WHICH SHOWS HOW PILOTS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE FIGHT THE ICE-FLOES
NO study of pilot life can be complete without mention of the river pilot who has to face perils in the rapids not a whit less real than those faced by his brother pilot on the sea. I got my first glimpse of the river pilot, oddly enough, in frozen December time, when even that great waterway of northern America—I mean the St. Lawrence—was all but a solid bed of ice, not quite, however, and to that chance I owed a glimpse of Canadian boatmen at the hazard of their winter work, which is none the less interesting for being unfamiliar.
It was fifteen degrees below zero, just pleasant Christmas weather in Quebec, and the old river of saintly fame was grinding along with its gorge of ice, streaming along under a dazzle of sun, steaming up little clouds of frozen water-vapor, low-hanging and spreading over it like tumbled fleece in patches of shine and shadow, quite a balloon effect, I fancied, as I came down the cliff.
In a tug-boat office at the river's edge, chatting around a stove, yet bundled thickly as if no stove were there, I found some half dozen sharp-glancing men, who might have been actors in New York or noblemen in Russia (I judge by the fineness of their furs), but were pilots here, lower-river pilots who, as one of them assured me, are vastly more important than the upper-river kind.
I learned also from one who wore a coat of yellowish-gray skins with otter trimmings that they were a belated company, who would start shortly for Orleans Island across the ice. That was Orleans Island there to the left. No, it did not seem far, but I might find it far enough if I tried to get there. At this they all laughed.
Meekly I sat down, as was befitting, and listened to the talk. They conversed in bad French or worse English, and were most of them, strange to say, Scotchmen who had never seen Scotland and never would—Douglasses and Browns and McGregors, who couldn't pronounce their own names, but could take a liner to the gulf, day or night, through the reefs of Crane Island, past the menacing twin Pilgrims, by windings and dangers, safe down to sea.
I asked the man what they were going to Orleans Island for, and he explained that they lived there through the winter months—they and other pilots, many others. It was a pilot colony, set out in midstream. Yes, it was cut off from the land, quite cut off; they liked it so. Sometimes they didn't come ashore for weeks; it was not exactly fun fighting those ice-floes. And they all laughed again; well, not exactly!
Meantime several jolly little cutters, no higher than cradles, had jingled up with more men in furs and one woman. Also boxes and bundles.
"Pilots?" I asked.
The man nodded.
"And the woman?"
"Dees lady, pilot's wife. She been seek." And he went on in a jargon that is charming, but not for imitation, to explain that they would lay the sick lady in the bottom of the boat and pile coats over her and around her until it was tolerably sure she couldn't freeze. From the way he spoke one would fancy they were about to start for the North Pole, but I presently understood that this two-mile ice journey over the crackling St. Lawrence—the crackling comes from the ice-crust breaking as the tide drops under it—is about as hard a test of men's endurance as any Arctic performance.
They were all gathered now save one, whose cutter tarried still. He was a good pilot, but overfond of the convivial glass, and was no doubt this very moment in some uproarious company, forgetful that the start was to be sharp on the hour. Well, they would give him ten minutes more, say fifteen minutes, pauvre garçon.
Then they fell to discussing winter navigation, and whether it would ever come on the St. Lawrence as it had on rivers in Russia. A pilot in coon-skins was sure it would come; they would put on one of these new-fangled ice-crunching steamers to keep the main channel open, and, sacré bleu, there you are! That would save five months every year. But the others shook their heads; they didn't believe it, and didn't want it anyway. A pilot, sir, must have a certain time to smoke his pipe!
Then one man told what the ice did to a sailing-vessel he was taking down the river late one season. He hoped never to take another down so late. He had got out of his course one night in the dangerous ways off Crane Island, and finally dropped anchor to hold her against the crush of ice. But the anchor chain snapped like shoe-string under the ice pressure, and they were borne along on a glacier-field until they struck on a reef—just what he had feared. Now, the ice could neither break the reef nor drive them over it, but it ground its way right through the schooner's stern, ripping her wide open, so that the river poured in, and down they went until the yard-arms touched the hummocks, with pilot and crew left to scramble over the floe as best they could in the darkness, and wait for daylight on the frozen rocks.
At this the others, taking up the cue of thrilling happenings, told stories of dangers on the river one after another until the tardy pilot, who had jingled up meanwhile unnoticed, was in his turn forced to wait for them.
