his eyes fixed straight ahead.
About half-way down the side of the island came the most dangerous part of the run. Suddenly the bowman sprang erect and cried out something in Cree, pointing sharply almost at right angles to the course of the boat. François gave a few quick orders and the oarsmen swung hard upon one side. The head of the scow swung slowly into thecurrent. The channel here, however, passed between two great boulders, over the lower one of which the river broke in a high white wave. It was the duty of the steersman to swing the boat between these giant rocks, almost straight across the course of the river, a feat of extreme difficulty with such a craft or indeed with any craft. This was the bad place in the channel always known as “The Turn.”
It seemed to Rob as if the whole river now was eager to accomplish their destruction. He was certain that the scow would be dashed upon the rocks and wrecked.
It was dashed upon the rocks! The turn was not made quite successfully, because of the too great weight of the cargo left in this boat. With a crash the scow ran high up on the lower rock, and lay there, half out of water, apparently the prey of the savage river. Rob felt a hand laid upon his shoulder.
“Steady, old chap!” said Uncle Dick. “Keep quiet now. We’re still afloat.”
This accident seemed to be something for which the men were not altogether unprepared. If they were alarmed they did not show it. There were a few quick words in Cree, to be sure, but each man went about his work methodically. Under the orders of François they shifted the cargo now to thefloating side of the boat. All of the men except two or three pole-men took that side also. Then, under command, with vast heaving and prying on the part of the pole-men, to the surprise of Rob at least, the boat began to groan and creak, but likewise to slide and slip. Little by little it edged down into the current, until the bow was caught by the sudden sweep of the water beyond and the entire craft swung free and headed down once more! It seemed to these new-comers as an extraordinary piece of river work, and such indeed it was. A stiffer boat than this loose-built scow might have broken its back and lost its cargo, and all its crew as well. As it was, this boat went on down-stream, carrying safely all its contents.
Rob drew a long breath, but he would not show to the men any sign that he had been afraid.
Here and there among the rocks the oarsmen, under the commands of the steersman, picked their way, the lower half of the passage being much more rapid. On ahead, the river seemed to bend sharply to the left. Now Rob saw once more the bowman spring to his feet on his short forward deck. Calling out excitedly, he pointed far to the left with his shaft. Rob looked on down-stream, andthere, a mile and a half below, he saw erected against a high bank a diamond-shaped frame or target. At this the bowman was pointing directly with his lance. It was the target put up there after the Klondike disasters by the Mounted Police, and indicated the course of the safe channel at the lower end of the chute.
François, pipe in mouth, calmly swung his sinewy body against the steering-oar. The bow of the boat crawled around to the left, far off from the island, toward the shore, where was a toboggan-like pitch of very fast but safe water for a distance of some hundreds of yards.
As they entered the head of this chute, the bowman still crouching with his pole poised, it seemed to Rob that he heard shouts and cries from the island, where, indeed, all those left behind were gathered in a body, waiting for the first boat in the annual brigade to go through—something of an event, as they regarded it.
But Rob’s eyes were on ahead. He saw the boat hold its course straight as an arrow toward the great target on the farther bank. With astonishing speed it coasted down the last incline of the Grand Rapids. Then, under the skilful handling of steersman and oarsmen, the boat swung to the right, arounda sort of promontory which extended around the right-hand bank. Rob looked around at Uncle Dick, who was curiously regarding him. But neither spoke, for both of them knew the etiquette of the wilderness—not to show excitement or uneasiness in any unusual or dangerous circumstances.
François, who had narrowly regarded his young charge, now smiled at him.
“Dot leetle boy, she is good man,” he said to Uncle Dick. “He’ll is not got some scares.”
Rob did not tell him whether or not this was the exact truth, but only smiled in turn.
“Well, here we are,” said he. “But what good does it do us? There’s the foot of the island up there, three or four hundred yards away at least. And how can we get a boat up against these rapids, I’d like to know? Right here is where both the big chutes join. It would take a steamboat to get up there.”
François, who understood a little English, did not vouchsafe any explanation, but only smiled, and Uncle Dick gravely motioned silence as well. Rob could see the eyes of François fixed out midstream, and, following his gaze, he presently saw some dark object bobbing about out there, going slowly down-stream.
“Look, Uncle Dick!” he cried. “What’s that? It looks like a seal.”
The latter shook his head. “No seals in here,” said he. “That must be a log.”
“So it is,” said Rob. “But look at it—it’s stopped now.”
No one explained to him what all this meant. François sprang to his steering-oar and gave some swift orders. The boat swung out from the bank, and under the sweeps made straight out midstream, where the black object now bobbed at the edge of the slack water. Rob could see what had stopped it now—it was made fast by a long rope, which was in turn made fast somewhere up-stream, he could not tell where.
With a swift pass of his pole the bowman caught the rope as the boat swung near. Rapidly he pulled in the short log and made fast the rope to the bow of the boat. The scow now swung into the current, its head pointed up-stream, and hung stationary there, supported against the current by some unseen power. To Rob’s surprise, the oarsmen now took in their oars.
“Well, now, what’s going to happen?” he asked of Uncle Dick.
But the latter only shook his head and motioned for silence.
Slowly but steadily the scow now began to ascend the river, to breast the white waterswhich came rolling down, to surmount the full force of the current of the Athabasca River in its greatest rapids!
Rob glanced on ahead. He could see a long line of men bending under the great rope which had been floated down to them in this curious way. They walked inshore, steadily following the line of the railroad track for almost a quarter of a mile, as it seemed to the other boys who watched this proceeding ashore.
Steadily the boat climbed up the river, and now, with the aid of the oarsmen and the steersman, it finally came to rest at a sheltered little cove at the foot of the island, in slack water, where the landing was good and cargo could easily be transhipped.
Rob and his older companions stepped ashore, and each smiled as he looked at the other.
“Don’t tell me, son,” said Uncle Dick, “that these people don’t know their business! That’s the finest thing I’ve ever seen in rough-neck engineering in all my life—and I’ve seen some outdoor work, too.”
He stood now looking up the white water down which they had come, and at the rough hillside beyond where the old portage had lain in earlier days.
“It’s the only way it could have been done!” said he. “You see, these fellows don’t carry a pound that they don’t have to, but they don’t risk losing a cargo by trying to run through with full load when the water won’t allow it. They don’t get rattled and they know their business. It’s fine—fine!”
