The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Long Labrador Trail, by Dillon Wallace This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Long Labrador Trail Author: Dillon Wallace Posting Date: December 16, 2011 [EBook #9857] Release Date: February, 2006 First Posted: October 24, 2003 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONG LABRADOR TRAIL *** Produced by Martin Schub The Long Labrador Trail by Dillon Wallace Author of “The Lure of the Labrador Wild,” etc. Illustrated MCMXVII TO THE MEMORY OF MY WIFE “A drear and desolate shore! Where no tree unfolds its leaves, And never the spring wind weaves Green grass for the hunter’s tread; A land forsaken and dead, Where the ghostly icebergs go And come with the ebb and flow...” Whittier’s “The Rock-tomb of Bradore.” PREFACE In the summer of 1903 when Leonidas Hubbard, Jr., went to Labrador to explore a section of the unknown interior it was my privilege to accompany him as his companion and friend. The world has heard of the disastrous ending of our little expedition, and how Hubbard, fighting bravely and heroically to the last, finally succumbed to starvation. Before his death I gave him my promise that should I survive I would write and publish the story of the journey. In “The Lure of The Labrador Wild” that pledge was kept to the best of my ability. While Hubbard and I were struggling inland over those desolate wastes, where life was always uncertain, we entered into a compact that in case one of us fall the other would carry to completion the exploratory work that he had planned and begun. Providence willed that it should become my duty to fulfil this compact, and the following pages are a record of how it was done. Not I, but Hubbard, planned the journey of which this book tells, and from him I received the inspiration and with him the training and experience that enabled me to succeed. It was his spirit that led me on over the wearisome trails, and through the rushing rapids, and to him and to his memory belong the credit and the honor of success. D. W. February, 1907. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE VOICE OF THE WILDERNESS II. ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE UNKNOWN III. THE LAST OF CIVILIZATION IV. ON THE OLD INDIAN TRAIL V. WE GO ASTRAY VI. LAKE NIPISHISH IS REACHED VII. SCOUTING FOR THE TRAIL VIII. SEAL LAKE AT LAST IX. WE LOSE THE TRAIL X. “WE SEE MICHIKAMAU” XI. THE PARTING AT MICHIKAMAU XII. OVER THE NORTHERN DIVIDE XIII. DISASTER IN THE RAPIDS XIV. TIDE WATER AND THE POST XV. OFF WITH THE ESKIMOS XVI. CAUGHT BY THE ARCTIC ICE XVII. TO WHALE RIVER AND FORT CHIMO XVIII. THE INDIANS OF THE NORTH XIX. THE ESKIMOS OF LABRADOR XX. THE SLEDGE JOURNEY BEGUN XXI. CROSSING THE BARRENS XXII. ON THE ATLANTIC ICE XXIII. BACK TO NORTHWEST RIVER XXIV. THE END OF THE LONG TRAIL APPENDIX ILLUSTRATIONS The Perils of the Rapids (in color, from a painting by Oliver Kemp) Ice Encountered Off the Labrador Coast “The Time For Action Had Come” “Camp Was Moved to the First Small Lake” “We Found a Long-disused Log Cache of the Indians” Below Lake Nipishish Through Ponds and Marshes Northward Toward Otter Lake “We Shall Call the River Babewendigash” “Pete, Standing by the Prostrate Caribou, Was Grinning From Ear to Ear” “A Network of Lakes and the Country as Level as a Table” Michikamau “Writing Letters to the Home Folks” “Our Lonely Perilous Journey Toward the Dismal Wastes ...Was Begun” Abandoned Indian Camp On the Shore of Lake Michikamats “One of the Wigwams Was a Large One and Oblong in Shape” “At Last ...We Saw the Post” “A Miserable Little Log Shack” A Group of Eskimo Women A Labrador Type Eskimo Children A Snow Igloo The Silence of the North (in color, from a painting by Frederic C. Stokes) “Nachvak Post of the Hudson’s Bay Company”. “The Hills Grew Higher and Higher” “We Turned Into a Pass Leading to the Northward” The Moravian Mission at Ramah “Plodding Southward Over the Endless Snow” “Nain, the Moravian Headquarters in Labrador” “The Indians Were Here” Geological Specimens Maps. THE LONG LABRADOR TRAIL CHAPTER I THE VOICE OF THE WILDERNESS “It’s always the way, Wallace! When a fellow starts on the long trail, he’s never willing to quit. It’ll be the same with you if you go with me to Labrador. When you come home, you’ll hear the voice of the wilderness calling you to return, and it will lure you back again.” It seems but yesterday that Hubbard uttered those prophetic words as he and I lay before our blazing camp fire in the snow-covered Shawangunk Mountains on that November night in the year 1901, and planned that fateful trip into the unexplored Labrador wilderness which was to cost my dear friend his life, and both of us indescribable sufferings and hardships. And how true a prophecy it was! You who have smelled the camp fire smoke; who have drunk in the pure forest air, laden with the smell of the fir tree; who have dipped your paddle into untamed waters, or climbed mountains, with the knowledge that none but the red man has been there before you; or have, perchance, had to fight the wilds and nature for your very existence; you of the wilderness brotherhood can understand how the fever of exploration gets into one’s blood and draws one back again to the forests and the barrens in spite of resolutions to “go no more.” It was more than this, however, that lured me back to Labrador. There was the vision of dear old Hubbard as I so often saw him during our struggle through that rugged northland wilderness, wasted in form and ragged in dress, but always hopeful and eager, his undying spirit and indomitable will focused in his words to me, and I can still see him as he looked when he said them: “The work must be done, Wallace, and if one of us falls before it is completed the other must finish it.” I went back to Labrador to do the work he had undertaken, but which he was not permitted to accomplish. His exhortation appealed to me as a command from my leader—​a call to duty. Hubbard had planned to penetrate the Labrador peninsula from Groswater Bay, following the old northern trail of the Mountaineer Indians from Northwest River