Here are the Grand Rapids. They are about three miles long. Up the first two miles the boats are pulled and poled and tracked; then comes the tug-of-war. Everything must be taken out of the boat and carried across the portage. Then the pulling of the boats across comes next. This is done on skids and rollers, and all by man's strength alone.
The ordinary load is two pieces. These pieces average one hundred pounds each. The man carries one piece on his back, sustained by a strap on his forehead; then upon this the other piece is placed. This leans up against his neck and head and acts as a brace; and away trots the man, with his two hundred pounds, on a run across the portage. Mosquitoes and "bull-dogs," and mud, valley and hill, it is all the same a necessity; he must "get there."
Some men carried three pieces each trip, and thus got through more quickly.
The whole matter was slavish, and in the long run costly; for, after all, there is no greater wealth in this world than humanity, if properly handled.
The second day, in the evening, we were across and loaded up, all ready for a new start, which we made early next morning. Still the current was rapid and our progress was slow. Now poling, now pulling, then with a line out tracking, slowly we worked up the big Saskatchewan. Crossing Cedar Lake, we entered the steady current of this mighty river.
Here we were overhauled one evening by a couple of big inland canoes, manned by Iroquois Indians, conveying Governor Dallas, who had succeeded Sir George Simpson as Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and who was now, in company with Chief Factor William Christie, as escort, on his way to visit the posts of the Company in the far north and west.
These big birch-bark canoes formed a great contrast to our heavier and clumsier boats. They were manned by stalwart fellows, who knew well how to swing a paddle and handle their frail barque in either lake-storm or river-rapid. With grace and speed and regular dip of paddles, keeping time to their canoe-song, they hove in sight and came to land beside us, and we camped together for the night.
Up and away they went early next morning to ascend the tributaries of the Saskatchewan which flow from the north country; then to make the "long portage," which would bring them to the head-waters of the great Mackenzie system; then up the Peace to the foot of the mountains, and from thence to return by the same route; while the dignitaries they have conveyed thus far will now turn southwards across long stretches of woodland prairie, and on horseback and with pack-saddles, will again come out on the Saskatchewan, at Edmonton.
With a cheer from our crews, and a song from their lips as they bent to their paddles, they left us; but their coming and going had given us a unique experience, and a still further insight into the ways and means of transport and government which obtained in this great territory.
For days our progress was very slow. Our men had to ply their oars incessantly.