“That’s what it is, sir,” said Rob. “I never saw better fun in all my life.”
By this time Jesse and John came running up, and the boys fell into one another’s arms, asking a dozen questions all at once.
“Weren’t you awfully scared?” said Jesse, somewhat awed at Rob’s accomplishment.
“Well,” said Rob, truthfully, “I did a good deal of thinking when we went fast on that rock out there in the middle. That was pretty bad.”
“Uncle Dick,” called out John, excitedly now. “Say, now, it’s no fair for Rob to go through and us others not. Can’t we go with the next boat?”
Uncle Dick stood looking at them quietly for a time, his hands in his pockets.
“You wait awhile,” said he. “There’ll be forty or fifty boats going through here. Time enough later to see whether it’s safe for you two youngsters to risk it.”
For three days the work of portaging on the Grand Island continued steadily, boat after boat going down to the head of the island to discharge, then taking the run through the channel of the right-hand side. Some excitement was shown when in the still water at the head of the murderous left-hand chute, which never was attempted by thevoyageurs, a roll of bedding with a coat tied to it was seen floating in the current. It was supposed that somewhere up the river an accident had occurred, but, as it was impossible to tell when or where, no attempt was made to solve the mystery, and the labor of advancing the brigade northward went on without further delay.
As the boys watched the river-men at their hard and heavy work, they came more and more to respect them. Throughout long hours of labor—and in this northern latitudethe sun did not set until after nine o’clock—there was never a surly word or a complaint heard from any of them.
John, who seemed to care for facts and figures, began to ask about the wages which these men received for this hard labor. He was told that they were paid by the trip from Athabasca Landing to McMurray, which covered the bad water to the head of steamboat transport. The steersmen for the round trip received about eighty dollars and their board, and the river-men forty to fifty dollars. All walked back across country, a shorter distance than that by water. Some of the men had along on the scows the large dogs which they used in the winter-time, and which they now purposed to employ in packing a part of their loads on the return journey.
John also discovered that the cargo of a scow averaged about twenty-five hundred dollars in value, and that it would cost sometimes almost a third of that amount to deliver the freight at its destination. For instance, the charge of the Hudson’s Bay Company for freight from Athabasca Landing to Fort McPherson was thirteen dollars and fifty cents per hundred pounds. For the use of the little railroad a quarter of a mile in length on the island itself the charge to outsiders wasone dollar a ton, and ten dollars for every boat taken across on the cars.
All the boys now began to learn more of the extreme risk and waste of this, the north-bound transit. It was not unusual, as they learned, for a scow to be lost with all its cargo, in which case the post for which it was destined would need to go without supplies until the brigade came north in the following year. Damage to goods from wetting, damage to boats from collisions—all these things went into the large figures of cost which were to be set against the figures of the large gain in this commerce of the Far North.
John got many of his figures from the Hudson’s Bay Company clerk, a young man stationed here on Grand Island throughout the season, who was very friendly to all the strangers in the country. He expressed himself as very glad to see the brigade come north, for it was the only interesting time in his season’s work. He and one associate remained here, cut off from the world, all through the summer season, and he was not very happy, although, as he said, he was president and general traffic-manager, as well as superintendent and board of directors, of his railroad, and section boss as well. His duties were to have general charge of the transport ofcargoes at the island, and to keep a record of the day’s doings.
Boat after boat now went through, as has been said, but without accident, although one or two hung up at The Turn, as the dangerous passage between the two great rocks in midstream now was called by all. Below that, as Rob expressed it, the bottom dropped out of the river and the boat traveled very fast.
John timed some of the boats through, and found that it took about eight minutes from the head of the eddy to the bottom of the chute. This Rob could hardly believe, as he said that when he went through it seemed not more than two minutes at the outside.
John and Jesse grew very grumpy over the prestige Rob had gained by his journey through the rapids, and besought Uncle Dick to allow them also to make the passage. Late in the third day, when most of the boats were through, they renewed their importunities, and he finally replied:
“Well, young men, I’ve about concluded to let you go through with the last boat. François says that he has been watching you all, and believes that you would not get ‘some scares.’ He says he will take you through in your own boat, which will be the last one of the brigade. The river has comeup three or four inches since we struck in, and he says we can run through without unshipping much, if any, of our cargo, which doesn’t amount to very much. Rob has made the trip, and I figure now that we are all in the same boat together. Sometimes it is necessary to be either a man or a mouse. I want to see you grow up men. Well, are you ready now?”
All the boys gladly said that they were, Rob insisting on accompanying the boat once more, as indeed was necessary, since there would be no transport after that.
They took ship at the head of the island, and were tooled across the shallow water to the head of the rapids on the farther shore. Here the men all disembarked and sat silently along the edge of the bluff, taking one of the pipe-smokes which make so regular a part of thevoyageur’sday’s employment. They seemed to get some sort of comfort out of their pipes, and almost invariably when undertaking any dangerous enterprise a quiet smoke was a part of the preparation.
François talked to them, meantime, seeing that they were eager to learn about the customs of this strange and wild country into which they now were going. He told them, motioning to the steep hillside on the right of the channel, that in the old times he used topack stuff across the mile-and-a-half portage there for fifty cents a hundred pounds. It was hard work, and yet he made it pay. When they began to portage on the island, and not along the mountain-side, he had made as much as fifty dollars a day, for he got five dollars for taking a boat through the rapids, or thirty dollars for running it down to Fort McPherson; so that a season’s work would bring him, in very good years, over a thousand dollars, if he worked.
“But yong man, she spend the mon’,” said he, smiling.
John set down in his book the facts and figures, the date of 1871, which was the time when old Cap. Shott first ran a boat through the Grand Rapids. Since that time a few other pilots had come on who proved able to handle scows in white water. But old Cap. Shott and his long-time friend, Louis La Vallee, were now both of them old—“h’almost h’eighty year, she is, each of him,” said François.
“Well, now,” he added at length, “we will ron h’on therapide.”
He rose and motioned to his men, who once more took their places at the oars, as they had in the boat which carried Rob through. Again the bowman squatted on his short foredeck. François, the steersman, stood on his plank walk at the handle of the great steering-oar. Gently they pushed out from shore, the last boat of the brigade.
“Here goes theMidnight Sun!” cried Jesse, waving his hat.
