It so happened that the wife of a Hudson Bay Official, well-known throughout the country, had come down to Edmonton from Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie by the last (and I might say, the only) boat of the previous year, intending to return by the first transport in the following one, (1906)—that on which I was also to travel. She had all preparations made for her return trip and was about ready to start, when a sudden illness intervened and she was called to make a journey to a land even less known than the one we were to penetrate. There was an old time funeral at Edmonton, and many were the expressions of sympathy heard on the street for the husband twelve hundred miles away, who, all unconscious of what had occurred, would be looking for his wife when our boat reached Fort Simpson. We realised throughout the long days of our journey to that point that we were carrying to the widowed husband the saddest of all messages.
On a bright morning on June 2, in a comfortable conveyance and with a good span of horses, we turned our faces to the North, bidding good-bye to the Railway and various other adjuncts of modern civilised life, and in less than three days arrived at Athabaska Landing, in round figures, one hundred miles distant.
Little need be said concerning this first stage in my journey, though the country passed over for some twenty miles would certainly be a surprise to any one familiar only with the new settlement in the wooded districts in the older Provinces. Certainly less than twenty years ago, this district was an unsettled part of a great wilderness. To-day, with its cultivated fields and with just enough woodland left to vary the monotony that characterises the treeless plains, as we looked across the country, really park like in appearance, we could almost fancy that we were passing through some of the rural districts of Old England. Early on the second day, we passed the height of land between the basin of the Saskatchewan and that of the Mackenzie River, though the land is so little elevated that it is imperceptible. Notwithstanding this, the waters of two neighbouring rivulets within almost a stone’s-throw of each other, finally find their outlet into two different oceans. The one by way of the Saskatchewan, Lake Winnipeg and the Nelson River to the Hudson Bay of the Atlantic, and the other via the Athabaska, Slave and Mackenzie Rivers to the Arctic.
Athabaska Landing is on a southerly bend of the Athabaska River. This stream was named the Elk River in Mackenzie’s time. At the “Landing” it is about sixty rods wide and the water is of the consistency and appearance of the Mississippi at St. Louis. Its general direction above this point is easterly, but here it takes a sharp turn north, which direction it maintains throughout its remaining course of 430 miles to Lake Athabaska, the latter called “The Lake of the Hills” by Mackenzie.
At Edmonton nearly every person met with had been talking land and town lots. The hotels were filled with “land lookers,” coming from various parts of Canada with a large percentage of visitors from the United States, most of them speaking the English language, varied in tone in accordance with the districts from which they came. There was the “blue nose” from the Maritime Provinces with a dialect not unlike that heard in parts of England: the French Canadian speaking French English: the man from Ontario, also with his distinctive mark branded on him, though not realising it himself: the Western American from Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Kansas, each also with his peculiar idioms, but all self-assertive and reliant.
At Athabaska Landing all was changed. The conversation here was of none of these things, but rather of last season’s hunt and the state of the river; conveyed largely in the language of the Cree Indian. This is certainly a border town consisting of two or three hundred inhabitants largely half breeds. It is perhaps worthy of remark that no offence is taken in applying the term “half breed” to one who by nationality deserves the name, while he will bitterly resent the epithet “breed.” A few years before I had made a journey from “The Landing” to Peace River, going from the latter place up the Athabaska some eighty miles, thence up a tributary, the Little Slave River into and across Lesser Slave Lake, thence overland eighty miles to the Peace River. I crossed near the entrance of Smokey River, where Sir Alexander Mackenzie had spent the winter to which I have already made reference.
Copyright Ernest Brown
TRACKING ON ATHABASKA RIVER
During this journey I came to admire those half breed river men. It is a peculiarity of most of those northern rivers that although the current is very strong there are few interruptions to their navigation with canoes, York boats or small barges. It is impossible to make much headway however in going up stream by means of paddles or oars, so “tracking” is resorted to. This consists of towing the boat by means of a line, one end of which is attached to the bow of the craft while to the other are usually harnessed four men, who walk or run along the shore, often making three or four miles an hour. On one of the usual river craft, the crew consists, at least, of ten men, four pulling for about half an hour, while the other four are resting in the boat during that time, then changing places. In addition to these there is a bow man and a steersman, the latter being the Captain. From twenty to twenty-five miles a day are frequently made in this manner. The discipline and order are as good as on any ship of His Majesty’s navy. The steersman’s orders are never interfered with, even if an official of the “The Company” is on board. These men will undergo the most fatiguing labour “from early dawn to dewy eve,” tugging away during those long northern summer days over slippery cut banks and fording or swimming tributary streams without murmur or complaint, and moreover without profanity. The half breed seems to take this as his work to do, and well it is that he is so persuaded, for few others would so cheerfully perform such labour. His reward comes on the return trip when the boat is simply left to drift down stream both night and day, and the time of making a journey down is often less than one quarter of that occupied by the up trip.