A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador Part 8

Pa.s.sing four of these lakes, we came to where the river flows in from the south down three heavy rapids. On the west side of its entrance to the lake we found the old trail. The blazing was weather worn and old, but the trail was a good one, and had been much used in the days long ago. The portage was little more than a quarter of a mile long, and we put our canoes into the water again in a tiny bay above the islands.

While the men took their loads forward I set up my fis.h.i.+ng-rod for the first time. Every day I had felt ashamed that it had not been done before, but every day I put it off. I never cared greatly for fis.h.i.+ng, much as I had loved to be with my husband on the lakes and streams. Mr. Hubbard could never understand it, for more than any other inanimate thing on earth he loved a fis.h.i.+ng-rod, and to whip a trout stream was to him pure delight. As I made a few casts near the foot of the rapid, my heart grew heavier every minute. I almost hated the rod, and soon I took it down feeling that I could never touch it again.

In the bay above the falls we saw a mother duck and her flock of little ones, the first we had seen so far on our trip. In the afternoon we pa.s.sed up the short reach of river into another lake, the largest we had yet seen, stretching miles away to east and west, we could not tell how far. We could see, the men thought, about ten miles to the east, and twelve to fifteen west. The lake seemed to average about four miles in width. The narrowest part was where we entered it, and on the opposite sh.o.r.e, three miles away, rose a high hill. It seemed as if we might even now be on Michikamau, perhaps shut from the main body of the lake only by the islands. From the hill we should be able to see we thought, and so paddled towards it.

The hill was wooded almost to the top, and above the woods was the barren moss-covered summit. The walking was very rough. It seemed to me as we climbed that I should be stifled with the heat, and the flies, and the effort, but most of all with the thoughts that were crowding my mind. Instead of being only glad that we were nearing Michikamau I had been growing more and more to dread the moment when I should first look out over its broad waters. Sometimes I felt that I could never go on to the top--but I did.

The panorama of mountain, and lake, and island was very impressive.

For miles in every direction were the lakes. Countless wooded islands, large and small, dotted their surfaces, and westward, beyond the confusion of islands and water around us, lay the great s.h.i.+ning Michikamau. Still we could see no open way to reach it.

Lying along its eastern sh.o.r.e a low ridge stretched away northward, and east of this again the lakes. We thought this might perhaps be the Indian inland route to George River, which Mr. Low speaks of in his report on the survey of Michikamau. Far away in the north were the hills with their snow patches, which we had seen from Lookout Mountain. Turning to the east we could trace the course of the Nascaupee to where we had entered it on Sunday. We could see Lookout Mountain, and away beyond it the irregular tops of the hills we had come through from a little west of Seal Lake. In the south, great rugged hills stood out west towards Michikamau. North and south of the hill we were on were big waters. The one to the south we hoped would lead us out to Michikamau. It emptied into the lake we had just crossed in a broad shallow rapid at the foot of our hill, one and a half miles to the west.

George showed me, only a few miles from where we were standing, Mount Hubbard, from which Mr. Hubbard and he had seen Michikamau; Windbound Lake and the lakes through which they had hoped to find their way to the great lake; the dip in the hills to the east through which they had pa.s.sed on their long portage. He pointed out to me a little dark line on the brow of the hill where the bushes were in which they had shot the rabbit, and on the eastern slope another dark shadow showing where they had shot the ptarmigan.

So much of life and its pain can crowd into a few minutes. The whole desperate picture stood out with dread vividness. Yet I had wished very much to see what he had shown me.

At the rapid we were but a few minutes poling up to the big water south. Then after two miles of paddling, still southward, we rounded a point and looked westward straight into Michikamau and the sun. It was 5.52 P.M.

When the exclamations of delight had subsided Gilbert asked: "Do we have rice pudding for supper to-night, Mrs. Hubbard?"

That evening we camped in an island flower-garden.

CHAPTER X

MICHIKAMAU

It was the sun that did it, or else it was a scheme on the part of George and Job to work in an extra pudding. However that may have been, we found ourselves on Wednesday morning not yet on Lake Michikamau, and we did not reach it until 5.15 P.M. that day.

We started, expecting to paddle straight away west into the great lake. As we glided out on what proved to be, after all, another lake instead of an arm of Michikamau, we saw that land, not water, stretched across the western horizon. South from our island camp the sh.o.r.e of the lake was a low ridge sloping to the water in three distinct terraces, moss-covered and smooth as a carefully kept lawn, with here and there a clump of stunted fir trees. Four miles to the west the ridge terminated in a low point.

