I Paddled 850 Miles to Hudson Bay in a Canoe, and Fished to Eat Along the Way

This story, “Hudson Bay and Again by Canoe,” appeared within the Sept. 1963 concern of Outside Life. The selection to go away life jackets behind to avoid wasting on weight and bulk might not have been uncommon on the time, however PFDs are non-negotiable (if not legally required) on any type of trendy paddling journey.

It didn’t appear like trout water. We’d come ashore within the night, when the tide was beginning to ebb, worn out from 40 miles of paddling within the open sea, and made camp on a treeless island the place the Sutton River splits into three or 4 channels to spill into Hudson Bay.

That far northwest nook of Ontario is bleak. The shore was a flat, empty salt marsh working again to boggy tundra. When the tide went out, it uncovered two miles of rock-strewn mud, gashed by the winding river channel.

We drank tea and ate a supper of bannock and rice. We hadn’t had an honest meal for 4 days, since leaving the mouth of the Winisk River virtually 100 miles to the west, however tomorrow we’d be up the Sutton, in good trout water, with all of the fish we might eat.

We ate breakfast at sunup, realizing we might depart the island solely at excessive tide, took down the tents, and loaded the three canoes. Fifty ft offshore, in water no deeper than the size of a paddle blade, a fish jumped. It seemed like a speckled trout, although the water appeared too salty and shallow for that. However Eric Sailer, within the lead canoe, yelled, “Have a look at the fish! They’re all over.”

I peered into the clear sea water in time to see six huge fish dart away from our canoe. Then one other college slanted off, and one other, till there have been fish all over, they usually have been huge speckles.

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Eric, essentially the most enthusiastic fisherman of our occasion, rigged his spinning outfit with a red-and-white wobbling spoon. I took my film digicam out and waited. The spoon hit the water and I noticed an extended fish run the lure down.

When the trout give up combating, Eric slid two fingers into its gills and lifted it. It was a heavy-bodied speckle about 18-inches lengthy and never lower than three kilos.

“Who says we gained’t eat this midday?” Eric whooped. 

Within the third canoe, Jon Fairbank and Chuck Bishop have been placing their spinning rigs collectively, however I saved my digicam on Eric. He laid the spoon out 17 occasions and landed 15 trout, the smallest 15 inches and the most important 21. If there have been any little ones round, he didn’t discover them.

I’ve traveled a number of wilderness water, but when I have been requested to call the perfect trout stream I’ve ever been on I’d decide the Sutton. Tumbling out of the swampy highlands of Ontario and spilling into Hudson Bay, it may possibly’t be beat.

We had come to that far-off place the laborious method and knew the river would give us a nasty time, for we have been beginning on the mouth and would climb upstream all the best way to Sutton Lake, on the homeward leg of an extended summer time journey. We had been out three weeks that July morning when Eric took the 15 trout, and had come 450 miles by canoe. The toughest half nonetheless lay forward.

There have been six within the occasion. I’ve been a canoe fanatic since I used to be 15, and have run a number of the hardest rivers in Canada, together with the Albany, Moose, Abitibi, Rupert, Ogoki, English, and Eastmain. I advised the story of my journey down that final one, essentially the most savage of all, in “Livid River,” in OUTDOOR LIFE for August, 1961.

I’m a lecturer and I make a visit every summer time, choosing my rivers for the fabric they will provide in addition to for the enjoyable and motion they promise. Most of these I had run empty into James Bay, however I had by no means dipped a paddle in Hudson Bay. Chilly and forbidding as it’s, that vast arm of the Arctic Ocean remains to be one of the crucial fascinating locations on earth for me, and I had itched for years to paddle down one of many rivers flowing into it. Now I made a decision to make my dream come true. For my 1962 journey, I’d run the Winisk, rising in roadless bush 300 miles north of Port Arthur and flowing north via nation as wild as any in Canada. ‘Although it’s the greatest river between the Albany and the Severn, it’s smaller than both, about proper for a great powerful journey, and would supply a pure canoe path to Hudson Bay.

