CHAPTER XXIV
THE END OF THE LONG TRAIL
The storm left the ice covered with a depth of soft snow into which the dogs sank deep and hauled the komatik with difficulty. Snowshoeing, too, was unusually hard. The day we left Northwest River (Tuesday, March sixth) the temperature rose above the freezing point, and when it froze that night a thin crust formed, through which our snowshoes broke, adding very materially to the labor of walking—and of course it was all walking.
As the days lengthened and the sun asserting his power, pushed higher and higher above the horizon, the glare upon the white expanse of snow dazzled our eyes, and we had to put on smoked glasses to protect ourselves from snow-blindness. Even with the glasses our driver, Mark, became partially snow-blind, and when, on the evening of the third day after leaving Northwest River, we reached his home at Karwalla, an Eskimo settlement a few miles west of Rigolet, it became necessary for us to halt until he was sufficiently recovered to enable him to travel again.
Here we met some of the Eskimos that had been connected with the Eskimo village at the World’s Fair at Chicago, in 1893. Mary, Mark’s wife, was one of the number. She told me of having been exhibited as far west as Portland, Oregon, and I asked:
“Mary, aren’t you discontented here, after seeing so much of the world? Wouldn’t you like to go back?”
“No, sir,” she answered. “’Tis fine here, where I has plenty of company. ’Tis too lonesome in the States, sir.”
“But you can’t get the good things to eat here—the fruits and other things,” I insisted.
“I likes the oranges and apples fine, sir—but they has no seal meat or deer’s meat in the States.”
It was not until Tuesday, March thirteenth, three days after our arrival at Karwalla, that Mark thought himself quite able to proceed. The brief “mild” gave place to intense cold and blustery, snowy weather. We pushed on toward West Bay, on the outer coast again, by the “Backway,” an arm of Hamilton Inlet that extends almost due east from Karwalla.
At West Bay I secured fresh dogs to carry us on to Cartwright, which I hoped to reach in one day more. But the going was fearfully poor, soft snow was drifted deep in the trail over Cape Porcupine, the ice in Traymore was broken up by the gales, and this necessitated a long detour, so it was nearly dark and snowing hard when we at last reached the house of James Williams, at North River, just across Sandwich Bay from Cartwright Post. The greeting I received was so kindly that I was not altogether disappointed at having to spend the night here.
“We’ve been expectin’ you all winter, sir,” said Mrs. Williams. “When you stopped two years ago you said you’d come some other time, and we knew you would. ’Tis fine to see you again, sir.”
On the afternoon of March seventeenth we reached Cartwright Post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and my friend Mr. Ernest Swaffield, the agent, and Mrs. Swaffield, who had been so kind to me on my former trip, gave us a cordial welcome. Here also I met Dr. Mumford, the resident physician at Dr. Grenfell’s mission hospital at Battle Harbor, who was on a trip along the coast visiting the sick.
Another four days’ delay was necessary at Cartwright before dogs could be found to carry us on, but with Swaffield’s aid I finally secured teams and we resumed our journey, stopping at night at the native cabins along the route. Much bad weather was encountered to retard us and I had difficulty now and again in securing dogs and drivers. Many of the men that I had on my previous trip, when I brought Hubbard’s body out to Battle Harbor, were absent hunting, but whenever I could find them they invariably engaged with me again to help me a stage upon the journey.
From Long Pond, near Seal Islands, neither I nor the men I had knew the way (when I traveled down the coast on the former occasion my drivers took a route outside of Long Pond), and that afternoon we went astray, and with no one to set us right wandered about upon the ice until long after dark, looking for a hut at Whale Bight, which was finally located by the dogs smelling smoke and going to it.
A little beyond Whale Bight we came upon a bay that I recognized, and from that point I knew the trail and headed directly to Williams’ Harbor, where I found John and James Russell, two of my old drivers, ready to take us on to Battle Harbor.