As we crossed the lake Job remarked that there was some current here. On nearing the point we were startled by a sudden exclamation from him. He had caught sight of a freshly cut chip on the water. We stopped, and the chip was picked up. The two canoes drew together, when it was examined closely, and an animated discussion in Indian went on. It was all interesting to watch, and a revelation to me to see an ordinary little chip create so much excitement. How much a seeming trifle may mean to the "Children of the Bush," or for that matter to any other "children," who see the meaning of things. I could not tell of course what they were saying, but I knew that the question was: "Who, beside ourselves, is in this deep wilderness?" The conclusion reached was that the wind had brought it here in the night from our own camp.

Pa.s.sing the point the canoe again stopped some distance beyond it, and another brisk conversation ensued. I learned they had discovered a current coming from the south, and we turned to meet it. Following it up, one mile south and one mile west, we came to where the river flows in from the south in a rapid. This was really funny. We had comfortably settled ourselves in the belief that the rapids had all been pa.s.sed. Job and Gilbert had taken off their "shoe-packs" with the prospect of a good day's paddling, and here were the rapids again. Our course for four miles above this point was up a tortuous, rapid river. It seemed to flow from all points of the compa.s.s, and, in almost continuous rapids. They were not rough, but the currents were fearfully swift, and seemed to move in all directions. These are more difficult to understand, and hence more dangerous than many of the rougher rapids.

About 2 P.M. we came out upon a lake. It was not very large, and its upper end was crowded with islands. Four miles from the outlet the lake narrowed, and the water flowed down round the islands with tremendous swiftness. Again it widened, and a mile west from the rapids we landed to climb a hill. Everyone went, and by the time I was half-way up, the men were already at the top jumping round and waving their hats and yelling like demons, or men at a polo match.

As I came towards them, Gilbert shouted: "Rice pudding for supper to-night, Mrs. Hubbard." It was not hard to guess what all the demonstration meant. We could not see all the channel from our hill-top, there were so many islands; but it could be seen part of the way and what was most important we could see where it led straight west to Michikamau.

Once more in the canoes our way still led among the islands up the swift flowing water. It was not till 5.15 P.M. that we at last reached the point where the Nascaupee River first receives the waters of the great lake. Paddling against a rather strong head wind we continued westward near a long island, landing shortly before 7 P.M. on its outer sh.o.r.e to make our first camp on Lake Michikamau.

It was a beautiful place, and had evidently been a favourite with the Indians. There were the remains of many old camps there. Here the flies and mosquitoes were awful. It made me s.h.i.+ver even to feel them creeping over my hands, not to speak of their bites.

Nowhere on the whole journey had we found them so thick as they were that night. It was good to escape into the tent.

Next morning I rose early. It was cloudy but calm, and Michikamau was like a pond. How I wondered what fortune would be ours in the voyage on this big water. The canoes seemed so tiny here. I called the men at 6.30 A.M., and at nine we were ready to start.

Before leaving, Job blazed two trees at the landing, and in one he placed a big flat stone on which I wrote with a piece of flint Joe brought me,

HUBBARD EXPEDITION, ARRIVED HERE, AUGUST 2ND 1905.

Underneath it I wrote the names of all the party. Then we embarked and it was "All aboard for George River!" our next objective point.

Our way led among the islands through water which seemed to promise good fis.h.i.+ng. We put out the trolls, and waited hopefully to see what might be the prospect for testing the namaycush (great lake trout) of Michikamau for lunch. We had not long to wait. Soon I saw Joe in the other canoe hauling in his line, and a few minutes after there was a tug at mine. I got a nice little one. I had my line out a second time for just a short while when there was a harder tug on it, and I knew I had a big one. We had no gaff, and Job said we had better go ash.o.r.e to land him. We did, and I was just pulling him up the beach when he gave one mighty leap and was gone. When my line came in I found the heavy wire which held the hooks had been straightened out, and he had gone off with them in his mouth. Joe's fish was a big one, about fifteen pounds, the men thought. Job said mine was bigger.

We had lunch on an island that day. The men boiled the whole of the big fish, except a little that they fried for me. George ate the head boiled, which be says is the best part. It was all delicious. I cleaned my little one carefully, and placing some willow boughs about it, laid it in the shade until we should be starting. Then after all my care we went away and forgot it. On the island we found the whitened antlers and skull of a young caribou stag. Joe cut off one of the points, and I used it after that to wind my trolling line.

During the afternoon there was more wind, and the lake grew rougher. It was fine to see the way the men managed the canoes.

