“Well,” said John, looking up from his own work with his papers, “it doesn’t seem such a very wild trip now, traveling along on the steamboat. It might as well be along the Alaska shore, or even on the Hudson River—if the things we had to eat were better.”
“Never you mind about all that,” rejoined his uncle. “If you want to see wild work with a thrill to it, you shall have all you care for within the next few days. To-morrow we’ll be at Smith’s Landing, which marks the sixteen-mile portage of the Slave River. I suppose in there you’ll see the wildest water in the world, so far as boating is concerned. I’ll warrant you you’ll think you are in the wilderness when you see the Cassette Falls and any of a hundred others between Smith’s Landing and the Mountain Portage. I’ve been talking with the boat captain about those things.”
Rob looked up from the book which he was reading. “It says,” remarked he, “that Sir Alexander Mackenzie knew all this country as far down as the big portage here.”
“Quite likely,” replied Uncle Dick. “The truth is that all of this early exploration which comes down to us in history was perhaps not so difficult as it sounds. There is continual trading back and forward among the Indian tribes, even when they are hostile to one another. Sir Alexander no doubt heard from each of these various tribes all about their country as far north as the next tribe. Then that tribe in turn could give him advice and guidance. So he was passed on, much as Lewis and Clark were, or Major Long, or Captain Pike, in our own explorations. Nearly all the time he had a native guide to tell him what he might expect on ahead.
“One thing sure,” he added, “from all they tell me about the rapids of the Slave at Smith’s Landing, he would have had a hard time if he had run directly into the big current at the head of the falls without any warning. But I suppose for hundreds of years the natives hereabouts have known about those falls, and naturally that would be the first thing they would tell any new man in the country.”
It was seven o’clock in the evening of June 14th, at the end of a cold and dull day’s travel, that the boys found themselves in the Big Eddy along the bank of the post known as Smith’s Landing. This spot is directly above the Great Falls of the Slave River, and marks the place for unloading of the cargoes of the boats which must be portaged across the sixteen miles of land, or taken down by the hazardous passage through the rapids themselves.
As the boat with its warning whistle drew up alongside the shore there thronged down to the side of the landing the usual crowd of natives, a few white men, many half-breeds, and countless dogs. On the bank above stood the usual row of whitewashed buildings which marked the Hudson’s Bay post, not very many in all, even counting the scattered cabins of the population which had drawn in about this upper post.
“Two things you will observe here,” said the leader of our young adventurers. “Smith’s Landing has a sidewalk, and Smith’s Landing also has a team of horses! You may mark this place as farthest north for the domestic horse—you will not see another one north of here. They have to have this team to get the goods across by wagon. Sometimes, too, they track a scow over, I believe, although the road is not very good.”
“Well, how did they come to have that sidewalk?” asked John, pointing to the narrow and unimportant strip of walk which lay in front of one of the warehouses.
Uncle Dick smiled. “The captain of the boat told me that they wanted some telephone-poles to string a wire from here across to Fort Smith, over the portage. So the wise authorities of the Company had Montreal send out enough square-sawed four-inch joists to make poles for fifty miles of telephone—and right in a country where there are better telephone-poles than you could get at Montreal! So they were all brought through, with what trouble you can imagine, since you have seen the sort of transport they must have had coming this far. The factor could not use them all, so he put up a few and laid the others in the form of a sidewalk. I’ll say it’s lasting, at least!