The Cariboo Trail / A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia

by Agnes C. Laut

Trees with chipped bark pointed the way down the Fraser. For three days the party followed the little stream that had come out of the lake hardly wider than the span of a man's stride. With each mile its waters swelled and grew wilder. On the third day windfall and precipice drove the riders back from the river bed into the heavy hemlock forest, where festoons of Spanish moss overhead almost shut out the light of the sun and all sense of direction. And when they came back to the bank of the stream they saw a wild cataract cutting its way through a dark canyon. There was no mistake. This was the Fraser, and it was living up to its reputation.

And yet the Overlanders were sorely puzzled. There were no more blazes on the trees to point the way; and, if this was the Fraser, it seemed to flow almost due north. Where was Cariboo? Mr M'Micking, who was acting as captain, tried to find out from the Indians. They made him a drawing showing that if he crossed another watershed he would come on a white man's wide pack-road. That must lead to Cariboo; but the snow lay already a foot deep on this road; and unless the Overlanders hastened they would be snowbound for the winter. On the other hand, if the white men continued to follow the wild river canyon north, it would bring them to Fort George on the main Fraser in ten days. There was no time to waste on chance travelling. The Overlanders knew that somewhere south from Moose Lake must lie the headwaters of the Thompson, which would bring them to Kamloops. Was that what the Indians meant by their drawings of a white man's road? If that were true, between Moose Lake and the Thompson must lie the land of their desire, Cariboo; but to cross another unknown divide in winter seemed risky. To follow the bend of the Fraser north might be the long way round, but it was sure.

It was decided to let the party separate. Let those with provisions still remaining try to push overland to Cariboo. If they failed to find it, they could build cabins and winter on their pack animals. Twenty men joined this group. The rest decided to stick to the river. Behind were straggling a score more of the travellers, who were left to follow as they could. Mrs Shubert with her children joined the band going overland to find the Thompson.

The Indians traded canoes for horses and showed the Overlanders how to put rafts together to run the Fraser. Axes had been worn almost to the haft. Cutting the huge trees and splitting them into suitable timbers was slow work. It was September before the rafts were ready to be launched. There were four. Each had a heavy railing round it like that of a ferry, with some flat stones on which fires could be lighted to cook meals without pausing to land. When we recall the experiences of Mackenzie and Fraser on this river, it seems almost incredible that these landsmen made the descent on rafts with their few remaining ponies and oxen tied to the railings; yet so they did. If we imagine rafts, with horses and oxen tied to the railings, trying to run the whirlpool below Niagara, we shall have some conception of what this meant.

The canoes sheered out of the way and the rafts were unmoored. The Scarborough raft, with men from Whitby and Scarborough, near Toronto, swirled out to midstream on the afternoon of the 1st of September. 'Poor, poor white men,' sighed the Indians; 'no more see white men'; but the men in the canoes rapped the gunnels with their paddles and uttered rousing cheers. Then the Ottawa and the Niagara and the Huntingdon rafts slipped out on the current. All went well for four days. Sweeps made of trees with the branch ends turned down and long, slim poles kept the rafts in mid-current. Meals were cooked as the unwieldy craft glided along the river-bank. Two or three men kept guard at night, so that the rafts were delayed for only a few hours during the darkest part of the night. The sun shone hot at midday and there were hard frosts at night; but the rest in this sort of travel was wonderfully refreshing after four months of toil across prairie and mountain. But on the afternoon of the 5th of September the rafts began to bounce and swirl. The banks raced to the rear, and before the crews realized it, a noise as of breaking seas filled the air, and the Scarborough was riding her first rapid. Luckily, the water was deep and the rocks well submerged. The Scarborough ran the rapid without mishap and the other rafts followed. On the next day, however, the waters 'collected' and began running in leaps and throwing back spume. Some one shouted 'Breakers! head ashore!' and the galloping rafts bumped on the bank of the river. The banks here were steep for portaging; and the Scarborough boys, brought up on the lake-front, east of Toronto, decided, come what might, to run the rapids. They let go the mooring-rope and went churning into a whirlpool of yeasty spray. All hands bent their strength to the poles. The raft dipped out of sight, but was presently seen riding safely and calmly below the rapids.