Uncle Dick watched them closely as the boat advanced. The boys spoke little or not at all, and John later accused Jesse of trying to pinch a piece out of the side of the boat, he held on so tight. But not one of them showed the white feather, nor made any trouble for the men in their work of running the fast water.
The boat at first ran along gently, the little waves lapping along the sides smartly, but not excitingly. Then at the end of the lower third the water gained in speed very much. At The Turn the waves were no doubt ten feet high. François, with a great sweep of his oar, fairly flung the boat athwart the current here, and the passage was made with no more than a scraping on the dangerous lower rock—the one which Uncle Dick called Scylla. The upper one he called Charybdis.
“You’ll learn what those two words mean when you go to school a little later,” said he, smiling.
Once beyond The Turn John and Jesseunderstood perfectly well what Rob had meant by saying that the bottom fell out of the river. They were excited, but had no thought of fear by the time they entered the last chute where the scow tobogganed down to the foot of the island. A moment later it was at rest once more in the eddy below the promontory.
Rob explained now about the log float which had carried the rope down to their boat when he first went through. There was, however, no longer need for the float to carry down a line to the boat. The brigade was through and the last scow below the island. The clerk and his taciturn companion were left alone. They stood now, both of them, waving their hats to the occupants of theMidnight Sunas, after a little, at the command of François, she pushed out from the eddy and took her place in the long procession of the north-bound brigade, every man of which now felt a sense of relief, since the most dangerous part of the early journey, the portage of the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca, had been safely accomplished.
The flotilla was now strung out over many miles of water, but it was the intention to make several miles additional before stopping for the night. In the late twilight, herestrangely long and bright, Rob went on with his notes in his diary, while John worked at his map, charting as best he could the right-hand channel through which they had made their exciting journey. Rob’s notes later proved of interest to his friends, as they explained very much about the journey of this dangerous two hundred and fifty miles of the white-water transport.
“Wednesday, June 4th.—Everybody busy all day. At 5p.m.most of the freight on the island, and getting loaded on cars. Slept in the little mosquito tents. Very busy day.“Thursday, June 5th.—Many pictures to-day, and we all were busy. Curious work running boats through the rapids and getting boat back to end of island. I think that rope that they let down to the boat is almost a quarter of a mile long. It takes twenty men or more to haul a boat up against the rapids, empty, of course.“Off in theMidnight Sunbelow the island late afternoon. Ran the little Grand Rapids, and swung into the Second Eddy for supper. After that ran seven miles. Camp ground very bad. Mosquitoes getting worse.“Friday, June 6th.—A great many rapids to-day. The Buffalo seems mild to us after the Grand. The Brûlé Rapids we liked because they had some pep to them. At about 3p.m.we hit the Boiler Rapids, which is one of the worst. Name because a scow was lost here that was carrying a boiler up north. The boiler has never been recovered. Rapids full of boulders, and in low water very bad. Not very dangerous at this stage. Everybody was still as we went through this place and came into what they called the Rapids of the Drowned. They say a great many men have been drowned there, and it certainly looked bad. These two rapids are about a mile and a half altogether.“Four boats were tied back because not everybody can run these rapids. Our boat was in the lead. Then four pilots walked back to bring through the boats which had been held up. We made pictures of them as they came through. Supper at 5 as we floated along, and then we dropped into the Middle Rapids and had a beautiful time.“One or two canoes ran through with breeds. Pretty exciting. They say fewof these breeds can swim, but they don’t seem to mind that. Saw several wrecks of scows along the shores here, and one boat upset in the middle of the rapids. Some machinery on shore below rapids, very rusty. Begin to understand why freight comes high. Sometimes half a cargo is wasted or lost. No farms, no horses, no cows. A good game country. They say the game and fish keep the white men alive. The little boy Charl’ keeps with the good Sisters. He was scared going through the rapids, and so were they.“On the Long Rapids, as we passed through, we saw the fresh grave of one of the men who was drowned here the other day. Only one body was found. Their canoe was all broken up.“On the Crooked Rapids we saw where the men have to track the boats going up-stream. Don’t see how they keep from falling off the bank. Below the Crooked come the Stony Rapids, and what the boatmen call the Dive, a sudden dip down of three or four feet. Sometimes boats ship seas. Scenery this evening bold and interesting. Some cliffs. Fast water all day. Camp at 8 o’clock on agood high bluff. Mosquitoes not quite so bad. Nights cool. This ended the most glorious day I ever spent out of doors, I believe.“Saturday, June 7th.—Beautiful weather. Passed cliffs where they say there is oil. I don’t know. We heard heavy rapids below, and at 7a.m.got into them. They call this the Little Cascade. A ledge runs across the river. At 9 o’clock we came to one of the big jumps on the river known as the Grand Cascade. About the worst man-trap there is in low water, they say. We concluded to run her. Our boat goes first. Some boats tie back to wait for our pilots. There are three good pilots to eight boats. Many pictures of boats running the Cascade, which drops eight or ten feet like a mill-dam. Wonderful what these men can do with the boat.“Now three or four small rapids which I don’t mind, then at 11.45 we struck Mountain Rapids, which made little Charl’ ‘get some scares,’ as François says. Sometimes we eat on the boat. I asked Father Le Fèvre if he had prayed for high water, and he said yes. Then I asked him what he did if high waterdidn’t come. He said, ‘my son, although in that case I prayed for high water, perhaps God likewise took another way to show His power, and so saved us out of even greater danger and discomfort.’ He’s a bird.“The Moberly Rapids don’t amount to much. We ran them at 1.30—the last on the great chain of rapids, so they say. In about fifteen minutes we could see Fort McMurray on ahead. Many scows were lying along the shore, mostly loaded, some empty. Climbed up a steep hill to a fine flat on top of the bluff. Woods all around. A fine site for a town, and the Indians have it. The flat was covered with tepees, also some tents. There were dogs and dogs and babies and babies everywhere, with squaws and Indian men walking around all dressed up in their best. The Indian agent is going to pay their treaty money. It is only eight hundred and fifty dollars altogether—not very much, I think. Hear a lot of talk about lands and towns and railroads and oil.“There are some Chippewyans here, and a lot of Crees, but these northern Indians don’t speak the Cree language.Got my moccasins mended. Made some pictures. TheGrahameis the name of the H. B. steamboat which is going to take us down the river from here. We will tow our scow and sleep on the steamboat. Monday morning is when we start.“Sunday, June 8th.—The treaty payment goes on, although it is Sunday. Indian men sitting down on the grass before the commissioner. He asks each one what right he has to claim money from the Great Father, I suppose. Once in a while he turns to the clerk and says, ‘We’ll give this old duffer twenty bucks.’ This doesn’t look to me like very much money. I don’t think they get much help. They are poor and dependent. If they couldn’t rustle well out of doors they all would die. Much trade finery among the natives, who dress very bright. Several Northwest Mounted Policemen in red-jacket uniform who go north with us on the boat. She is going to be crowded. The judge and his party are going on the scows.“Well, this is the end of the scow-work for us, so it seems. Uncle Dick thinks we will be more comfortable on the steamer, and will see more people to talkto than if we stuck to our own scow. We will tow her alongside. I hope they will let us run through the Smith’s Landing portage, on the Little Slave, a hundred miles below here. I never had a better time in my life than the first 250 miles. The mosquitoes don’t bother us quite so much. John eats a great deal, and Jesse is getting fat. Having a bully time.”