"I was just putting off one night," began a tall man, who spoke better English than the rest, "just putting off from this very place—"
"Thash nothing," interrupted the later comer, "I shaw sh-sword fish clashe a wh-whale once off Saguenay River, an wh-whale—an sh-sword fish—" then he mumbled to himself and dozed by the stove.
The tall man went on with his tale, which described how, on the night in question, he was about to board a down-coming steamer of the Leyland line (he was to take the place of the Montreal pilot), when she crashed into a tramp steamer coming up in a head-on collision, and two sailors sleeping in their bunks were instantly killed. He described the panic that ensued, and told what they did, and wound up with a queer theory (which he declared perfectly sound, and the others agreed with him) that the growth of cities along the river is every year increasing the danger of such night collisions through the dazzle of lights.
Presently we started for the boats. A burly line, with caps reaching down, and collars reaching up, until everything was covered—ears, forehead, chin, everything but a peeping place for nose and eyes. I can still hear the squeak and crunch of snow under foot, and see the glare of it. We passed a snow-field, where the river-buoys are left through winter, spar-buoys, gas-buoys, and bell-buoys ranged along now like great red tops numbed by the cold to sleep.
RIVER-BUOYS ON THE BANK FOR THE WINTER.
Then they put off in the boats—three open boats—that are sleds as well, with runners on the flat bottoms and ends turned up in an easy slant, so that when the broken ice gets too thick for paddling they may be hauled up to slide over it. This queer method of transit is practised on the St. Lawrence, by those who dare, during certain weeks of winter when the river is no longer open nor yet frozen into a solid ice-bridge, but partly open and partly solid. So it was now.
The first rule of the boats is that every man lay hand to paddle and work. There are no passengers here but the sick, and they are rarely taken. Not that the pilots would mind paddling other men across, but the other men would almost certainly freeze if they sat still. There is no safety against the blasts that sweep this river, when the glass says twenty below, but in vigorous, ceaseless exertion.
So there they go through the ice-choked river, swinging their paddles lustily, every pilot of them, heads nodding under black astrakhan caps, shoulders heaving, off for home. Now they strike the first solid place, and the men forward climb out carefully and heave up the boat's nose a couple of feet to see if the ice will hold her. Then all climb out, and with dragging and pushing get ahead for a hundred feet or so. See, now they stop and swing their arms! Already the pitiless wind is biting through their furs. And think of that poor woman!
Presently they reach an open spot some dozen yards across, and all but one take places in the boat, the stern man standing behind on the ice to push off, and then, with nicely judged effort, spring aboard as he gives the last impulse that shoots her into the river.
From the open space they paddle into a jam of grinding ice-blocks that hold hard against them, but are scarce solid enough to bear the sledges. They must work through somehow, poling and fending, to yonder heaped-up ledge, where up they go again on a great rough raft of ice that will test their muscles and their skill before they get across, and drift them a quarter of a mile or so up-stream while they are doing it.
Up-stream, did I say? Yes, for there is this odd thing about the St. Lawrence, even at Quebec, that its current streams up and down, up and down, as the tide changes. For seven hours the river conquers the tide, and the water runs down to sea. Then for five hours the tide conquers the river, and the water runs up from the sea. So now, after all their toiling, they are actually further from home than when they started. They should have set out just before the turn of tide (that was their plan), but they waited until just after the turn, and will pay for the delay and their yarn spinning with an hour more of this ice-fighting than they need have had—and an hour out there is a long, long time.
Even here, on the bank, much less than an hour is enough of time. The cold grows piercing. The day is drawing to a close. The sky is dull. The river grinds on with its grayish burden. On the heights of Levis, opposite, some lights of early evening break out. There also pilots live, Indians come from an Indian village down the river, where they make the peerless birch canoes. All along this grand St. Lawrence live men whose business it is to face unusual perils, whose nerve fails them not, whether paddling some frail bark through furious rapids or guiding a steamboat down a raging torrent, with many lives in their keeping.
We must see more of these men, and watch them at their work. We must see the Iroquois pilots at their reservation near Montreal, the lads Lord Wolseley took with him up the Nile to brave its cataracts, when the English set out, in 1884, to bring relief to Gordon. We must see "Big John," famous now for years as wheelsman of the great excursion boats that shoot the rage of waters at Lachine. We must see the raftsmen, too, and—ah, but it is cold here!—let us climb the cliff again and find some shelter.