Post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, situated on Groswater Bay, one hundred and forty miles inland from the eastern coast, to Lake Michikamau, thence through the lake and northward over the divide, where he hoped to locate the headwaters of the George River. It was his intention to pass down this river until he reached the hunting camps of the Nenenot or Nascaupee Indians, there witness the annual migration of the caribou to the eastern seacoast, which tradition said took place about the middle or latter part of September, and to be present at the “killing,” when the Indians, it was reported, secured their winter’s supply of provisions by spearing the caribou while the herds were swimming the river. The caribou hunt over, he was to have returned across country to the St. Lawrence or retrace his steps to Northwest River Post, whichever might seem advisable. Should the season, however, be too far advanced to permit of a safe return, he was to have proceeded down the river to its mouth, at Ungava Bay, and return to civilization in winter with dogs. The country through which we were to have traveled was to be mapped so far as possible, and observations made of the geological formation and of the flora, and as many specimens collected as possible. This, then, Hubbard’s plan, was the plan which I adopted and which I set out to accomplish, when, in March, 1905, I finally decided to return to Labrador. It was advisable to reach Hamilton Inlet with the opening of navigation and make an early start into the country, for every possible day of the brief summer would be needed for our purpose. It was, as I fully realized, no small undertaking. Many hundreds of miles of unknown country must be traversed, and over mountains and through marshes for long distances our canoes and outfit would have to be transported upon the backs of the men comprising my party, as pack animals cannot be used in Labrador. Through immense stretches of country there would be no sustenance for them, and, in addition to this, the character of the country itself forbids their use. The personnel of the expedition required much thought. I might with one canoe and one or two professional Indian packers travel more rapidly than with men unused to exploration work, but in that case scientific research would have to be slighted. I therefore decided to sacrifice speed to thoroughness and to take with me men who, even though they might not be physically able to carry the large packs of the professional voyageur, would in other respects lend valuable assistance to the work in hand. My projected return to Labrador was no sooner announced than numerous applications came to me from young men anxious to join the expedition. After careful investigation, I finally selected as my companions George M. Richards, of Columbia University, as geologist and to aid me in the topographical work, Clifford H. Easton, who had been a student in the School of Forestry at Biltmore, North Carolina (both residents of New York), and Leigh Stanton, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, a veteran of the Boer War, whom I had met at the lumber camps in Groswater Bay, Labrador, in the winter of 1903-1904, when he was installing the electric light plant in the large lumber mill there. It was desirable to have at least one Indian in the party as woodsman, hunter and general camp servant. For this position my friend, Frank H. Keefer, of Port Arthur, Ontario, recommended to me, and at my request engaged, Peter Stevens, a full-blood Ojibway Indian, of Grand Marais, Minnesota. “Pete” arrived in New York under the wing of the railway conductor during the last week in May. In the meantime I had devoted myself to the selection and purchase of our instruments and general outfit. Everything must be purchased in advance—from canoes to repair kit—as my former experience in Labrador had taught me. It may be of interest to mention the most important items of outfit and the food supply with which we were provided: Two canvas-covered canoes, one nineteen and one eighteen feet in length; one seven by nine “A” tent, made of waterproof “balloon” silk; one tarpaulin, seven by nine feet; folding tent stove and pipe; two tracking lines; three small axes; cooking outfit, con-sisting of two frying pans, one mixing pan and three aluminum kettles; an aluminum plate, cup and spoon for each man; one .33 caliber high-power Winchester rifle and two 44-40 Winchester carbines (only one of these carbines was taken with us from New York, and this was intended as a reserve gun in case the party should separate and return by different routes. The other was one used by Stanton when previously in Labrador, and taken by him in addition to the regular outfit). One double barrel 12-gauge shotgun; two ten-inch barrel single shot .22 caliber pistols for partridges and small game; ammunition; tumplines; three fishing rods and tackle, including trolling outfits; one three and one-half inch gill net; repair kit, including necessary material for patching canoes, clothing, etc.; matches, and a medicine kit. The following instruments were also carried: Three minimum registering thermometers; one aneroid barometer which was tested and set for me by the United States Weather Bureau; one clinometer; one pocket transit; three compasses; one pedometer; one taffrail log; one pair binoculars; three No. 3A folding pocket Kodaks, sixty rolls of films, each roll sealed in a tin can and waterproofed, and six “Vanguard” watches mounted in dust- proof cases. Each man was provided with a sheath knife and a waterproof match box, and his personal kit, containing a pair of blankets and clothing, was carried in a waterproof canvas bag. I may say here in reference to these waterproof bags and the “balloon” silk tent that they were of the same manufacture as those used on the Hubbard expedition and for their purpose as nearly perfect as it is possible to make them. The tent weighed but nine pounds, was windproof, and, like the bags, absolutely waterproof, and the material strong and firm. Our provision supply consisted of 298 pounds of pork; 300 pounds of flour; 45 pounds of corn meal; 40 pounds of lentils; 28 