“Wednesday, June 4th.—Everybody busy all day. At 5p.m.most of the freight on the island, and getting loaded on cars. Slept in the little mosquito tents. Very busy day.
“Thursday, June 5th.—Many pictures to-day, and we all were busy. Curious work running boats through the rapids and getting boat back to end of island. I think that rope that they let down to the boat is almost a quarter of a mile long. It takes twenty men or more to haul a boat up against the rapids, empty, of course.
“Off in theMidnight Sunbelow the island late afternoon. Ran the little Grand Rapids, and swung into the Second Eddy for supper. After that ran seven miles. Camp ground very bad. Mosquitoes getting worse.
“Friday, June 6th.—A great many rapids to-day. The Buffalo seems mild to us after the Grand. The Brûlé Rapids we liked because they had some pep to them. At about 3p.m.we hit the Boiler Rapids, which is one of the worst. Name because a scow was lost here that was carrying a boiler up north. The boiler has never been recovered. Rapids full of boulders, and in low water very bad. Not very dangerous at this stage. Everybody was still as we went through this place and came into what they called the Rapids of the Drowned. They say a great many men have been drowned there, and it certainly looked bad. These two rapids are about a mile and a half altogether.
“Four boats were tied back because not everybody can run these rapids. Our boat was in the lead. Then four pilots walked back to bring through the boats which had been held up. We made pictures of them as they came through. Supper at 5 as we floated along, and then we dropped into the Middle Rapids and had a beautiful time.
“One or two canoes ran through with breeds. Pretty exciting. They say fewof these breeds can swim, but they don’t seem to mind that. Saw several wrecks of scows along the shores here, and one boat upset in the middle of the rapids. Some machinery on shore below rapids, very rusty. Begin to understand why freight comes high. Sometimes half a cargo is wasted or lost. No farms, no horses, no cows. A good game country. They say the game and fish keep the white men alive. The little boy Charl’ keeps with the good Sisters. He was scared going through the rapids, and so were they.
“On the Long Rapids, as we passed through, we saw the fresh grave of one of the men who was drowned here the other day. Only one body was found. Their canoe was all broken up.
“On the Crooked Rapids we saw where the men have to track the boats going up-stream. Don’t see how they keep from falling off the bank. Below the Crooked come the Stony Rapids, and what the boatmen call the Dive, a sudden dip down of three or four feet. Sometimes boats ship seas. Scenery this evening bold and interesting. Some cliffs. Fast water all day. Camp at 8 o’clock on agood high bluff. Mosquitoes not quite so bad. Nights cool. This ended the most glorious day I ever spent out of doors, I believe.
“Saturday, June 7th.—Beautiful weather. Passed cliffs where they say there is oil. I don’t know. We heard heavy rapids below, and at 7a.m.got into them. They call this the Little Cascade. A ledge runs across the river. At 9 o’clock we came to one of the big jumps on the river known as the Grand Cascade. About the worst man-trap there is in low water, they say. We concluded to run her. Our boat goes first. Some boats tie back to wait for our pilots. There are three good pilots to eight boats. Many pictures of boats running the Cascade, which drops eight or ten feet like a mill-dam. Wonderful what these men can do with the boat.
“Now three or four small rapids which I don’t mind, then at 11.45 we struck Mountain Rapids, which made little Charl’ ‘get some scares,’ as François says. Sometimes we eat on the boat. I asked Father Le Fèvre if he had prayed for high water, and he said yes. Then I asked him what he did if high waterdidn’t come. He said, ‘my son, although in that case I prayed for high water, perhaps God likewise took another way to show His power, and so saved us out of even greater danger and discomfort.’ He’s a bird.
“The Moberly Rapids don’t amount to much. We ran them at 1.30—the last on the great chain of rapids, so they say. In about fifteen minutes we could see Fort McMurray on ahead. Many scows were lying along the shore, mostly loaded, some empty. Climbed up a steep hill to a fine flat on top of the bluff. Woods all around. A fine site for a town, and the Indians have it. The flat was covered with tepees, also some tents. There were dogs and dogs and babies and babies everywhere, with squaws and Indian men walking around all dressed up in their best. The Indian agent is going to pay their treaty money. It is only eight hundred and fifty dollars altogether—not very much, I think. Hear a lot of talk about lands and towns and railroads and oil.
“There are some Chippewyans here, and a lot of Crees, but these northern Indians don’t speak the Cree language.Got my moccasins mended. Made some pictures. TheGrahameis the name of the H. B. steamboat which is going to take us down the river from here. We will tow our scow and sleep on the steamboat. Monday morning is when we start.
“Sunday, June 8th.—The treaty payment goes on, although it is Sunday. Indian men sitting down on the grass before the commissioner. He asks each one what right he has to claim money from the Great Father, I suppose. Once in a while he turns to the clerk and says, ‘We’ll give this old duffer twenty bucks.’ This doesn’t look to me like very much money. I don’t think they get much help. They are poor and dependent. If they couldn’t rustle well out of doors they all would die. Much trade finery among the natives, who dress very bright. Several Northwest Mounted Policemen in red-jacket uniform who go north with us on the boat. She is going to be crowded. The judge and his party are going on the scows.
