(Leaving Fort Churchill.)
One of the first and most important preparations for the journey was the procuring of suitable boats, inasmuch as portability, strength and carrying capacity were all essential qualities. These were obtained from the Peterboro’ Canoe Company, who furnished us with two beautiful varnished cedar canoes, eighteen feet in length, and capable of carrying two thousand pounds each, while weighing only one hundred and twenty pounds. Arrangements had also been made to have a nineteen foot basswood canoe, used during the previous summer, and two men in readiness at Fort McMurray on the Athabasca River.
Four other canoemen were chosen to complete the party, three of them being Iroquois experts from Caughnawaga, Quebec. These three were brothers, named Pierre, Louis and Michel French. Pierre was a veteran canoeman, being as much at home in a boiling rapid as on the calmest water. For some years he had acted as ferryman at Caughnawaga, and only recently had made a reputation for himself by running the Lachine Rapids on Christmas day, out of sheer bravado. His brother Louis had won some distinction also through having accompanied Lord Wolseley as a voyageur on his Egyptian campaigns; while Michel, the youngest and smallest of the three, was known to be a good steady fellow, boasting of the same distinction as his brother Louis.
The other man, a half-breed named John Flett, was engaged at Prince Albert, in the North-West. He was highly recommended, not so much as a canoeman, but as being an expert portager of great experience in northern travel, and also an Eskimo linguist.
The two men, James Corrigal and François Maurice, who through the kindness of Mr. Moberly, the officer of the Hudson’s Bay Company at Isle-à-la-Crosse, were engaged to meet us with a third canoe at Fort McMurray, were also western half-breeds, trained in the use of the pack-straps as well as the paddle, and were a pair of fine strong fellows. Thus it was arranged to combine in our party the best skill both of canoemen and portagers.
Our reasons for not employing the Indians from Lake Athabasca were, that these natives had on nearly all previous expeditions proved to be unreliable. Such men as we had engaged, unlike these Indians, were free from any dread of the Eskimos, and as we advanced soon became entirely dependent on us as their guides. Besides, they were more accustomed to vigorous exertion at the paddle and on the portage than the local Indians, who are rather noted for their proficiency in taking life easy.
Next in importance to procuring good boats and canoemen was the acquisition of a complete set of portable mathematical instruments, but after some difficulty these, too, were obtained. The following is a list of them: One sextant with folding mercurial horizon, one solar compass, two pocket compasses, two prismatic compasses, one fluid compass, two boat logs, two clinometers, one aneroid barometer, a pair of maximum and minimum thermometers, one pocket chronometer, three good watches, a pair of field-glasses, an aluminum binocular, and a small camera. These, though numerous, were not bulky, but they comprised a part of our outfit over which much care had to be exercised throughout the journey. A bill of necessary supplies was also carefully made out, and the order for them forwarded to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s store at Edmonton, with instructions to have them freighted down the Athabasca River to Fort Chippewyan, on Lake Athabasca, as early as possible.
OUR CANOEMEN.