pounds of rice; 25 pounds of erbswurst; 10 pounds of prunes; a few packages of dried vegetables; some beef bouillon tablets; 6 pounds of baking powder; 16 pounds of tea; 6 pounds of coffee; 15 pounds of sugar; 14 pounds of salt; a small amount of saccharin and crystallose, and 150 pounds of pemmican. Everything likely to be injured by water was packed in waterproof canvas bags. My friend Dr. Frederick A. Cook, of the Arctic Club, selected my medical kit, and instructed me in the use of its simple remedies. It was also upon the recommendation of Dr. Cook and others of my Arctic Club friends that I purchased the pemmican, which was designed as an emergency ration, and it is worth noting that one pound of pemmican, as our experience demonstrated, was equal to two or even three pounds of any other food that we carried. Its ingredients are ground dried beef, tallow, sugar, raisins and currants. We had planned to go north from St. Johns on the Labrador mail boat Virginia Lake, which, as I had been informed by the Reid-Newfoundland Company, was expected to sail from St. Johns on her first trip on or about June tenth. This made it necessary for us to leave New York on the Red Cross Line steamer Rosalind sailing from Brooklyn on May thirtieth; and when, at eleven-thirty that Tuesday morning, the Rosalind cast loose from her wharf, we and our outfit were aboard, and our journey of eleven long months was begun. As I waved farewell to our friends ashore I recalled that other day two years before, when Hubbard and I had stood on the Silvia’s deck, and I said to myself: “Well, this, too, is Hubbard’s trip. His spirit is with me. It was he, not I, who planned this Labrador work, and if I succeed it will be because of him and his influence.” I was glad to be away. With every throb of the engine my heart grew lighter. I was not thinking of the perils I was to face with my new companions in that land where Hubbard and I had suffered so much. The young men with me were filled with enthusiasm at the prospect of adventure in the silent and mysterious country for which they were bound. CHAPTER II ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE UNKNOWN “When shall we reach Rigolet, Captain?” “Before daylight, I hopes, sir, if the fog holds off, but there’s a mist settling, and if it gets too thick, we may have to come to.” Crowded with an unusual cargo of humanity, fishermen going to their summer work on “The Labrador” with their accompanying tackle and household goods, meeting with many vexatious delays in discharging the men and goods at the numerous ports of call, and impeded by fog and wind, the mail boat Virginia Lake had been much longer than is her wont on her trip “down north.” It was now June twenty-first. Six days before (June fifteenth), when we boarded the ship at St. Johns we had been informed that the steamer Harlow, with a cargo for the lumber mills at Kenemish, in Groswater Bay, was to leave Halifax that very afternoon. She could save us a long and disagreeable trip in an open boat, ninety miles up Groswater Bay, and I bad hoped that we might reach Rigolet in time to secure a passage for myself and party from that point. But the Harlow had no ports of call to make, and it was predicted that her passage from Halifax to Rigolet would be made in four days. I had no hope now of reaching Rigolet before her, or of finding her there, and, resigned to my fate, I left the captain on the bridge and went below to my stateroom to rest until daylight. Some time in the night I was aroused by some one saying: “We’re at Rigolet, sir, and there’s a ship at anchor close by.” Whether I had been asleep or not, I was fully awake now, and found that the captain had come to tell me of our arrival. The fog had held off and we had done much better than the captain’s prediction. Hurrying into my clothes, I went on deck, from which, through the slight haze that hung over the water, I could discern the lights of a ship, and beyond, dimly visible, the old familiar line of Post buildings showing against the dark spruce- covered hills behind, where the great silent forest begins. All was quiet save for the thud, thud, thud of the oarlocks of a small boat approaching our ship and the dismal howl of a solitary “husky” dog somewhere ashore. The captain had preceded me on deck, and in answer to my inquiries as to her identity said he did not know whether the stranger at anchor was the Harlow or not, but he thought it was. We had to wait but a moment, however, for the information. The small boat was already alongside, and John Groves, a Goose Bay trader and one of my friends of two years before, clambered aboard and had me by the hand. “I’m glad to see you, sir; and how is you?” Assuring him that I was quite well, I asked the name of the other ship. “The Harlow, sir, an’ she’s goin’ to Kenemish with daylight.” “Well, I must get aboard of her then, and try to get a passage up. Is your flat free, John, to take me aboard of her?” “Yes, sir. Step right in, sir. But I thinks you’d better go ashore, for the Harlow’s purser’s ashore. If you can’t get passage on the Harlow my schooner’s here doing nothin’ while I goes to St. Johns for goods, and I’ll have my men run you up to Nor’west River.” I thanked him and lost no time in going ashore in his boat, where I found Mr. James Fraser, the factor, and received a hearty welcome. In Mr. Fraser’s office I found also the purser of the Harlow, and I quickly arranged with him for a passage to Kenemish, which is ninety miles up the inlet, and just across Groswater Bay (twelve miles) from Northwest River Post. The Harlow was to sail at daylight and I at once returned to the mail boat, called the boys and, with the help of the Virginia’s crew and one of their small boats, we were transferred, bag and baggage, to the Harlow. Owing to customs complications the Harlow was later than expected in leaving Rigolet, and it was evening before she dropped anchor at Kenemish. I went ashore in the ship’s boat and visited again the lumber camp “cook house” where Dr. Hardy and I lay ill throng those weary winter weeks, and where poor Hardy died. Hardy was the young lumber company doctor who treated