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I make it a follow to take boys on my journeys, younger males of their teenagers or a bit older. They toughen shortly, take to the bush, do their share of labor, put up with discomforts, and are cheerful companions. This time I selected three of faculty age, round 22. Jon Fairbank, of Shaker Heights, Cleveland, had graduated from Dartmouth in June. Chuck Bishop, from Cleveland, was simply out of Trinity Faculty in Connecticut. He reported on the U.S. Naval Academy at Newport 10 days after we acquired residence and is now an ensign. Eric Sailer, of Somerville, New Jersey, was a medical pupil at McGill College in Montreal. He married a Montreal woman in Might of this 12 months, and commenced his internship in June.

All three have been robust athletes, and had carried out a good quantity of canoeing and tenting. Jon had taken half within the annual Dartmouth canoe race on, the Connecticut River, and was a first-rate canoeist.

Chuck, Jon, and I left my residence at Wyncote, within the outskirts of Philadelphia, on June 28 and drove to Pembroke, Ontario, the place Eric met us. From there we glided by prepare to Nakina on the Canadian Nationwide 75 miles east of Lake Nipigon.

I had ordered three 18-foot canvas canoes shipped there from the Chestnut Canoe Firm in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I grew up utilizing canvas canoes, and nonetheless desire them over aluminum, as a result of they’re much less noisy when not totally loaded, and for causes of sentiment. The canvas is well torn, however realizing that, you depend on your talent to keep away from sharp rocks, and any lower may be patched shortly.

Double-ribbed for additional power in quick water, these three canoes weighed 85 kilos, however began to tackle added weight as quickly as they acquired moist inside and completed the journey at 110. That’s a brutal load on a portage, however I knew that lighter canoes wouldn’t get up the place we have been going.

We had three tents, axes, spare paddles, sleeping baggage, clothes, fishing sort out, cameras, cooking gear, a medical package that Eric had put collectively (we used the package solely twice, to patch the canoes with tape), and 4 home made picket wanigan bins, three for provides, and one for my film digicam and outfit. We’d use no packsacks or boards. I desire to make hundreds in huge bundles and carry them over the portages with tumplines.

We began mild on provides, for 2 causes. We’d catch all of the fish we would have liked and will add to our grub checklist at a few buying and selling posts. We started the journey with 300 to 350 kilos of meals, together with flour, lard, rice, macaroni, cereal, cheese, dried fruit, dried potatoes, greens, soups, milk, sugar, salt, baking powder, tea, and cocoa. No canned items, no bacon, and no desserts besides the fruit. In an emergency, we’d stay off the land.

At Nakina, we lashed our canoes to the pontoons of an Austin Airways Norseman and flew north to Lansdowne Home, a distant Hudson’s Bay Firm put up on Attawapiskat Lake. The lengthy summer time path stretched earlier than us now, and it will be paddle, pole, and portage all the best way.

I wished two guides, ideally Indians who had been down the Winisk to Hudson Bay, however none might be discovered. That’s a visit the Ojibways at Lansdowne Home undertake very not often, if in any respect, and of the 200 summering on the put up, not one had made it.

The information most extremely advisable, on different grounds, was Adam Suganaqueb, about my age, slender and wiry, and reputed to be a prime hand within the bush. His winter trapping grounds lay between Lansdowne Home and Winisk Lake, alongside the route we’d journey. We have been warned it will be straightforward to get misplaced on that a part of the journey, virtually 100 miles via a maze of lakes. Adam’s information could be precious.

However once we went to speak with him, we discovered he spoke no English. That meant we’d have to choose a second information as an interpreter, and we selected Adam’s 14-year-old son Mathias, who had simply returned residence from an Indian college. Mathias was reluctant to make the journey. He couldn’t swim (neither might his father, for that matter, and to avoid wasting weight and bulk, we had no life jackets alongside), and was frankly afraid of the rapids we might encounter. However finally we talked him right into a compromise. He would go so far as Wabeque, a small Indian settlement and Hudson’s Bay Firm outpost on Winisk Lake. There his older brother Solomon would take his place. However once we reached Wabeque, Solomon’s spouse was ailing and he couldn’t depart, so Mathias made all the journey, and regardless of his youth he couldn’t have carried out higher.

