We only stopped an hour or two at this dreary place and then started for our last and the most northerly post in the country, Fort McPherson. At 1.30 the next morning, July 21, I rose as we were rounding Point Separation, so named from the parting here of Sir John Franklin and Dr. Richardson in 1825, when they separated for their perilous trips around the shores of the frozen ocean, Franklin going west from the mouth of the Mackenzie, and Richardson, coasting easterly towards Coronation Gulf. The sun was just skirting the northern horizon and I endeavoured to get a photo of it which I am sorry proved rather a failure.
Copyright Ernest Brown
THE MIDNIGHT SUN
Point Separation lies at the junction of the Peel River with the Mackenzie, and is in latitude about 67° 50´ N. Below this point lies the delta of the Mackenzie which is many miles in width, with numerous islands between here and the sea about 100 miles distant. At the point where Franklin and Richardson camped two spruce trees were pointed out marked as lobsticks which are said to have been so marked by them in commemoration of the event. Both are still standing, though one is now dead. The Indians have a tradition that a quantity of spirits were cached somewhere in this vicinity, which they say they have never been able to discover. Personally, I have very grave doubts of the accuracy of this report. The Indian is a good hunter, and I know of nothing that would excite him to greater activity than the prospect of such a reward.
After rounding Point Separation we enter the Peel River which at this point is over a mile wide. We soon noticed that our speed was much slower than heretofore and the reason was obvious. For the first time in our long journey of over 1800 miles we were going against the current. Heretofore we have been constantly sailing down the Arctic slope. Shortly after entering the Peel our steamer stopped to take on wood, this reminded me of the frequent habit of railway trains which, after running for hundreds of miles on time stop all at once just outside the station of their destination. We were all anxious to see this far northern village at the end of our long river journey and anxiously waited for a final start. After about two hours’ delay a start was made, and soon after we beheld in the distance on the high bank of the east side of the Peel, the houses of Fort McPherson with the white tents of the Esquimaux on the beach below. These Esquimaux had come over in their whale boats from Herschel Island in the Arctic Sea to meet the Wrigley. Their complexion is almost white with a dash of ruddy colour that indicates health. They are very cheerful and good natured, are not at all diffident like so many of our Indian tribes. On the contrary, they are very inquisitive and disposed to make themselves almost too familiar. They are of fair stature and do not show any of the marks of the struggle for existence that is so observable in their neighbours, the Indians, in this part of the country.
AT MCPHERSON: INDIANS, HALF-BREEDS AND ESQUIMAUX IN FOREGROUND
At Fort McPherson, as at all points visited in the last 1300 miles of our journey, no news from the outside world had been received since the last winter mail in March. For over four months the news passed on from post to post was purely local, hunting parties returning from their winter quarters, whose accounts frequently were of hardships endured, among which the phrase, “short of meat,” were familiar words even in the mouths of natives who knew very little English. Another item would come from the ice bound whalers out on the Arctic Sea.
We were the first to inform them of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and of the San Francisco earthquake both of which had happened months before. Another message was one of sadness to all throughout the Mackenzie and Yukon Valleys, namely, the death of Bishop Bompas, truly named the Apostle of the North, who was familiarly known to every inhabitant and as universally esteemed.