my frozen feet in the winter of 1903- 1904. Here I met Fred Blake, a Northwest River trapper. Fred had his flat, and I engaged him to take a part of our luggage to Northwest River. Then I returned to the ship to send the boys ahead with the canoes and some of our baggage, while I waited behind to follow with Fred and the rest of the kit in his flat a half hour later. Fred and I were hardly a mile from the ship when a heavy thunderstorm broke upon us, and we were soon drenching wet—the baptism of our expedition. This rain was followed by a dense fog and early darkness. On and on we rowed, and I was berating myself for permitting the men to go on so far ahead of us with the canoes, for they did not know the way and the fog had completely shut out the lights of the Post buildings, which otherwise would have been visible across the bay for a considerable distance. Suddenly through the fog and darkness, from shoreward, came a “Hello! Hello!” We answered, and heading our boat toward the sound of continued “Hellos,” found the men, with the canoes unloaded and hauled ashore, preparing to make a night camp. I joined them and, launching and reloading the canoes again, with Richards and Easton in one canoe and Pete and I in the other, we followed Fred and Stanton, who preceded us in the rowboat, keeping our canoes religiously within earshot of Fred’s thumping oarlocks. Finally the fog lifted, and not far away we caught a glimmer of lights at the French Post. All was dark at the Hudson Bay Post across the river when at last our canoes touched the sandy beach and we sprang ashore. What a flood of remembrances came to me as I stepped again upon the old familiar ground! How vividly I remembered that June day when Hubbard and I had first set foot on this very ground and Mackenzie had greeted us so cordially! And also that other day in November when, ragged and starved, I came here to tell of Hubbard, lying dead in the dark forest beyond! The same dogs that I had known then came running to meet us now, the faithful fellows with which I began that sad funeral journey homeward over the ice. I called some of them by name “Kumalik,” “Bo’sun,” “Captain,” “Tinker”—​and they pushed their great heads against my legs and, I believe, recognized me. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning. We went immediately to the Post house and roused out Mr. Stuart Cotter, the agent (Mackenzie is no longer there), and received from him a royal welcome. He called his Post servant and instructed him to bring in our things, and while we changed our dripping clothes for dry ones, his housekeeper prepared a light supper. It was five o’clock in the morning when I retired. In the previous autumn I had written Duncan McLean, one of the four men who came to my rescue on the Susan River, that should I ever come to Labrador again and be in need of a man I would like to engage him. Cotter told me that Duncan had just come from his trapping path and was at the Post kitchen, so when we had finished breakfast, at eight o’clock that morning, I saw Duncan and, as he was quite willing to go with us, I arranged with him to accompany us a short distance into the country to help us pack over the first portage and to bring back letters. He expressed a wish to visit his father at Kenemish before starting into the country, but promised to be back the next evening ready for the start on Monday morning, the twenty-sixth, and I consented. I knew hard work was before us, and as I wished all hands to be well rested and fresh at the outset, I felt that a couple of days’ idleness would do us no harm. Some five hundred yards east of Mr. Cotter’s house is an old, abandoned mission chapel, and behind it an Indian burying ground. The cleared space of level ground between the house and chapel was, for a century or more, the camping ground of the Mountaineer Indians who come to the Post each spring to barter or sell their furs. In the olden time there were nearly a hundred families of them, whose hunting ground was that section of country between Hamilton Inlet and the Upper George River. These people now, for the most part, hunt south of the inlet and trade at the St. Lawrence Posts. The chapel was erected about 1872, but ten years ago the Jesuit missionary was withdrawn, and since then the building has fallen into decay and ruin, and the crosses that marked the graves in the old burying grounds have been broken down by the heavy winter snows. It was this withdrawal of the missionary that turned the Indians to the southward, where priests are more easily found. The Mountaineer Indian, unlike the Nascaupee, is very religious, and must, at least once a year, meet his father confessor. The camping ground since the abandonment of the mission, has lain lonely and deserted, save for three or four families who, occasionally in the summer season, come back again to pitch their tents where their forefathers camped and held their annual feasts in the old days. Competition between the trading companies at this point has raised the price of furs to such an extent that the few families of Indians that trade at this Post are well-to-do and very independent. There were two tents of them here when we arrived—five men and several women and children. I found two of my old friends there—John and William Ahsini. They expressed pleasure in meeting me again, and a lively interest in our trip. With Mr. Cotter acting as interpreter, John made for me a map of the old Indian trail from Grand Lake to Seal Lake, and William a map to Lake Michikamau and over the height of land to the George River, indicating the portages and principal intervening lakes as they remembered them. Seal Lake is a large lake expansion of the Nascaupee River, which river, it should be explained, is the outlet of Lake Michikamau and discharges its waters into Grand Lake and through Grand Lake into Groswater Bay. Lake Michikamau, next to Lake Mistasinni, is the larg-est lake in the Labrador peninsula, and approximately from eighty to ninety miles in length. Neither John nor William had been to Lake Michikamau by this route since they were young lads, but they told us that the