We left Lansdowne Home on July 2. Save for the Ojibway settlement at Wabeque, we wouldn’t be prone to see one other human till we reached the put up on the mouth of the Winisk, virtually 400 miles north. Our maps confirmed that we’d be on rivers that dropped greater than 800 ft from Attawapiskat Lake to salt water. That meant rapids and portages galore. On the map, the primary 80 miles seemed straightforward, however it wasn’t. There have been 12 portages, the worst a backbreaker greater than a mile lengthy.

We paddled via huge, lovely lakes, discovering our method out and in of numerous bays and passages. This was nation Adam knew and it was fortunate he did, for not one of the portages have been marked. The transient northern spring was at hand, bringing the 12 months’s first quick burst of sizzling climate. Blackflies have been as dangerous as I’d ever seen, and at sunset mosquitoes swarmed on us. However the fishing greater than made up for the discomfort. There have been no trout, however I’d by no means been on higher water for walleyes and northerns.

We had no time to cease and fish for enjoyable, however we have been choosing up about 10 a day — walleyes two to 3 kilos, pike as much as 10 — and have been consuming fish at each meal. We might have taken a canoe load any time we wished to. This was preferrred nation for initiating Chuck and Jon, who weren’t skilled fishermen. And Eric, an previous hand and superb at it, was in seventh heaven on these unfished waters. We have been utilizing spinning rods, and wobbling spoons have been the deadliest lures.

We reached the south finish of Winisk Lake on the morning of July 5, and landed at Wabeque shortly after midday to be welcomed by many of the inhabitants. It was an attention-grabbing place, with no whites and about 150 Ojibways, two thirds of them in tents, the remaining in neat cabins. The ladies wearing vibrant colours and carried their infants in again cradles, however the males had gone trendy and have been carrying black leather-based jackets and caps, regardless of the recent climate. Winisk Lake is 20 miles lengthy and stuffed with walleyes, whitefish, and sturgeon. The Indians make their summer time residing by fishing, and planes fly the catch out at common intervals. In fall most of them disperse to trapping grounds for the winter.

Costs are excessive at these distant posts ($5.75 for 25 kilos of flour, 30¢ a pound for sugar, 50¢ for rice and macaroni), however we picked up some provides and left Wabeque the subsequent midday. We have been on our personal now, in nation even Adam had not seen. We camped that night time on the head of a rapids the place the Winisk River pours out of the lake, and Eric, fishing for our supper, caught the primary speckled trout we had taken, a five-pounder.

In contrast with the rivers with which fishermen over many of the United States are acquainted, the Winisk is a big. From time to time it narrowed to 100 yards, however way more ceaselessly it widened to half a mile, just a few occasions to 3 quarters of a mile.

It’s a rowdy large, too. For greater than 50 miles from Winisk Lake, it plunges like a millrace, tumbling and racing down. There have been no falls, however in locations it dropped down rapids as steep as a pitched roof. We lined the canoes down each time we might and unloaded and carried once we needed to. Some days we did nicely to make 10 miles.

Adam was proving his value as a prepare dinner, expert with ax or paddle, carrying heavy hundreds, and with a bushman’s intuition for locating campsites and choosing one of the simplest ways round rapids. Mathias was doing his share, too, and the boys and I have been hardening to the work.

We have been consuming huge meals of fish thrice a day, however quick on bannock due to our restricted provide of flour. (We used 150 kilos on the journey.) Adam baked the perfect bannock I’ve ever eaten — or possibly it simply tasted that method as a result of we have been famished on a regular basis. His recipe was easy. He put three cups of flour and a tablespoon of baking powder in a bowl, poured in a cup of water, kneaded it to a thick dough, punched it down, set it on prime of the hearth in a frying pan till it stiffened, then stood it up in entrance of the hearth till it was brown and crusty.