Sometimes we seemed almost to lose ourselves in the trough of the big waves, but there was not a dipper of water taken in. There was a head wind and hard paddling for a time, but towards evening it grew calmer, and the lake became very beautiful. In the distance we saw several large ma.s.ses of floating ice, and lying far away in the west were many islands. The sky above was almost covered with big, soft, silver clouds and as the sun sank gradually towards the horizon the lake was like a great field of light. Once we stopped to listen to the loons calling [Great Northern Divers]. They were somewhere out on the glittering water, and far apart. We could not see them, but there were four, and one wild call answering another rang out into the great silence. It was weird and beautiful beyond words; the big, s.h.i.+ning lake with its distant blue islands; the sky with its wonderful clouds and colour; two little canoes so deep in the wilderness, and those wild, reverberant voices coming up from invisible beings away in the "long light" which lay across the water. We listened for a long time, then it ceased.

We camped early that night south of the bay on the farther side of which the hills reached out to the west, narrowing the lake to about seven miles. The bay was between four and five miles wide, and it was too late to risk crossing it that night. George said if it were still calm in the morning they would take just a bite and a cup of tea, and start. We could have breakfast on the other sh.o.r.e.

During the night a north wind sprang up, and though soon calm again the lake was stirred up, and all the rest of the night and the early morning we could hear the waves rolling in on the beach.

From dawn the men were out, now and again, to see if it were fit to start, but it was 10 A.M. before we were on the water. On one of the islands where we landed during the morning we found the first "bake-apple" berries. They were as large as the top of my thumb, and reddened a little. Though still hard they already tasted like apples. We lunched on an island near the north sh.o.r.e of the bay.

While at our meal the wind changed and was fair for us, so we started, hoping to make the most of it. Crossing through a shallow which separated what had looked like a long point from the hills, we came out to the narrower part of the lake. Here the hills on the east sh.o.r.e were seen to recede from the lake, stretching away a little east of north, while between, the country was flat and boggy. A short distance further on we landed to put up sails. A ptarmigan and her little family were running about among the bushes, and the men gave chase, coming back shortly afterwards with the mother bird and her little ones.

Towards evening we put out our trolls, and I caught one big brook trout, one little namaycush, and a big one a twenty-pounder. This time he did not get away, though I strongly suspect this may have been because Job landed him. We camped late in a swampy place, and while the men put up camp I cleaned my three fish. The big one was so big that I could hardly manage him. I had just opened him up and taken out the inside and was struggling to cut off his head when somehow my hunting-knife touched his spinal cord in a way that made his tail fly up almost into my face. I sprang up with a shriek but suddenly remembered he really must be dead after all, and returned to my task. Presently Job emerged from the bushes to see what was the trouble. He suggested that I had better let him clean the fish, but I declined. Finally I did get the head off, and soon carried my fish to the camp in triumph. The big one was boiled for supper, and, oh! how good it tasted, for all were desperately hungry. The night was clear and cold, and after supper I sat at the camp fire till quite late--reluctant to leave it.

Finally it died down, and leaving the glowing embers to burn themselves out, I went to my tent.

We were off early next morning with a fine southwest wind, and were at the head of the lake sooner than we had expected. From here we had to cross almost to the west sh.o.r.e to reach the bay at the north end of the lake. It had grown rough since we left camp, and it did not seem to me that we could get to the point, for it meant running into the wind part of the way. It was an exciting hour's work, and the men were very quiet. There was none of the usual merry chat.

Evidently a storm was coming, and unless we could pa.s.s that long, rocky point, and win the shelter of the bay beyond, we might be delayed for days. The big waves came rolling up the lake, and as each reached us the bottom of the canoe was tipped towards it a little to prevent its coming over, and George's head turned slightly to see how it was treating his charge. At the same time I could feel my fingers which were just over the edge on the other side run along the top of the water, and now and then it came over and slipped up my sleeve.

It was squally, and anxiously five pairs of eyes watched the sky and the point. It was a relief when the wind dropped a little, but then we could see it had risen again, roughening the water in the distance some minutes before it reached us. As I watched the other canoe slip down the long slope of a big wave I wondered, often, if it would come up again, for it looked as if bound straight for the bottom of the lake. Soon, however, it was on the crest of another wave and ready to dip again. The most exciting part of the experience was watching its motions. The perspective made them seem more remarkable than those of my own, which indeed were startling enough at times.

With glad hearts we felt the wind drop a little as we neared the point. Then, bending to their paddles with all the strength of their strong arms, the men carried the canoes beyond the breakers to where we could turn our backs to the wind, and we slipped into the quiet bay.