“Well, this is the end of the scow-work for us, so it seems. Uncle Dick thinks we will be more comfortable on the steamer, and will see more people to talkto than if we stuck to our own scow. We will tow her alongside. I hope they will let us run through the Smith’s Landing portage, on the Little Slave, a hundred miles below here. I never had a better time in my life than the first 250 miles. The mosquitoes don’t bother us quite so much. John eats a great deal, and Jesse is getting fat. Having a bully time.”
As Rob indicated in his diary, the start from McMurray was made early on Monday morning, but the stop was long enough for the boys to gain an idea of the importance of this busy frontier settlement. Here also came in the Clearwater River, down which, by way of a chain of lakes, all the brigade traffic used to come before the discovery that the Grand Rapids themselves could be run. When it is remembered that the start was made from Athabasca Landing on May 29th, and the arrival at McMurray on June 7th, it will be seen that, crude as the system and the means of transport had been, a great deal of results had been attained. Rob figured that at the rate of two hundred and fifty miles a week they would not get very far, but Uncle Dick pointed out that now, since they had reached steamer transport, the journey would advance very rapidly.
The steamboat, after its start, passed the string of scows, among which were some boats of independent traders, and a few hardy adventurers bound north, for what purpose they hardly knew.
TheGrahameadvanced steadily and rapidly down-stream. Some of the passengers excitedly tried to point out to Uncle Dick the value of the oil-lands in this part of the world, but Uncle Dick only smiled and said he was out for a good time, and not building railroads now.
The weather grew quite warm, and in the state-rooms the boys found that the thermometer stood at ninety degrees. With one stop for wood at a yard where the natives had piled up enormous quantities of cordwood, the boat tied up after making perhaps sixty miles.
On the following day she continued her steady progress down-stream between the green-lined shores. The banks of the river now grew lower and lower, and by nine o’clock in the evening, at which time it still was light, there began to show the marshes of the Peace River Delta, one of the most important deltas in all the world. The boat ran on into the night, and before midnight had passed the mouths of the Quatre Fourches, orFour Forks, which make the mouth of the Peace River.
The boys wondered at the great marshes which now they saw, and Uncle Dick explained to them that here was one of the greatest wild-fowl breeding-grounds in all the world.
“If there were any way in the world for sportsmen to get up here,” said he, “this country would soon be famous, for it certainly is a wilderness. Here is where the natives shoot wild geese for their winter’s meat. And as for ducks, there is no numbering them.”
Every one sat on the decks of the boat late at night, and we may rest assured that the boys were on hand when finally theGrahameswung to her moorings along the rocky shore of historic Fort Chippewyan.
In the morning they went ashore eagerly and gazed with wonderment over the wild scene which lay all about. The point where they landed was a rocky promontory. Before it lay high, rocky islands, among which ran the channels of the two great rivers which here met in the great waters of Athabasca Lake.
“Just to think,” said Rob to his friends, “this post here was founded a hundred and forty-three years ago. My, but I’d have likedto have been with old Sir Alexander at that time! He ought to have a monument here, it seems to me, or some sort of tablet; but there isn’t a thing to tell about his having found this place or done anything extraordinary.”
“I wonder how much these natives here are going to get in the way of treaty money,” said John, as he saw the commissioner again putting up his tent with the flag of his country above it. “There are a lot of canoes coming in from everywhere, so they say—fifty Cree boats from their camp. They tell me that the Crees and Chippewyans don’t mix any too well. I think the Crees have got them scared when it comes to that.”
“Well, these dogs have got me scared,” complained Jesse. “I never saw so many dogs in all my life. And there isn’t a cow anywhere in the world, nor even a goat or sheep.”
“They have to have these dogs in the winter-time, you understand,” said John, paternally. “They pull as much as a team of horses would in the snow.”
“Yes, and they eat as much as a horse would,” said Jesse. “The bacon for Fort Resolution was unloaded here last night, and the dogs ate up more than a ton of it; there’snothing left there except a lot of paper and pieces of canvas! I’ll bet it’s the first time these dogs here ever had a square meal in their lives!”
“I don’t know about that,” said Rob, laughing. “Look over yonder.” He pointed to where an Indian woman sat on the ground, cleaning a lot of fish. Around her squatted a circle of gaunt, wolfish creatures which seemed ready to devour her and her fish alike.
Uncle Dick joined their group as they wandered around, and explained such things as they did not understand.
“This is one of the greatest posts of all the fur trade,” said he. “It is the center, as you have learned, of a lot of the native tribes in this part of the world. It ships from here an enormous amount of fur which the traders collect. The independent traders are breaking in here now, but the natives learn to catch more and more fur, so it seems. I suppose in time it will be exterminated. Then the natives will go, too.
“Over yonder is a tombstone, but not any monument for Sir Alexander. It tells about the life-history of an old factor who lived here for so long in this wilderness. It’s all old, old, old—older almost than any city in the United States, or at least older than a greatmany of our considerable cities. But you would think this was at the beginning. There are the natives, and there are the dogs, just as they were when Sir Alexander came through. Perhaps they didn’t have so much calico then. Of course they didn’t have repeating-rifles then, and surely not steel traps. But they talked the same language, and in my opinion they had about as much religion then as they have now.”
“What’s that boat out there with a sail on it?” demanded Rob, after a time, pointing to a small craft which was moored near by.
“Goodness only knows,” replied Uncle Dick. “There are all sorts of fool adventurers in the world, and they take all sorts of fool chances. I have heard that there are a half-dozen prospectors in that schooner, going north, they don’t know where nor why.
“Well, at least we can say we’re in the North here,” he added. “They get just nine mails a year at Chippewyan, about four mails in and the rest of them go out. In the summer-time mail service runs about once a month.
“They say they did have a horse in here two years ago, and that it ran off, and they did not find it for two years. They had a team at Fort McMurray, and it was lost, too. I wouldn’t call this a good horse countrymyself! No, it’s a fur country and an Indian country. That’s why it’s interesting to us, isn’t it?”
“Well,” said John, “we ought to get some pictures of the treaty payments to the Indians to show our folks back home how they live up here. I wish I had brought along twice as many rolls of film as I’ve got. I never get tired of making pictures of dogs and Indians.”