The fishing turned spotty now. There have been locations the place we caught just a few trout as much as 5½ kilos, however in different reaches we needed to work laborious for sufficient to eat. We by no means went hungry, nevertheless. We might at all times pull up the place a smaller stream ran in and take sufficient pike for the frying pan. These northerns proved one thing I realized a very long time in the past, that they’re the fish to depend on for those who intend to stay off the land. You’ll be able to often catch them once you want them, wherever I’ve been within the north.

We have been working as a lot of the white water as we dared however taking no possibilities, for in such nation a smashed canoe could be an actual catastrophe. Regardless of our precautions, we had a detailed name. We went ashore one morning, leaving the canoes drawn up on the muddy seaside. We weren’t gone greater than 10 minutes when the wind labored one off and it went bobbing downstream, headed for a nasty rapids. We pushed off, paddled laborious, and overtook it barely in time.

On July 12, 10 days from Lansdowne Home, we got here to the bend the place the Winisk turns abruptly east and adjustments character utterly. Rocky shores grown with alder had given method to excessive clay banks. We had two days of rain and fishing fell off sharply. We camped at night time in moist bogs, on moss that oozed water like a sponge. There have been few blackflies, however the mosquitoes have been worse than ever. There was one huge comfort, nevertheless. We had left the rapids behind. The Winisk was quick, deep, and easy right here, and we made as a lot as 40 miles a day.

Wolf and moose signal was widespread, and we started to see households of Canada geese, the younger not but feathered for flight and the previous birds in summer time molt and unable to take to the air. Adam ran an enormous gander down and solely the truth that we had simply taken a catch of pike saved him from wringing its neck for the pot. Sport laws permit the Indians to take no matter they want year-round. They hunt or go hungry. However we had sufficient fish for supper, so Adam let the goose go.

He had introduced alongside his rifle, the one firearm we had, an historic .30/30. It didn’t look protected to shoot, however Adam had no misgivings on that rating. To date he had had no likelihood to make use of it, however the day after he caught the goose, a cow moose appeared and began to swim throughout the river simply forward of us. We drove a canoe up on both facet of her to maintain her in midstream, and I picked up my digicam. We had her between us, solely a paddle size away. It was a terrific likelihood for a wildlife sequence, however in regards to the time I tripped the shutter I felt the canoe lurch. I jerked round to see Adam standing up within the stern, drawing a bead on her.

“No, Adam, no!” I shouted, waving him down. He put the rifle down very reluctantly, disgust written throughout his face. In his e-book, moose have been to shoot and once you acquired that shut to at least one solely a loopy white man would move up the prospect. Once we reached the put up at Winisk, he bought the .30/30 to a different Indian for 2 bucks.

We acquired into caribou nation now and their tracks have been plentiful alongside shore. We didn’t see them, however I’m certain a day’s looking would have gotten us meat. This was the border zone, the place timber offers method to the barrens. Open muskeg ran again from the river, and the moist moss so thick that we sank into it virtually to our knees. Fifty miles above its mouth, the Winisk bent north and turned wild once more, forking round islands, plunging down lengthy chutes, with limestone cliffs changing the clay banks. However we had gamed expertise and these rapids have been deeper and fewer hazardous than these we had encountered above. We have been in a position to run most of them. We landed at Winisk put up, just a few miles upriver from Hudson Bay, on the afternoon of July 16. Our provides have been gone, the fishing had been poor, and we had had no lunch that day, however Roy Turner, the put up supervisor, invited us to supper, our first kitchen-cooked meal in two weeks.

Winisk is a lonely put up, out on the treeless barrens, and many of the 160 Crees summering there lived in cabins. Right here we encountered a contradiction of a sort that might be discovered within the wilds of northern Canada solely in these cold-war occasions. Throughout the river from the put up was a army set up manned by 120 folks. There was even airline service to Winnipeg and Montreal as soon as every week. It had taken us two weeks to return from Lansdowne Home, via a number of the wildest nation in Ontario, and now we might have flown residence in six or seven hours. However one way or the other that set up didn’t spoil issues for me. It was solely a pinpoint on the huge barrens, with Hudson Bay to the north and tundra, forest, lakes, and rivers stretching to the railroad 400 miles south. No roads, no trails led out from it. This was nonetheless the northern wilderness, untamed as ever.