Indians, when traveling very light without their families, used to make the journey in twenty- three days. During my previous stay in Labrador one Indian told me it could be done in ten days, while another said that Indians traveling very fast would require about thirty days. It is difficult to base calculations upon information of this kind. But I was sure that, with our com-paratively heavy outfit, and the fact that we would have to find the trail for ourselves, we should require at least twice the time of the Indians, who know every foot of the way as we know our familiar city streets at home. They expressed their belief that the old trail could be easily found, and assured us that each portage, as we asked about it in detail, was a “miam potagan” (good portage), but at the same time expressed their doubts as to our ability to cross the country safely. In fact, it has always been the Indians’ boast, and I have heard it many times, that no white man could go from Groswater Bay to Ungava alive without Indians to help him through. “Pete” was a Lake Superior Indian and had never run a rapid in his life. He was to spend the night with Tom Blake and his family in their snug little log cabin, and be ready for an early start up Grand Lake on the morrow. It was Tom that headed the little party sent by me up the Susan Valley to bring to the Post Hubbard’s body in March, 1904; and it was through his perseverance, loyalty and hard work at the time that I finally succeeded in recovering the body. Tom’s daughter, Lillie, was Mackenzie’s little housekeeper, who showed me so many kindnesses then. The whole family, in fact, were very good to me during those trying days, and I count them among my true and loyal friends. We had supper with Cotter, who sang some Hudson’s Bay songs, Richards sang a jolly college song or two, Stanton a “classic,” and then all who could sing joined in “Auld Lang Syne.” My thoughts were of that other day, when Hubbard, so full of hope, had begun this same journey-of the sunshine and fleecy clouds and beckoning fir tops, and I wondered what was in store for us now. CHAPTER III THE LAST OF CIVILIZATION The time for action had come. Our canoes were loaded near the wharf, we said good-by to Cotter and a group of native trapper friends, and as we took our places in the canoes and dipped our paddles into the waters that were to carry us northward the Post flag was run up on the flagpole as a salute and farewell, and we were away. We soon rounded the point, and Cotter and the trappers and the Post were lost to view. Duncan was to follow later in the evening in his rowboat with some of our outfit which we left in his charge. Silently we paddled through the “little lake.” The clouds hung somber and dull with threatening rain, and a gentle breeze wafted to us now and again a bit of fragrance from the spruce-covered hills above us. Almost before I realized it we were at the rapid. Away to the westward stretched Grand Lake, deep and dark and still, with the rugged outline of Cape Corbeau in the distance. Tom Blake and his family, one and all, came out to give us the whole-souled, hospitable welcome of “The Labrador.” Even Atikamish, the little Indian dog that Mackenzie used to have, but which he had given to Tom when he left Northwest River, was on hand to tell me in his dog language that he remembered me and was delighted to see me back. Here we would stay for the night—the last night for months that we were to sleep in a habitation of civilized man. The house was a very comfortable little log dwelling containing a small kitchen, a larger living-room which also served as a sleeping-room, and an attic which was the boys’ bedroom. The house was comfortably furnished, everything clean to perfection, and the atmos-phere of love and home that dwelt here was long remembered by us while we huddled in many a dreary camp during the weeks that followed. Duncan did not come that night, and it was not until ten o’clock the next morning (June twenty-seventh) that he appeared. Then we made ready for the start. Tom and his young son Henry announced their intention of accompanying us a short distance up Grand Lake in their small sailboat. Mrs. Blake gave us enough bread and buns, which she had baked especially for us, to last two or three days, and she gave us also a few fresh eggs, saying, “’Twill be a long time before you has eggs again.” At half-past ten o’clock our canoes were afloat, farewell was said, and we were beyond the last fringe of civilization. The morning was depressing and the sky was overcast with low-hanging, heavy clouds, but almost with our start, as if to give us courage for our work and fire our blood, the leaden curtain was drawn aside and the deep blue dome of heaven rose above us. The sun shone warm and bright, and the smell of the fresh damp forest, the incense of the wilderness gods, was carried to us by a puff of wind from the south which enabled Duncan to hoist his sails. The rest of us bent to our paddles, and all were eager to plunge into the unknown and solve the mystery of what lay beyond the horizon. Our nineteen-foot canoe was manned by Pete in the bow, Stanton in the center and Easton in the stern, while I had the bow and Richards the stern of the eighteen-foot canoe. We paddled along the north shore of the lake, close to land. Stanton, with an eye for fresh meat, espied a porcupine near the water’s edge and stopped to kill it, thus gaining the honor of having bagged the first game of the trip. At twelve o’clock we halted for luncheon, in almost the same spot where Hubbard and I had lunched when going up Grand Lake two years before. While Pete cooked bacon and eggs and made tea, Stanton and Richards dressed the porcupine for supper. After luncheon we cut diagonally across the lake to the southern shore, passed Cape Corbeau River and landed near the base of Cape Corbeau bluff, that the elevation might be taken and geological specimens secured. After making our observations we turned again toward the northern shore, where more specimens were collected. Here Tom and Henry Blake said goodby to us and turned homeward. During the afternoon Stanton and I each killed