At last, on the afternoon of March twenty-sixth we reached the hospital, and how good it seemed to be back almost within touch of civilization. It was here that I ended that long and dreary sledge journey with the last remains of dear old Hubbard, in the spring of 1904, and what a flood of recollections came to me as I stood in front of the hospital and looked again across the ice of St. Lewis Inlet! How well I remembered those weary days over there at Fox Harbor, watching the broken, heaving ice that separated me from Battle Island; the little boat that one day came into the ice and worked its way slowly through it until it reached us and took us to the hospital and the ship; and how thankful I felt that I had reached here with my precious burden safe.
Mrs. Mumford made us most welcome, and entertained me in the doctor’s house, and was as good and kind as she could be.
I must again express my appreciation of the truly wonderful work that Dr. Grenfell and his brave associates are carrying on amongst the people of this dreary coast. Year after year, they brave the hardships and dangers of sea and fog and winter storms that they may minister to the lowly and needy in the Master’s name. It is a saying on the coast that “even the dogs know Dr. Grenfell,” and it is literally true, for his activities carry him everywhere and God knows what would become of some of the people if he were not there to look after them. His practice extends over a larger territory than that of any other physician in the world, but the only fee he ever collects is the pleasure that comes with the knowledge of work well done.
At Battle Harbor I was told by a trader that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to procure dogs to carry us up the Straits toward Quebec, and I was strongly advised to end my snowshoe and dog journey here and wait for a steamer that was expected to come in April to the whaling station at Cape Charles, twelve miles away. This seemed good advice, for if we could get a steamer here within three weeks or so that would take us to St. Johns we should reach home probably earlier than we possibly could by going to Quebec.
There is a government coast telegraph line that follows the north shore of the St. Lawrence from Quebec to Château Bay, but the nearest office open at this time was at Red Bay, sixty-five miles from Battle Harbor, and I determined to go there and get into communication with home and at the same time telegraph to Bowring Brothers in St. Johns and ascertain from them exactly when I might expect the whaling steamer.
William Murphy offered to carry me over with his team, and, leaving Stanton and Easton comfortably housed at Battle Harbor and both of them quite content to end their dog traveling here, on the morning after my arrival Murphy and I made an early start for Red Bay.
Except in the more sheltered places the bay ice had broken away along the Straits and we had to follow the rough ice barricades, sometimes working inland up and down the rocky hills and steep grades. Before noon we passed Henley Harbor and the Devil’s Dining Table—a basaltic rock formation—and a little later reached Château Bay and had dinner in a native house. Beyond this point there are cabins built at intervals of a few miles as shelter for the linemen when making repairs to the wire. We passed one of these at Wreck Cove toward evening, but as a storm was threatening, pushed on to the next one at Green Bay, fifty-five miles from Battle Harbor. It was dark before we got there, and to reach the Bay we had to descend a steep hill. I shall never forget the ride down that hill. It is very well to go over places like that when you know the way and what you are likely to bring up against, but I did not know the way and had to pin my faith blindly on Murphy, who had taken me over rotten ice during the day—– ice that waved up and down with our weight and sometimes broke behind us. My opinion of him was that he was a reckless devil, and when we began to descend that hill, five hundred feet to the bay ice, this opinion was strengthened. I would have said uncomplimentary things to him had time permitted. I expected anything to happen. It looked in the night as though a sheer precipice with a bottomless pit below was in front of us. Two drags were thrown over the komatik runners to hold us back, but in spite of them we went like a shot out of a gun, he on one side, I on the other, sticking our heels into the hard snow as we extended our legs ahead, trying our best to hold back and stop our wild progress. But, much to my surprise, when we got there, and I verily believe to Murphy’s surprise also, we landed right side up at the bottom, with no bones broken. There were three men camped in the shack here, and we spent the night with them.