Now that we had reached the Winisk, I had no agency plans for getting residence. I had put that off intentionally, considering it will be greatest to resolve when the time got here. To return upstream in opposition to the roaring present was out of the query. The closest railroad we might hope to succeed in was at Moosonee, virtually 400 airline miles to the southeast. There was no boat, and we couldn’t fly until we left our canoes and far of our gear behind. Anyway, that was not what we had in thoughts. I had deliberate from the begin to journey to Hudson Bay and again by canoe, not only one method.

Nevertheless, if we glided by salt water, following the shore of Hudson and James bays, it will imply 500 miles of paddling within the open sea, alongside desolate coasts beset by tides, fogs, and gales. I had passed by canoe from the Albany to Moosonee, lower than 100 miles, virtually 30 years earlier than, and I knew that may be foolhardy to attempt the for much longer journey from the Winisk.

It was John Hunter, chief of the Crees on the put up, who urged a method out. We might journey alongside the coast 90 miles to the Sutton, he stated. It was quick however shallow, and we might pole up. It might take us into Hawley and Sutton lakes, and from there we might comply with small streams via swamp nation to the Ekwan River. “Loads of beaver, loads of water,” the Cree assured us. The Ekwan would result in James Bay, a brief paddle north of the put up on the mouth of the Attawapiskat. There we might get rid of our canoes and fly by bush-plane to Moosonee.

It was an extended route, at !east 450 miles, most of it inland, a few of it not even mapped, and it didn’t sound straightforward. However the Indians traveled it every now and then, Hunter stated, and in the event that they acquired via we should always be capable of. We purchased provides at Winisk and paddled out of the mouth of the river into Hudson Bay on the morning of July 19. I used to be the place I had lengthy dreamed of being and I had come the best way I had at all times wished to, by canoe.

The day was clear, with a light-weight, chilly wind out of the north. 5 or 6 miles out we might see ice rising from the ocean, and every now and then we paddled previous huge truffles that had damaged free. The coast was so flat and degree that in a single place, two miles offshore at excessive tide, we might contact backside with our paddles.

Early that afternoon, staring off throughout the water on the distant ice packs, I observed a patch of whitecaps. That appeared unusual, for the wind was solely a breeze and the remainder of the bay was calm, so we modified course to research. As we paddled towards them, the whitecaps raced in to satisfy tis, and immediately I noticed that we have been watching a college of white whales. 5 minutes later we have been in the midst of them and I counted 14, the largest virtually so long as a canoe.

I used to be busy with my digicam when Adam set free a startled grunt. I seemed as much as see an enormous one barreling straight for us. What provoked the cost we’ll by no means know, however in all probability the whale was a bull that took a sudden dislike to our canoes nosing via his college. He got here like a streak, proper on the prime, and I used to be certain he was going to ram us. I stole a look at Adam and he was hanging onto the gunwales with each arms, prepared for the smash-up. I dropped my digicam and braced myself, scared stiff. Then, when the whale was solely half his personal size away, he went down two or three ft, shot below the canoe and surfaced, so shut I might have swatted him with my paddle. He popped his huge ugly head out of the water and blew virtually in our faces, as a lot as to say, “Now filter out!”

Adam blurted the one two phrases I heard him try in English on the entire journey, “Beeg feesh!” and we acquired away from the varsity, paddling for pricey life.

We went ashore at excessive tide and made camp on a gravel seaside. There have been no timber for tentpoles, however we managed with the paddles. We gathered some driftwood for a hearth, however there was no recent water. We moistened macaroni with sea water and heated it. That was all we had for supper, and it tasted fairly good.

Earlier than darkish, the receding tide had uncovered a rocky mud flat a mile broad, stranding us on the seaside. We’d have to go away on the excessive tide within the morning. A canoe occasion alongside that coast strikes solely when the tides allow.