a porcupine, making three in all for the day—​a good beginning in the matter of game. At sunset we landed at Watty’s Brook, a small stream flowing into Grand Lake from the north, and some twenty miles above the rapid. Our progress during the day had been slow, as the wind had died away and we had, several times, to wait for Duncan to overtake us in his slower rowboat. While the rest of us “made camp” Duncan cut wood for a rousing fire, as the evening was cool, and Pete put a porcupine to boil for supper. We were a hungry crowd when we sat down to eat. I had told the boys how good porcupine was, how it resembled lamb and what a treat we were to have. But all porcupines are not alike, and this one was not within my reckoning. Tough! He was certainly “the oldest inhabitant,” and after vain efforts to chew the leathery meat, we turned in disgust to bread and coffee, and Easton, at least, lost faith forever in my judgment of toothsome game, and formed a particular prejudice against porcupines which he never overcame. Pete assured us, however, that, “This porcupine, he must boil long. I boil him again to-night and boil him again to-morrow morning. Then he very good for breakfast. Porcupine fine. Old one must be cooked long.” So Pete, after supper, put the porcupine on to cook some more, promising that we should find it nice and tender for breakfast. As I sat that night by the low-burning embers of our first camp fire I forgot my new companions. Through the gathering night mists I could just discern the dim outlines of the opposite shore of Grand Lake. It was over there, just west of that high spectral bluff, that Hubbard and I, on a wet July night, had pitched our first camp of the other trip. In fancy I was back again in that camp and Hubbard was talking to me and telling me of the “bully story” of the mystic land of won-ders that lay “behind the ranges” he would have to take back to the world. “We’re going to traverse a section no white man has ever seen,” he exclaimed, “and we’ll add something to the world’s knowledge of geography at least, and that’s worth while. No matter how little a man may add to the fund of human knowledge it’s worth the doing, for it’s by little bits that we’ve learned to know so much of our old world. There’s some hard work before us, though, up there in those hills, and some hardships to meet.” Ah, if we had only known! Some one said it was time to “turn in,” and I was brought suddenly to a sense of the present, but a feeling of sadness possessed me when I took my place in the crowded tent, and I lay awake long, thinking of those other days. Clear and crisp was the morning of June twenty-eighth. The atmosphere was bracing and delightful, the azure of the sky above us shaded to the most delicate tints of blue at the horizon, and, here and there, bits of clouds, like bunches of cotton, flecked the sky. The sun broke grandly over the rugged hills, and the lake, like molten silver, lay before us. A fringe of ice had formed during the night along the shore. We broke it and bathed our hands and faces in the cool water, then sat down in a circle near our camp fire to renew our attack upon the porcupine, which had been sending out a most delicious odor from the kettle where Pete had it cooking. But alas for our expectations! Our teeth would make no impression upon it, and Easton remarked that “the rubber trust ought to hunt porcupines, for they are a lot tougher than rubber and just as pliable.” “I don’t know why,” said Pete sadly. “I boil him long time.” That day we continued our course along the northern shore of the lake until we reached the deep bay which Hubbard and I had failed to enter and explore on the other trip, and which failure had resulted so tragically. This bay is some five miles from the westerly end of Grand Lake, and is really the mouth of the Nascaupee and Crooked Rivers which flow into the upper end of it. There was little or no wind and we had to go slowly to permit Duncan, in his rowboat, to keep pace with us. Darkness was not far off when we reached Duncan’s tilt (a small log hut), three miles up the Nascaupee River, where we stopped for the night. This is the tilt in which Allen Goudy and Duncan lived at the time they came to my rescue in 1903, and where I spent three days getting strength for my trip down Grand Lake to the Post. It is Duncan’s sup-ply base in the winter months when he hunts along the Nascaupee River, one hundred and twenty miles inland to Seal Lake. On this hunting “path” Duncan has two hundred and fifty marten and forty fox traps, and, in the spring, a few bear traps besides. The country has been burned here. Just below Duncan’s tilt is a spruce-covered island, but the mainland has a stunted new growth of spruce, with a few white birch, covering the wreck of the primeval forest that was flame swept thirty odd years ago. Over some considerable areas no new growth to speak of has appeared, and the charred remains of the dead trees stand stark and gray, or lie about in confusion upon the ground, giving the country a particularly dreary and desolate appearance. The morning of June twenty-ninth was overcast and threatened rain, but toward evening the sky cleared. Progress was slow, for the current in the river here was very strong, and paddling or rowing against it was not easy. We had to stop several times and wait for Duncan to overtake us with his boat. Once he halted to look at a trap where he told us he had caught six black bears. It was nearly sunset when we reached the mouth of the Red River, nineteen miles above Grand Lake, where it flows into the Nascaupee from the west. This is a wide, shallow stream whose red-brown waters were quite in contrast to the clear waters of the Nas-caupee. Opposite the mouth of the Red River, and on the eastern shore of the Nascaupee, is the point where the old Indian trail was said to begin, and on a knoll some fifty feet above the river we saw the wigwam poles of an old Indian camp, and a solitary grave with a rough fence around it. Here we landed and awaited Duncan, who had stopped at another of his trapping tilts three or four hundred yards below. When he joined us a little