Those watching the Scarborough from the bank breathed freely again and plucked up heart; but the worst was yet ahead. The oily calm below the first rapid dropped into another maelstrom of angry waters. Into this the Scarborough was drawn by the terrible undertow. For a moment the watchers on the bank could see nothing but the horns of the bellowing, frightened oxen tied to the railing. Then the raft was mounting the waves again. The seaworthiness of a raft is, of course, well known. It may dip under water, or even split, but it seldom upsets and never swamps or sinks. Before the other rafts ran the rapids, two of them were first lightened of their loads. The men preferred to pack their provisions over the precipices rather than take the risk of losing them in the rapid. Nor was the packing child's play. There was a narrow portage-trail along the ledges of the rocks, and where the slabs of granite had split off Indians had laid rickety poles across. Over these frail bridges the packers, with great difficulty, carried the loads of the two rafts. Fortunately most of them had long since discarded boots for moccasins.

All the rafts came through safely. The canoes were not so fortunate. When the Scarborough reached a sand-bar at the foot of the rapids, the men were surprised to find three of their Toronto friends, who had gone ahead in a canoe, now stranded high and dry. The canoe had sidled to the waves, swamped, and sunk with everything the Toronto men owned, including their coats, tents, and boots. For two days they had been awaiting the coming of the rafts. They were almost dead from exposure and hunger.

Nine canoes in all were wrecked at this spot. One split on the reef. Another was caught in the backwater. Others sank in the whirlpool below the rapids. Others went under at the first leap into the cataract. Two of the canoes had foolishly been lashed abreast. They sidled, shipped a billow, and sank. All the men clung to the gunnels; but one who was a powerful swimmer struck out for the shore. The canoes stranded on the shore below and the clinging men saved themselves. When they looked for their friend who had struck out for the shore, he was no longer to be seen. These men were all from Goderich, brought up on the banks of Lake Huron.

A similar fate befell a crew of four men from Toronto. Two of them undertook to portage provisions along the bank of the canyon, while the other two, named Carpenter and Alexander, tried to run the canoe down the rapids. The episode has some interest for students of psychology. Carpenter walked down the bank of the canyon a short distance to reconnoitre the different channels of the rapids. He was seen to take out his notebook and write an entry. He then put the note-book in the inner pocket of his coat, took off the coat, and slung it in a tree on the bank. When he came back to the canoe, he seemed preoccupied. The canoe ripped on a rock in midstream, flattened, and sank. Carpenter went down insensible as though his head had struck and he had been stunned. Alexander was washed ashore. He found himself on the side of the bank opposite the rest of the party. Going below to calmer waters, he swam across. Carpenter's coat hung on the trees. In the pocket was the note-book, in which Alexander read the astounding words: 'Arrived at Grand Canyon. Ran the canyon and was drowned.' Carpenter left a wife and child in Toronto, for whom, evidently, he had written the message. But if he was of sound mind, desiring to live, and so certain of death that he was able to write his own fate in the past tense, why did he attempt the rapids? His friends had no explanation of the curious incident.

There is another gruesome story of a sand-bar in the very middle of this raging canyon. It will be remembered that some of the Overlanders had straggled far to the rear. Some time before spring a party of them attempted to run this canyon. They were never again seen alive. Some treasure-seekers who came over the trail in spring stranded on this sand-bar. They found the bodies of the missing men. All but one had been torn and partly devoured. It need not be told here that no wild beast could have stemmed the rapids from either side. Unless wolves or cougars had accidentally been washed to the sand-bar, and washed away again, the wild solitude must have witnessed a horror too terrible to be told; for the body of the man who had apparently died last was fully clothed and unmolested. As absolutely nothing more is known of what happened than has been set down here, it seems well that there is no record of the names of these castaways.