We have been so hungry that morning that we used salt water to prepare dinner porridge and make bannock. They tasted horrible, however we gulped them down as a result of we would have liked meals. We have been struggling badly from thirst, too. We paddled away, staying as near the seaside and anticipating a fresh-water creek. We discovered one in midmorning, boiled tea, and made three good bannocks. Whereas we have been consuming the tide dropped sufficient to go away us half a mile inland, however we dragged the canoes throughout the mud and acquired going once more.

Icy rain started to fall quickly after, and in minutes we have been moist and shaking with chilly. I grew to become violently nauseated, in all probability from the salt-water meals I had eaten. I might go no farther. We landed on a mud flat and lugged our gear to a low ridge of sand. Adam and the boys acquired a tent as much as preserve the rain off they usually put me in my bag, sick and wretched. A mile again within the marsh they discovered recent water. I gulped down some sizzling tea, slept for 12 hours, and felt all proper once more.

A robust onshore wind was raging in from the bay at daylight and we couldn’t transfer till it abated. Then we’d attempt to make the mouth of the Sutton in sooner or later. We’d had all we wished of tides and salt water. We left on July 22, with a brisk wind to push us alongside, and paddled 40 miles between tides.

The Sutton comes into Hudson Bay via a marshy delta, and the channel the place we camped that night time is a mile broad when the tide floods it, however on that flat coast it will be straightforward to overlook a river even of that measurement. We saved as near shore because the water permitted and simply because the night tide was beginning out we noticed the river.

As soon as we left tidewater, the Sutton was swift, calling for poles, however it will be one other day earlier than we’d see a tree of any form. We poled with our paddles, waded and dragged the canoes via shallows, put in one among our hardest days, and made solely 5 miles. However the subsequent forenoon, we discovered just a few stunted spruce and lower poles.

We settled right down to the regular grind of climbing this tumbling river. There have been just a few rapids dangerous sufficient to portage, however the farther upstream we poled the sooner the present grew to become. It was like engaged on a rock-pile. We blistered our arms, the blisters broke and bled, our palms wore uncooked.

There was one compensation. I’d by no means seen such trout fishing. Faculties of speckles darted forward of the canoes and we might take a fish on each solid, most of them 18 to twenty inches. Eric put his fly rod collectively and tied on an enormous brown streamer. It proved simply as lethal because the spoons. At one pool, he hooked 10 trout on 10 casts, none below three kilos.

Moose, caribou, and beaver have been plentiful. This was a journey route of the Crees, too, and we started to seek out their winter campsites — huge pole wig-wam frames coated with moss.

Six days from salt water we reached Hawley Lake. Our lengthy climb was completed. Right here we discovered three Indian households who stay on the decrease finish of the lake year-round, fishing and guiding in summer time, looking in autumn, trapping in winter. We additionally met Ray Cool, a conservation officer from the Division of Lands and Forests. Since this distant part of Ontario was reopened to outdoors fishermen in 1962, fairly just a few events fly in, and Cool was there to maintain tabs on them. It’s a great fishing journey, by the way, simply organized with Austin Airways, and Bert Sutherland, one of many Indians who speaks good English, can present information service.

Cool had a cabin on Hawley Lake and invited us to remain there. We rested a day whereas we waited out rain and winds. This was a lake-trout hot-spot, the primary laker water we had seen. We trolled with huge spoons and caught 5 in an hour or two, working seven to eight kilos.

Hawley, and Sutton Lake above it, are lengthy and slender, separated by Sutton Narrows the place the water drops from one into the opposite via a U-shaped gorge, working below large rocks which have tumbled from the cliffs. The portage is a straightforward one. We stopped for lunch and climbed to the highest to see the magnificent view. Save for that one portage, we had 40 miles of straightforward journey and reached the south finish of Sutton Lake on July 31. The great going was behind us now. Forward lay the water-laced swamps between us and the Ekwan.