later, in answer to my inquiry as to whether this was the beginning of the old trail, he answered, “’Tis where they says the Indians came out, and some of the Indians has told me so. I supposes it’s the place, sir.” “But have you never hunted here yourself?” I asked. “No, sir, I’ve never been in here at all. I travels right past up the Nascaupee. All I knows about it, sir, is what they tells me. I always follows the Nascaupee, sir.” Above us rose a high, steep hill covered for two-thirds of the way from its base with a thick growth of underbrush, but quite barren on top save for a few bunches of spruce brush. The old trail, unused for eight or ten years, headed toward the hill and was quite easily traced for some fifty yards from the old camp. Then it disappeared completely in a dense undergrowth of willows, alders and spruce. While Pete made preparation for our supper and Duncan unloaded his boat and hauled it up preparatory to leaving it until his return from the interior, the rest of us tried to follow the trail through the brush. But beyond where the thick undergrowth began there was nothing at all that, to us, resembled a trail. Finally, I instructed Pete to go with Richards and see what he could do while the rest of us made camp. Pete started ahead, forging his way through the thick growth. In ten minutes I heard him shout from the hillside, “He here—I find him,” and saw Pete hurrying up the steep incline. When Richards and Pete returned an hour later we had camp pitched and supper cooking. They reported the trail, as far as they had gone, very rough and hard to find. For some distance it would have to be cut out with an ax, and nowhere was it bigger than a rabbit run. Duncan rather favored going as far, as Seal Lake by the trail that he knew and which followed the Nascaupee. This trail he believed to be much easier than the long unused Indian trail, which was undoubtedly in many places entirely obscured and in any case extremely difficult to follow. I dismissed his suggestion, however, with little consideration. My, object was to trace the old Indian trail and explore as much of the country as possible, and not to hide myself in an enclosed river valley. Therefore, I decided that next day we should scout ahead to the first water to which the trail led and cut out the trail where necessary. The work I knew would be hard, but we were expecting to do hard work. We were not on a summer picnic. A rabbit which Stanton had shot and a spruce grouse that fell before Pete’s pistol, together with what remained of our porcupine, hot coffee, and Mrs. Blake’s good bread, made a supper that we ate with zest while we talked over the prospects of the trail. Supper fin-ished, Pete carefully washed his dishes, then carefully washed his dishcloth, which latter he hung upon a bough near the fire to dry. His cleanliness about his cooking was a revelation to me. I had never before seen a camp man or guide so neat in this respect. The real work of the trip was now to begin, the hard portaging, the trail finding and trail making, and we were to break the seal of a land that had, through the ages, held its secret from all the world, excepting the red man. This is what we were thinking of when we gathered around our camp fire that evening, and filled and lighted our pipes and puffed silently while we watched the newborn stars of evening come into being one by one until the arch of heaven was aglow with the splendor of a Labrador night. And when we at length went to our bed of spruce boughs it was to dream of strange scenes and new worlds that we were to conquer. CHAPTER IV ON THE OLD INDIAN TRAIL Next morning we scouted ahead and found that the trail led to a small lake some five and a half miles beyond our camp. For a mile or so the brush was pretty thick and the trail was difficult to follow, but beyond that it was comparatively well defined though exceedingly steep, the hill rising to an elevation of one thousand and fifty feet above the Nascaupee River in the first two miles. We had fifteen hundred pounds of outfit to carry upon our backs, and I realized that at first we should have to trail slowly and make several loads of it, for, with the exception of Pete, none of the men was in training. The work was totally different from anything to which they had been accustomed, and as I did not wish to break their spirits or their ardor, I instructed them to carry only such packs as they could walk under with perfect ease until they should become hardened to the work. The weather had been cool and bracing, but as if to add to our difficulties the sun now boiled down, and the black flies—“the devil’s angels” some one called them, came in thousands to feast upon the newcomers and make life miserable for us all. Duncan was as badly treated by them as any of us, although he belonged to the country, and I overheard him swearing at a lively gait soon after the little beasts began their attacks. “Why, Duncan,” said I, “I didn’t know you swore.” “I does, sir, sometimes—​when things makes me,” he replied. “But it doesn’t help matters any to swear, does it?” “No, sir, but” (swatting his face) “damn the flies—​it’s easin’ to the feelin’s to swear sometimes.” On several occasions after this I heard Duncan “easin’ his feelin’s” in long and astounding bursts of profane eloquence, but he did try to moderate his language when I was within earshot. Once I asked him: “Where in the world did you learn to swear like that, Duncan?” “At the lumber camps, sir,” he replied. In the year I had spent in Labrador I had never before heard a planter or native of Groswater Bay swear. But this explained it. The lumbermen from “civilization” were educating them. At one o’clock on July first, half our outfit was portaged to the summit of the hill and we ate our dinner there in the broiling sun, for we were above the trees, which ended some distance below us. It was fearfully hot—a dead, suffocating heat—with not a breath of wind to relieve the stifling atmosphere, and some one asked what the temperature was. “Eighty-seven in the shade, but no shade,” Richards remarked as he threw down his pack and consulted the thermometer where I