Early the next day we reached Red Bay and the telegraph office. There are no words in the English language adequate to express my feelings of gratification when I heard the instruments clicking off the messages. It had been seventeen years since I had handled a telegraph key—when I was a railroad telegrapher down in New England—and how I fondled that key, and what music the click of the sounder was to my ears!
My messages were soon sent, and then I sat down to wait for the replies.
The office was in the house of Thomas Moors, and he was good enough to invite me to stop with him while in Red Bay. His daughter was the telegraph operator.
The next day the answers to my telegrams came, and many messages from friends, and one from Bowring & Company stating that no steamer would be sent to Cape Charles. I had been making inquiries here, however, in the meantime, and learned that it was quite possible to secure dogs and continue the journey up the north shore, so I was not greatly disappointed. I dispatched Murphy at once to Battle Harbor to bring on the other men, waiting myself at Red Bay for their coming, and holding teams in readiness for an immediate departure when they should arrive.
They drove in at two o’clock on April fourth, and we left at once. On the morning of the sixth we passed through Blanc Sablon, the boundary line between Newfoundland and Canadian territory, and here I left the Newfoundland letters from my mail bag. From this point the majority of the natives are Acadians, and speak only French.
At Brador Bay I stopped to telegraph. No operator was there, so I sent the message myself, left the money on the desk and proceeded.
Three days more took us to St. Augustine Post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, where we arrived in the morning and accepted the hospitality of Burgess, the Agent.
Our old friends the Indians whom we met on our inland trip at Northwest River were here, and John, who had eaten supper with us at our camp on the hill on the first portage, expressed great pleasure at meeting us, and had many questions to ask about the country. They had failed in their deer hunt, and had come out half starved a week or so before, from the interior.
We did fifty miles on the eleventh, changing dogs at Harrington at noon and running on to Sealnet Cove that night. Here we found more Indians who had just emerged from the interior, driven to the coast for food like those at St. Augustine as the result of their failure to find caribou.
Two days later we reached the Post at Romain, and on the afternoon of April seventeenth reached Natashquan and open water. Here I engaged passage on a small schooner—the first afloat in the St. Lawrence—to take us on to Eskimo Point, seventy miles farther, where the Quebec steamer, King Edward, was expected to arrive in a week or so. That night we boarded the schooner and sailed at once. Into the sea I threw the clothes I had been wearing, and donned fresh ones. What a relief it was to be clear of the innumerable horde “o’ wee sma’ beasties” that had been my close companions all the way down from the Eskimo igloos in the North. I have wondered many times since whether those clothes swam ashore, and if they did what happened to them.
It was a great pleasure to be upon the water again, and see the shore slip past, and feel that no more snowstorms, no more bitter northern blasts, no more hungry days and nights were to be faced.
Since June twenty-fifth, the day we dipped our paddles into the water of Northwest River and turned northward into the wastes of the great unknown wilderness, eight hundred miles had been traversed in reaching Fort Chimo, and on our return journey with dogs and komatik and snowshoes, two thousand more.
We reached Eskimo Point on April twentieth, and that very day a rain began that turned the world into a sea of slush. I was glad indeed that our komatik work was finished, for it would now have been very difficult, if not impossible, to travel farther with dogs.
I at once deposited in the post office the bag of letters that I had carried all the way from far-off Ungava. This was the first mail that any single messenger had ever carried by dog train from that distant point, and I felt quite puffed up with the honor of it.
The week that we waited here for the King Edward was a dismal one, and when the ship finally arrived we lost no time in getting ourselves and our belongings aboard. It was a mighty satisfaction to feel the pulse of the engines that with every revolution took us nearer home, and when at last we tied up at the steamer’s wharf in Quebec, I heaved a sigh of relief.
On April thirtieth, after an absence of just eleven months, we found ourselves again in the whirl and racket of New York. The portages and rapids and camp fires, the Indian wigwams and Eskimo igloos and the great, silent white world of the North that we had so recently left were now only memories. We had reached the end of The Long Trail. The work of exploration begun by Hubbard was finished.