“Well, when you are photographing Indians study Indians, too,” said Uncle Dick. “Most people look at Indians just as an object of curiosity, but he may be quite a fellow, even so. For instance, there are these Crees sitting over there in the grass before the flag, waiting for their treaty money. They flock by themselves, quite distinct from the Chippewyans; they don’t camp within three miles of each other. As you know, the Crees are of the Algonquin family. They have pushed west all the way from eastern Canada, following the fur trade. They have followed up the Red River and down the Athabasca, and they have overrun all the intervening tribes and elected themselves chiefs and bosses pretty much. You may call the Cree half-breed the mainstay of all the northern fur trade.
“But now,” he added, “we are getting beyond the country even of the Crees. Hereat Chippewyan is the farthest north of the Cree so far. Now we are going to find a lot of other different tribes.”
The boys passed here and there along the rocky shore among the villages of the natives and among the stoutly built log houses of the fur-post itself. Here and there a woman was sitting in front of her tent, trying to operate one of the little cheap hand sewing-machines which had been brought on for the first time that year. In another tent strange sounds came which seemed familiar to the boys. They discovered that a proud family had purchased a cheap phonograph, and under the instruction of one of the clerks was proceeding to produce what is sometimes called melody. These things, however, did not interest the young adventurers so much as the more primitive scenes of the native life.
Here they saw a boatman fresh from his nets, with half a boat-load of fish still alive, throw out some of the live fish, among them a number of pickerel, or Great Northern Pike, to his dogs, which sat waiting on the shore for his arrival. A dog would seize a five-pound fish by the head, kill it, and eat it outright, bones and all.
“They never get enough to eat,” said John. “They’re hungry all the time.”
“Well,” said Jesse, laughing, “that’s the same way with you, isn’t it, John?”
“That’s all right,” said John, testily. “I’m growing, that’s why I eat so much. But as for you, Jesse, you’d better keep away from these dogs. Do you know what I heard? It was old Colin Frazer, the fur-trader, told me. He said there was a child killed last winter out on the ice by dogs, and they ate it up, every bit. You see, it had on a caribou coat, and it was alone at the time. The dogs killed it and ate it. Sometimes they eat little dogs, too. They’ll eat anything and never get enough. But I suppose they have to have dogs here the same as they have to have Indians, else they could have no fur trade.”
“The old trader up at the post is mighty crusty, it seems to me,” complained Jesse, after a time. “He won’t let me go up in the fur-loft, where he keeps his silver-gray foxes and all that sort of thing, to make any pictures. What’s the reason he won’t?”
Rob smiled as he answered: “The Hudson’s Bay Company is a big monopoly and it keeps its own secrets. You’ll have to ask a good many questions before you find out much about its business. And if you should try to buy even one skin of an ermine or a marten or a fox or a mink in here, you couldn’t do it.They wouldn’t sell you anything at all. Perhaps some of the independent traders who are coming in might sell you some furs for yourself—at a very good price. But the old Company stands pat and runs its affairs the way it used to. It doesn’t tell its secrets.”
The boys stood, hands in pockets now, toward the close of their interesting day at Chippewyan, looking in silence at the squared logs of the whitewashed Company buildings. A certain respect came into their minds.
“It’s old,” said John, after a time. “They don’t seem to rustle very much now, but they have done things—haven’t they?”
According to Rob’s diary, it was on Friday, June 13th, that the steamerGrahameleft the ancient trading-post of Chippewyan on the rocky shores of Athabasca Lake. Rob also made the curious entry that as the boat left shore two ravens flew across its bow, and that the Indians and half-breeds were very much distressed over what they considered a bad omen. Uncle Dick and his two companions, Jesse and John, laughed with Rob at this, and, indeed, no ill fortune seemed to attend them.
By this time the great brigade had begun to thin and scatter. Several scows were unloaded and left at Chippewyan. Yet others were despatched for the post at the eastern side of the lake. The legal party and the Indian Commissioner now parted company with our travelers. But occasionally, as the steamer swept away from the high and boldshores on which the old trading-post lay, and passed the vast marshes where the wild-fowl nest in millions every year, they found in the main current of the river scattered odds and ends of river traffic, now and then a brigade scow, or the shapeless boat of some prospector going north, he knew not how or where.
Continually, however, the impression of the deepening of the wilderness fell upon our party as they pushed on steadily down-stream between the low timbered banks of the river. John now noted on his map that this river, the outlet of Lake Athabasca, which received the combined floods of the Peace and the Athabasca, was known as the Slave River, or sometimes the Little Slave River.
As had been the Athabasca all the way down, this river was very much discolored and stained by the high waters of the spring.
“Now, young men,” said Uncle Dick to his charges as they stood on the fore deck of the steamer in the hot sun of midafternoon, “you can say that you are getting into the real wilderness. It runs every way you can look—west, north, south, and east. From where we are now, draw a circle large as you like, and you will embrace in it thousands of miles of country which no man really knows. Trust not too much even in the Dominionmaps. I’d rather trust John’s map, here, because he doesn’t have to guess.”
“Well,” said John, looking up from his own work with his papers, “it doesn’t seem such a very wild trip now, traveling along on the steamboat. It might as well be along the Alaska shore, or even on the Hudson River—if the things we had to eat were better.”
“Never you mind about all that,” rejoined his uncle. “If you want to see wild work with a thrill to it, you shall have all you care for within the next few days. To-morrow we’ll be at Smith’s Landing, which marks the sixteen-mile portage of the Slave River. I suppose in there you’ll see the wildest water in the world, so far as boating is concerned. I’ll warrant you you’ll think you are in the wilderness when you see the Cassette Falls and any of a hundred others between Smith’s Landing and the Mountain Portage. I’ve been talking with the boat captain about those things.”
Rob looked up from the book which he was reading. “It says,” remarked he, “that Sir Alexander Mackenzie knew all this country as far down as the big portage here.”
“Quite likely,” replied Uncle Dick. “The truth is that all of this early exploration which comes down to us in history was perhaps notso difficult as it sounds. There is continual trading back and forward among the Indian tribes, even when they are hostile to one another. Sir Alexander no doubt heard from each of these various tribes all about their country as far north as the next tribe. Then that tribe in turn could give him advice and guidance. So he was passed on, much as Lewis and Clark were, or Major Long, or Captain Pike, in our own explorations. Nearly all the time he had a native guide to tell him what he might expect on ahead.