had placed it under a low bush. “I’ll swear it’s a hundred and fifty in the sun.” During dinner Pete pointed to the river far below us, saying, “Look! Indian canoe.” I could not make it out without my binoculars, but with their aid discerned a canoe on the river, containing a solitary paddler. None of us, excepting Pete, could see the canoe without the glasses, at which he was very proud and remarked: “No findin’ glass need me. See far, me. See long way off.” On other occasions, afterward, I had reason to marvel at Pete’s clearness of vision. It was John Ahsini in the canoe, as we discovered later when he joined us and helped Stanton up the hill with his last pack to our night camp on the summit. I invited John to eat supper with us and he accepted the invitation. He told us he was hunting “moshku” (bear) and was camped at the mouth of the Red River. He assured us that we would find no more hills like this one we were on, and, pointing to the northward, said, “Miam potagan” (good portage) and that we would find plenty “atuk” (caribou), “moshku” and “mashumekush” (trout). After supper I gave John some “stemmo,” and he disappeared down the trail to join his wife in their wigwam below. We were all of us completely exhausted that night. Stanton was too tired to eat, and lay down upon the bare rocks to sleep. Pete stretched our tent wigwam fashion on some old Indian tepee poles, and, without troubling ourselves to break brush for a bed, we all soon joined Stanton in a dreamless slumber upon his rocky couch. The night, like the day, was very warm, and when I aroused Pete at sunrise the next morning (July second) to get breakfast the mosquitoes were about our heads in clouds. A magnificent panorama lay before us. Opposite, across the valley of the Nascaupee, a great hill held its snow-tipped head high in the heavens. Some four miles farther up to the northwest, the river itself, where it was choked with blocks of ice, made its appearance and threaded its way down to the southeast until it was finally lost in the spruce-covered valley. Beyond, bits of Grand Lake, like silver settings in the black surrounding forest, sparkled in the light of the rising sun. Away to the westward could be traced the rushing waters of the Red River making their course down through the sandy ridges that enclose its valley. To the northward lay a great undulating wilderness, the wilderness that we were to traverse. It was Sunday morning, and the holy stillness of the day engulfed our world. When Pete had the fire going and the kettle singing I roused the boys and told them we would make this, our first Sunday in the bush, an easy one, and simply move our camp forward to a more hospitable and sheltered spot by a little brook a mile up the trail, and then be ready for the “tug of war” on Monday. In accordance with this plan, after eating our breakfast we each carried a light pack to our new camping ground, and there pitched our tent by a tiny brook that trickled down through the rocks. While Stanton cooked dinner, Pete brought forward a second pack. After we had eaten, Richards suggested to Pete that they take the fish net ahead and set it in the little lake which was still some two and a half miles farther on the trail. They had just returned when a terrific thunderstorm broke upon us, and every moment we expected the tent to be carried away by the gale that accompanied the downpour of rain. It was then that Richards remembered that he had left his blankets to dry upon the tepee poles at the last camp. The rain ceased about five o’clock, and Duncan volunteered to return with Richards and help him recover his blankets, which they found far from dry. Mosquitoes, it seemed to me, were never so numerous or vicious as after this thunderstorm. We had head nets that were a protection from them generally, but when we removed the nets to eat, the attacks of the insects were simply insufferable, so we had our supper in the tent. After our meal was finished and Pete had washed the dishes, I read aloud a chapter from the Bible—a Sunday custom that was maintained throughout the trip—and Stanton sang some hymns. Then we prevailed upon him to entertain us with other songs. He had an excellent tenor voice and a repertoire ranging from “The Holy City” to “My Brother Bob,” and these and some of the old Scotch ballads, which he sang well, were favorites that he was often afterward called upon to render as we gathered around our evening camp fire, smoking our pipes and drinking in the tonic fragrance of the great solemn forest around us after a day of hard portaging. These impromptu concerts, story telling, and reading aloud from two or three “vest pocket” classics that I carried, furnished our entertainment when we were not too tired to be amused. The rain cleared the atmosphere, and Monday was cool and delightful, and, with the exception of two or three showers, a perfect day. Camp was moved and our entire outfit portaged to the first small lake. Our net, which Pete and Richards had set the day before, yielded us nothing, but with my rod I caught enough trout for a sumptuous supper. The following morning (July fourth) Pete and I, who arose at half-past four, had just finished preparing breakfast of fried pork, flapjacks and coffee, and I had gone to the tent to call the others, when Pete came rushing after me in great excitement, exclaiming, “Caribou! Rifle quick!” He grabbed one of the 44’s and rushed away and soon we heard bang-bang-bang seven times from up the lake shore. It was not long before Pete returned with a very humble bearing and crestfallen countenance, and without a word leaned the rifle against a tree and resumed his culinary operations. “Well, Pete,” said I, “how many caribou did you kill?” “No caribou. Miss him,” he replied. “But I heard seven shots. How did you miss so many times?” I asked. “Miss him,” answered Pete. “I see caribou over there, close to water, run fast, try get lee side so he don’t smell me. Water in way. Go very careful, make no noise, but he smell me. He hold his head up like this. He sniff, then he start. He go through trees very quick. See him, me, just little when he runs through tre...