CHAPTER XI

STORM-BOUND ON MICHIKAMATS

We had not reached our haven too soon. Almost immediately the wind rose again, and by noon was blowing so strong that we could have done nothing in any part of Lake Michikamau, not to speak of crossing the upper end in a heavy south wind. Around the point I did not find things look as I expected. It was only a very shallow bay, and where we looked for the islands a long, narrow point of land stretched out from the west sh.o.r.e to the northeast. Flowing round the eastern end of this point was a rapid, some two hundred yards in length, and at the head of this we found a little lake, between two and three miles in length, lying northeast and southwest. All the eastern portion of it was shallow, and it was with considerable difficulty we succeeded in getting the canoes up to the low sh.o.r.e, where we had lunch. I wondered much if this could possibly be Michikamats, which is mapped in, in dotted lines, as a lake twenty-five miles long lying northwest.

In the afternoon my perplexities were cleared up. A small river, coming down from the northwest, flowed in at the east end of the lake. Three-quarters of a mile of poling, dragging, and lifting brought us up to another lake, and this proved to be Lake Michikamats. For half a mile or more at its lower end the lake is narrow and shoal. Its bed is a ma.s.s of jagged rocks, many of which rise so near to the surface that it was a work of art to find a way among them. A low point ran out north on our left, and from this point to the eastern sh.o.r.e stretched a long line of boulders rising at intervals from the water. This line marks the edge of the shallows, and beyond it the lake is deep and broad and stretches away northeast for more than eight miles of its length, when it bends to the northwest.

As we entered it we saw that the low range of wooded hills on our left formed the western boundary of the lake, and over the flat wooded sh.o.r.e on the right we could see the tops of big, barren hills of a range stretching northward. These are a continuation of the round-topped hills which border the east sh.o.r.e of Michikamau south of where the lake narrows. For some miles of our journey up northern Michikamau we could see these hills miles back from the low sh.o.r.eline. Now we seemed to be turning towards them again.

Beyond a point one mile and a quarter north from where we entered the lake a deep bay runs in to the east, and here the hills came into plain view though they were still far back from the sh.o.r.e.

Their rounded tops were covered with moss, and low down on the sides dark patches showed where the green woods were.

It was a glorious afternoon, and the canoes scudded at racing pace before a heavy south wind. At a point on the east sh.o.r.e, six miles up the lake, I landed to take bearings. Here we found a peculiar mound of rocks along the edge of the water which proved to be characteristic of the whole sh.o.r.eline of the lake. The rocks had been pushed out by the ice and formed a sort of wall, while over the wall moss and willows grew, with here and there a few stunted evergreens, the whole making an effective screen along the water's edge. Back of this were swamps and bogs with low moss-covered mounds running through them, and grown up with scattered tamarack and spruces. On the west sh.o.r.e the hills reached quite to the wall itself.

Behind this wall, at the point, we found a family of ptarmigan.

When we appeared the mother bird tried vainly to hurry her flock away to a place of safety. Her mate flew across to an island a short distance north, leaving her alone to her task, but she and her little ones were all taken. Here the first wolf tracks we had seen on the trip were found.

After some time spent at the point it was time to camp. We crossed to the island, north, and as we landed a white-winged ptarmigan flew back to where had just been enacted one of the endless succession of wilderness tragedies. I wondered if he would not wish he had stayed to share the fate of his little family, and what he would do with himself now. It was a beautiful camping place we found. The Indians had found it too, and evidently had appreciated its beauty. There were the remains of many old camps there, well- worn paths leading from one to the other. It was the first place we had come upon which gave evidence of having been an abiding Place of some permanence. There must have been quite a little community there at one time. The prospect south, west, and north was very beautiful.

My tent was pitched in a charming nook among the spruce trees, and had a carpet of boughs all tipped with fresh green. The moss itself was almost too beautiful to cover; but nothing is quite so nice for carpet as the boughs. We were on a tiny ridge sloping to the south sh.o.r.e of the island, and over the screen of willows and evergreens at the water's edge, the wind came in strong enough to drive away the flies and mosquitoes, and leave one free to enjoy the beauty of the outlook. It was an ideal place to spend Sunday, and with a sigh of relief we settled into our island camp. The week had been a wonderfully interesting one; but it had also been an anxious and trying one in a few ways. I was glad to have pa.s.sed Michikamau so quickly and easily. I wished it might be our good fortune to see some of the Indians.

Through the night the south wind rose to a gale, and showers of rain fell. On Sunday morning I was up at 7 A.M., and after a nice, lazy bath, luxuriously dressed myself in clean clothes. Then came a little reading from a tiny book that had been in Labrador before, and a good deal of thinking. Just after 9 A.M. I lay down to go to sleep again. I had not realised it before, but I was very tired.