The Barren Ground of Northern Canada

by Warburton Pike

When we had thoroughly inspected everything we left again down stream, with a swift current and good water without rapids for eight miles, where we found another lake running more to the eastward than the general course of the river; on the west side of this lake we were obliged to camp, as a strong head-wind raised too much sea to travel against, and rain was falling in torrents. We explored the shore of the lake in hopes of finding further traces of the Esquimaux, but made no discoveries of any kind. No musk-ox were seen this day, but there were enough caribou to provide food for the party.

With better weather we made an early start in the morning, the river on leaving the lake bending a little more to the eastward, with a swift current for several miles, and two rapids which we ran in safety. A short distance below the second rapid the current slackens and the stream gets rapidly broader, till, with a sudden sweep to the south-east, the whole length of Beechey Lake comes open; a long narrow sheet of water, twenty-five miles in length, and nowhere more than two in breadth, lying east and west, and forming a well-defined elbow in the course of the Great Fish River. With a light fair wind, and a blanket set for a sail, we ran down the lake and pitched our lodge on the north shore. Two days were spent in exploration, but again we failed entirely to find any signs of the Esquimaux. Towards the east end of the lake the iron formation shows up once more, and the country is rough to travel through. There was a slight difficulty about provisions at this time as game was scarce, and, though we fully expected to catch fish in the lake and put out our net both nights, not a single fish was taken; just at the critical time, however, a few female caribou with their young turned up on their way back to the South, and we were relieved of all anxiety.

As we had promised our crew that we would not descend the river beyond Beechey Lake, and it was already the end of July, orders were reluctantly given on the third day to start up stream with the intention of doing a little exploration to the northward of the old Esquimaux camp, to see if there was any feasible route from there to Bathurst Inlet, as there were no signs of these people having camped in any other place along the river. It seemed a pity to abandon the voyage just at the interesting time, after we had got over all the difficulties of the upper part of the river and had now only a broad stream to follow, with a great deal of easy lake-travel, to reach the Arctic Ocean, and the scene of the final sufferings of the members of Sir John Franklin's last expedition. On the other hand, we had no object in going down to the sea, and there is little pleasure to be got out of a journey of this kind with an unwilling and untrustworthy crew; our canoe, too, which was already leaking badly, would have been of very little service for sea work.

As far as Beechey Lake the south side of the Great Fish River is free from any large tributary streams, so that, if our canoe had been smashed up in a rapid, and we had been able to save guns and ammunition, it would have been easy enough to follow the river on foot; but on the north side there are several large streams to be forded, and a long detour might be necessary to find a spot shallow enough for this purpose.

There was much more enthusiasm displayed by the Indian portion of the crew on the up-stream journey, and no encouragement was needful to get a good day's work done. In the river stretches the tracking line was used, and three men at the shore end of it kept the canoe travelling at a lively pace except in the very strong water; in mounting the second rapid a mistake on the part of Noel, our bowsman, caused a heavy collision with a rock, and several hours were spent in putting in a patch of birch-bark. On the second night we pitched our lodge on the sandy lake within sight of the Esquimaux camp, and found a considerable stream coming in from a north-westerly direction. I cannot find any mention of this stream in the accounts of the two former journeys down the river, nor is it marked on the maps; it was probably unnoticed on both occasions, as it comes in at the west end of the lake, out of the course of a canoe passing up or down the main river.

Mackinlay, Murdo, and myself started on foot the following morning, to explore this stream for a couple of days, taking David with us in case we came across any of his countrymen. The malcontents were left in charge of the camp, with orders to kill caribou if any passed, and partially dry the meat to save the waste of time caused by having to hunt for our living as we travelled; they were also to thoroughly gum the canoe, to stop as much as possible the leaking which was getting serious.

We struck out along the bank of the stream, carrying nothing but a gun and a blanket apiece, and at dinner-time were lucky enough to find a flock of moulting Canada geese, unable to fly; four were shot, and two eaten at once, while the other two were stowed away among the rocks for use later on. We had a long day's walk through a pleasant grassy country, and towards evening crossed an unusually high range of hills through which the river cañons. Finding a few willows here, we left our blankets, and walked on along the bank for an hour or two, finally climbing a solitary sand-butte at sundown for a last survey of the country before turning our faces to the south.

Far away towards the north-west we could trace the windings of the stream to a ridge of blue hills, which formed the horizon under the setting sun. How these blue ridges in the distance tempt one to push on and see what lies on the far side! And the experience that nine times out of ten you would have done better to stay where you were is never sufficient to overcome this feeling; to this day I can seldom resist it, although game may be plentiful at the door of my lodge and everything that one desires in a wild country is close at hand. Below us lay a broad valley, so green and fertile in appearance that we could hardly realise that for nine months in the year it lay frost-bound and snow-covered under the rigour of an Arctic climate. In the middle of this valley, close to the bank of the stream, was a black object that we had long ago learnt to recognise at a glance, an old bull musk-ox feeding in a patch of willow-scrub; he was sacrificed for our night's rations, and, loaded with meat and marrow-bones, we returned to the cañon where we had left our blankets. There was a distinct twilight, and late in the night David awoke me to draw my attention to the first star that we had seen for many weeks. "See," he said, "a star already; it is past middle summer, and we have not yet seen the sun all night." It was the first summer he had ever spent without seeing the midnight sun, as, since he had been left at the Peel River Fort by a band of Esquimaux who come there annually to trade, he had passed his life within the Arctic circle.

The only signs that we saw of people having travelled along this valley were occasional cache-marks made by piling up a heap of small stones in a conspicuous position, to denote the carcass of an animal hidden in the rocks close by; but it seems such an easy route and leads so nearly in the direction of Bathurst Inlet, the nearest point on the sea-coast, that it is probably used regularly by wandering bands of Esquimaux on their way to and from their inland hunting-ground.

This was the end of our voyage of discovery, though I should have liked to have pushed on another day or two; but we wanted a small canoe to be certain of reaching the coast, which must have been within sixty miles of us, as there are sure to be many lakes to cross en route, and making long detours on foot would be an endless task. The fine weather also had broken, and heavy showers of rain came driving in front of the north wind, while the rest of our crew that had remained with the canoe were not too trustworthy, and, with the exception of Saltatha, in whom both Mackinlay and myself had great confidence, were quite capable of leaving us to find our way out of the country on foot. We had to content ourselves with the hope that in a future summer, with an earlier season and a better crew, we might find an opportunity of exploring thoroughly this promising valley in the Barren Ground. But now I must turn my attention to my long journey of seventeen hundred miles, mostly up-stream, to cross the Rocky Mountains by the head-waters of the Peace River before the winter set in; and even if I could manage this there were still many hundred miles of mountain and forest to be crossed before I saw the shores of the Pacific and the abodes of civilization.