We discovered a small swampy stream working in from the south, and began up. Beavers had flooded the entire nation. On the primary portage we waded in water to our belts, and we camped that night time in a moist lavatory on the shore. The subsequent 4 days we struggled via a maze of ponds, small lakes, and streams, some barely broad sufficient for the canoes. At one level, we lifted over six beaver dams in three miles. We saved discovering the winter trails of Cree trappers, however the trails by no means appeared to guide in the correct route to assist us.

We caught no fish within the ponds or the streams, however we stopped at one of many dams and within the quick water beneath it Eric landed a five-pound trout. After that we examined every beaver spillway earlier than we dragged the canoes throughout, and most of them yielded one or two good trout. Chuck diverse the routine at one place by taking seven pike out of a pool.

Someplace within the swamps we portaged over a top of land with out realizing it. The night time of August 1 we camped by a small lake, and the subsequent morning we discovered a shallow river flowing south of it. We concluded this was the Little Ekwan, working south to the Ekwan itself. There was now not any hazard of getting misplaced. Any water we adopted now would take us the place we wished to go. We advised ourselves our troubles have been over. We couldn’t have been extra unsuitable.

The Little Ekwan was solely six inches deep in locations and beavers had taken it over. We crossed 12 dams the primary afternoon after which got here to a good worse barrier. Lifeless timber, some a foot in diameter, killed by hearth years earlier than, had fallen into the river, clogging it for miles. Indian trappers had lower via a number of the jams however the ax marks have been previous, and so far as we might inform no person had come this fashion by canoe within the final 15 to twenty years. We hacked our method via the smaller jams, dragged the canoes over a few of them, and portaged across the worst ones.

The morning of August 3, we awoke to seek out frost on the bottom, so thick it seemed like snow, and our moist footwear frozen stiff. We have been getting out of this wild nation none too quickly. The subsequent midday we paddled into the Ekwan. The 4 days from Sutton Lake had been among the many hardest of the journey. As far as we knew, we have been the primary whites who had ever come via that unmapped nation.

The Ekwan is a shallow river, huge, broad, and quick, however not good for canoe journey. Too many rocks, shoals, shallow rapids. In all probability for that cause, the Indians by no means made a lot use of it. We discovered just a few rapids we couldn’t run, nevertheless, and coated as a lot as 30 miles a day, spurred on this remaining lap by the chilly climate and frosty nights of early autumn.

Right here fishing failed utterly, and for the second time on the journey we ran wanting meals. There have been loads of geese, the previous birds nonetheless flightless and few of the younger in a position to take to the air. And if the geese on the Winisk had tempted Adam, these tempted him way more.

“Catch goose?” he requested half a dozen occasions via Mathias, however every time I defined that it was all proper for him to catch a goose, however the 4 whites weren’t alleged to hunt out of season. He gave in reluctantly, shaking his head. Then we stunned two black bears looking geese within the willows, and he rebelled. If the bears might eat geese, so might Adam. He barked one thing to Mathias and the boy translated, “My father say catch goose for supper.” It wasn’t a query this time. “All proper,” I agreed, “catch goose. We’ll be your company.”

Earlier than the afternoon was over Adam had run down six younger Canadas, not fairly sufficiently big to fly. He boiled them and we ate all six. It was probably the greatest meals we had. Then, within the decrease reaches of the Ekwan, we discovered good pike fishing as soon as extra.

On August 8, the river opened out into James Bay. We had solely 25 miles to go now to the put up on the mouth of the Attawapiskat, and remembering the wretched nights we had spent on the salt flats of Hudson Bay, we have been decided to not camp alongside this coast if we might assist it. We raced south, and because the night tide was starting to ebb we beached on the put up. Marshall Campion, the supervisor, welcomed us, and we ate supper round a desk.

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I bought our canoes to Campion subsequent morning and we made prepared for the Austin Airways aircraft that may take us to Moosonee. We had come to the tip of our lengthy summer time path, 38 days on the poles and paddles, 850 watery miles. It added as much as the toughest canoe journey I had ever made, and the perfect, and all 4 of us agreed we’d attempt one other prefer it in a minute if we ever acquired the prospect.