Jack the Young Canoeman: An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe

by George Bird Grinnell

"If you will come with me," said Ryder, "I will show you the hotel and the animals; and as soon as you have had your breakfast we can buy our supplies and start. These Indians here will carry up your things."

"Very good," said Hugh, "they may as well take the blankets to the corral, wherever that is; and we'll take the bags and guns with us."

Ryder conducted them to the hotel where, as yet, no one was awake; and then, followed by Hugh and Jack went to the corral where there were a dozen horses. The outfit seemed a good one; the animals strong and fat. Ryder proposed to take six pack animals, three with saw bucks, and three with aparejos. Hugh and Jack looked over the riggings, which seemed in good order; and then they all returned to the hotel. After a talk with Ryder it was arranged that they should take Ryder, a boy to wrangle the horses, and an Indian who professed to know the hunting country. These with the six packs would make eleven animals.

"It's more than I counted on taking," said Hugh, "but perhaps it's better to take a horse or two extra rather than sit around for two or three days and fuss over it. We won't save in money and we'll lose quite a little time."

By ten o'clock the provisions had been purchased and made up into convenient packs. Ryder was to furnish a tent and cook-outfit, and got the things together at the corral. Then Hugh, Jack, and Ryder and his assistant in a very short time packed all the horses except those which were to carry the provisions. These were taken down to the store and left there, and before noon the packed train, with Ryder in the lead, went out of Hope and struck up across the divide between Nicolume and the head of the Skagit River. For some distance they followed the old wagon road which leads up between high steep mountains, through beautiful scenery. The cedars and firs were grand, the mountains towered high and were streaked with white dykes, and the gulches and ravines where deciduous trees grew, were bright with the red of the mountain maples. Toward night they reached a place called Lake House, a cabin on the edge of a wide meadow—marshy with some standing water and surrounded by willows and alders. Here Jack set up his rod and caught a few fairly good trout weighing nearly half a pound apiece, and many little ones which he threw back. Hugh came up to see how he was getting along; and soon they went back to the camp together.

In the morning everything was wet, for there had been a very heavy dew. They got off in good season and after stopping once or twice to tighten, as the ropes grew dry, they went on and made good time.

During the morning they passed two or three pack trains, the animals of which were loaded with long boxes whose contents neither Hugh nor Jack could guess; but at the first opportunity they asked Ryder, who explained to them what these boxes contained.

"You see," he said, "it seems that every Chinaman, when he dies wants to go back and be buried in his own country; and they make arrangements before they die that they shall be taken back. I believe one Chinaman here has the contract of sending back all British Columbian Chinese, and he sublets the job, it being understood that the various subcontractors will deliver the bodies at certain specified places. Sometimes a Chinese is shipped soon after he dies, sometimes not for three or four years. They seal them up in zinc cases about six feet long and two feet wide and put these cases in crates of wood. These they pack lengthwise of the horse, making for them a sort of platform which rests on an aparejo. The long cases project forward from the horse's neck and back over his hips, and are pretty hard on their backs; but they ride well enough after the ropes have been thrown over them."

Not long after leaving the Lake House the wagon road came to an end, and then for a while the trail followed down the Skagit River. All day the way led through the mountains, and all day the trail kept climbing higher, so that when they camped that night Ryder said that the altitude was about five thousand feet. All day long every one was busy hurrying the horses along, and no time was taken for hunting. That night there was a heavy frost, and when they awoke the next morning, it was very cold. Five of the horses were lost, and it took some time to recover four of them, and then they moved on, leaving one behind, which, however, turned up later and was brought along. This also was a day of climbing, for they passed over a mountain about seven thousand feet high. Several times Jack and Hugh heard the familiar call of the little chief, or rock hare, so familiar an inhabitant of the slide rock of all the mountains of the main divide.