“One thing sure,” he added, “from all they tell me about the rapids of the Slave at Smith’s Landing, he would have had a hard time if he had run directly into the big current at the head of the falls without any warning. But I suppose for hundreds of years the natives hereabouts have known about those falls, and naturally that would be the first thing they would tell any new man in the country.”
It was seven o’clock in the evening of June 14th, at the end of a cold and dull day’s travel, that the boys found themselves in the Big Eddy along the bank of the post known as Smith’s Landing. This spot is directly above the Great Falls of the Slave River, and marks the place for unloading of the cargoesof the boats which must be portaged across the sixteen miles of land, or taken down by the hazardous passage through the rapids themselves.
As the boat with its warning whistle drew up alongside the shore there thronged down to the side of the landing the usual crowd of natives, a few white men, many half-breeds, and countless dogs. On the bank above stood the usual row of whitewashed buildings which marked the Hudson’s Bay post, not very many in all, even counting the scattered cabins of the population which had drawn in about this upper post.
“Two things you will observe here,” said the leader of our young adventurers. “Smith’s Landing has a sidewalk, and Smith’s Landing also has a team of horses! You may mark this place as farthest north for the domestic horse—you will not see another one north of here. They have to have this team to get the goods across by wagon. Sometimes, too, they track a scow over, I believe, although the road is not very good.”
“Well, how did they come to have that sidewalk?” asked John, pointing to the narrow and unimportant strip of walk which lay in front of one of the warehouses.
Uncle Dick smiled. “The captain of theboat told me that they wanted some telephone-poles to string a wire from here across to Fort Smith, over the portage. So the wise authorities of the Company had Montreal send out enough square-sawed four-inch joists to make poles for fifty miles of telephone—and right in a country where there are better telephone-poles than you could get at Montreal! So they were all brought through, with what trouble you can imagine, since you have seen the sort of transport they must have had coming this far. The factor could not use them all, so he put up a few and laid the others in the form of a sidewalk. I’ll say it’s lasting, at least!
“As for those horses, however,” he continued, “we’ll take a crack at them ourselves if we have luck. You’ve been complaining that things are not exciting enough, and I propose to give you a touch of life. After we get done our work here—that is to say, after everybody has drunk up all the Scotch whisky that has come north on this boat—we’ll be getting on about our business. We’ll take our scow through.
“I’m going to contract with old Johnny Belcore, the traffic-handler here, to take our boat and an extra scow around through the rapids of the Slave River. You’ll see he’llship his horses along to use on the portages, and there’ll be more than one of them. It would take a lot of men to track one of these boats up the bank and along a mile or so of dry ground. They tell me that he uses rollers and pulls the boats by horse power. So, as that is one more example of the way the brigade gets its goods north, we’ll use that, if only for the sake of our own information.”
“That’ll be fine,” said Rob. “I’d much rather do that than climb on top of a lumber-wagon and ride across sixteen miles of muskeg. If we did that we’d miss all the excitement of seeing the Big Rapids of the Slave. I’ve been reading about them. You’re right, this is perhaps as bad boat water as any actually used by men.”
“Do you suppose it is worse than the White Horse Rapids up on the head of the Yukon?” asked John, looking up.
Uncle Dick laughed at this. “Son,” said he, “the White Horse Rapids could be lost a thousand times here in the falls of the Slave River, and no one would know where they went. Those rapids got their reputation through the stories of tenderfeet, for the most part. They don’t touch the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca, and the Grand Rapids don’t touch the Slave. She drops a hundred andsixty-five feet in sixteen miles! You can figure what that means, and if you can’t figure it we’ll see it with our own eyes.”
“I read once in some sort of a magazine story,” said Rob, “that the Peace River buffalo herd is somewhere up in this country, and that when people want to find out about it they go to Smith’s Landing.”
“That’s true,” said Uncle Dick. “That somewhat mythical herd has been under the more or less mythical charge of the Dominion government in here for some time. It isn’t worth while for us to make a trip out to see it; that is usually done by parties who are going back from here. Nor do we care to see the celebrated Dominion government reindeer herd which is out on the promontory of the Mountain Portage below here.
“I understand there were about a dozen of these reindeer once, but most of them got into the river and swam across. The last report was that the keeper of this herd had only one reindeer left, and he was sitting tight, with several Lapland dogs which had been sent out by the government!”
“The trouble with people that run things,” said Rob, judicially, “is that sometimes they don’t know about the things they are running.”
“Well, I don’t see why they sent reindeer up into the caribou country,” said Jesse. “Of course I’m only a boy, but I can’t see why they do that.”
Uncle Dick grinned. “We may see a good many things we can’t understand before we get done with the trip. But all the same we’ll have a good time finding out.
“You may sleep ashore to-night, young men,” he said, later, “for perhaps you would rather not lie in your berths on the boat. The captain tells me that Smith’s Landing is famous for its mosquitoes—they are supposed to be worse here than anywhere else on earth.”
“Well, that’s saying a good deal,” said John. “I didn’t know there were so many mosquitoes in all the world. What makes them, anyhow, and what do they have them for, Uncle Dick?”
That gentleman only shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. “It’s all in the game,” said he. “You must learn not to kick. Look at the half-breeds all around. How hard their life is, and what punishment they have to take all the time. Well, they don’t kick. One great lesson of this trip ought to be to take your medicine and be game and quiet as well.”
The boys did not find the stop at Smith’sLanding of special interest, for there was so much drunkenness among all the population that they became quite disgusted at the sloth and noisiness of it all. They learned through the captain that while liquor is not allowed to be sold generally at the Hudson’s Bay posts, among natives, the government does allow a “permit” to any one going into that country, so that each traveler might legally take a gallon of liquor for “medicinal purposes.” Sometimes a white trader or employee would be allowed to import each year a gallon of liquor on a “permit.” The captain told one instance, more gruesome than amusing, which had just happened that week. A man at Smith’s Landing had ordered his annual gallon of liquor, but meantime he had died. As he could not use the liquor, the question arose to whom did it belong. That was decided, so he said, by a game of cards in the warehouse on the bank. That the contents of the dead man’s liquor-case found use was easy enough to see.
The tales regarding the mosquitoes at Smith’s Landing proved more than true. Our young travelers found that the best of their mosquito dope was of little or no avail, so that they wore headnets and long gloves almost always.
By this time they had learned to manage their sleeping-tents so that they could keep out the insects at night, and lost but little sleep, even amid the continual howling of the dogs and the carousing of the half-drunken population of the place.
Meantime, albeit slowly, the cargoes of the scows and of the steamer were being portaged by wagon over the sixteen miles of flat timbered country. This work went on for nearly a week. It was Thursday, June 19th, when Uncle Dick announced to Rob and John and Jesse that now they would be off for the exciting enterprise of taking their boat down the rapids of the Slave. Johnny Belcore, as the freight contractor was named, had finally secured a Cree pilot who knew the ancient channel, used time out of mind by the Hudson’s Bay boats which risked this dangerous passage. He agreed to take theMidnight Sunacross the portage for fifty dollars, and to charge seventy-five cents for each hundred pounds of freight. During the short season of the brigade’s passage north, at which time most of the amateurs and independents were crowding northward, Belcore made a very considerable amount of money. Our party, however, thought his charges entirely reasonable, and, indeed, would not, for any money, have foregonethe pleasure of running these redoubtable rapids. They learned now that three other scows were going through also. Belcore had his team on one of these, and had brought along twenty-seven men to man the boats, to handle the team, etc.
In the early evening his little flotilla pushed off, with few regrets at leaving Smith’s Landing behind. On the left lay the dangerous and treacherous falls of the Priest Rapids, so called by reason of the loss there of a Catholic priest and a companion years ago. The boats, however, were rowed in slack water across above these big falls, then took two fast chutes upon the farther side. After this smart water the commodore of the little fleet pulled in to portage the Cassette Falls, that tremendous cascade of the Slave River which so terrifies the ordinary observer when first he sees its enormous display of power. There are perhaps few more terrifying spectacles of wild water, even including the Whirlpool Rapids at Niagara.
That night our party lay in bivouac, and were up early in the work of the portage. All the goods had to be unloaded and all the scows were hauled up the steep bank by means of a block and tackle. Once up the bank, the team, which had been brought alongin one of the scows and forced to climb up the bank, were hitched to a long rope, and with the aid also of men tugging at the ropes they rapidly hauled the boat over the high and rocky ground which made the portage—a distance of some four hundred yards in all.
It was about four o’clock that afternoon when the boats had finished this first portage and had been again loaded below the sharp drop at the farther end.
The boys continually hung about the men in this curious and interesting work, and plied Belcore with many questions. He explained to them that the Cassette Falls are on one of four or five different channels into which the Slave River breaks hereabouts. Many of these chutes could not be run at all, nor could a boat be lined down through them by any possibility. In spite of all this, as he explained, one or two boats of ignorant prospectors actually had found their way down the rapids of the Slave, preserved by Providence, as Belcore piously affirmed.
After the Cassette Portage there came a curve in the rapid run of water where a canoe hardly could have lived, as the boys thought, then five miles of very slow water where all the men had to row, the Slave River being nothing if not freakish in its methods hereabouts. Attimes far to the left, through the many tree-covered islands, the boys could see the fast channel of the Slave River proper, a tremendous flood pouring steadily northward to the Arctic Sea.
Belcore said the drop of the Slave was two hundred feet in the entire length of the portage, but the government estimate is a hundred and sixty-five feet.
“Well,” said John, doing a little figuring on the margin of his map, “we’re going downhill pretty fast, it seems to me, as we go north. The Grand Rapids drop only fifty-five feet. From Athabasca Landing to McMurray there is a drop of eight hundred and sixty feet in the two hundred and fifty-two miles. That’s going some. And here we drop a hundred and sixty-five feet in about sixteen miles. It’s no wonder the water gets rough sometimes.”
Belcore pointed out to them, far to the left, late that evening, the Middle Rapids, whose heavy roar they could hear coming to them across the distance. They could not really see these rapids, as they bore off to the right to make the second portage. The pilot found his way without any chart through a maze of slack water and blind channels hidden among the islands. Belcore told them that no one knew all of the Slave River at thispoint, but that the Indians remembered the way they had been following, which their fathers and their fathers’ fathers had handed down to them in the traditions of the tribes.
At this second portage, or traverse, the goods were carried across by the wagon and team, the boats meantime making two portages in a quarter of a mile. At the last run of the boats the men stopped calmly no more than fifty yards above a chute which would have wrecked any craft undertaking to make the run through.
For yet another day the block-and-tackle work on the scows, the horse-and-wagon labor with the goods, continued. The boats were sometimes hauled over wide ridges of rough rocks, till the wonder was that they held together at all. There was one ancient craft, a York boat of earlier times, which the Company was taking through, and this, being stiffly built with a keel, was badly strained and rendered very leaky by the time it got through the rude traverse of the rocky portage. The men took tallow and oakum and roughly calked the seams of this boat, so that it was possible to get it across the river to Fort Smith eventually. A wagon-tire came off, which left the wagon helpless. The half-breedsdid not complain, but carried its load on their own backs.
“Well,” said Rob to John, as they stood apart at one time, watching this wild labor, “Uncle Dick was right. We are in the wilderness now. This is a land of chance—every fellow has to take his risks without grumbling, and his work, too. I like to see these men work; they are so strong.”
“They tell me that they are not going to drag all the scows across,” said John. “They’re going to try to run that bad chute below our landing with a couple of scows. The men say it takes too long to wagon them across, and they would much rather take the chance.”
“Fine!” said Rob. “We’ll go make some pictures of them as they go through.”
“Hurry on, then,” rejoined John, “and get Jesse. We ought to get some fine pictures there. I’ve been down and seen that place, and the water drops higher than the roof of a house and goes through a narrow place where you could touch both sides with the oars.”
It was indeed as they had said—the half-breeds, careless ever of danger, and willing only to work when work was necessary, actually did run two scows down the narrow chute of the Middle Rapids. The boys, cameras in hand, did their best to make picturesof the event, and stood hardly breathing as they saw the boats go down the toboggan-like incline between two great boulders which the poles of the boatmen touched on either side.
As the scow struck the level water at the foot of this chute or cascade, her bow was submerged for almost a third of the length, and the men in front were wet waist-high. She still floated, however, as she swung into the strong current below, and the men with shouts of excitement rowed and poled her ashore. To them it seemed much better to take a half-hour of danger than a half-day of work. As a matter of fact, both boats came through not much the worse for wear, and perhaps not as badly damaged as they would have been if dragged on the rollers across the rocky hillside.