River Rough, River Smooth. Anthony Dalton
they were rowing became known as “a pipe.”7 Unless they had to portage, the only times they went ashore during the day were for breakfast and for overnight camp. Lunch was eaten in the boat while on the move.
The size of a York boat was most often measured by the number of pieces of cargo it could carry, rather than by its length.8 Each package of freight was measured at eighty pounds (thirty-six kilograms).York boats were therefore known as “sixty-piece” boats or “one-hundred-piece” boats, even “one-hundred-and-twenty piece” boats, depending on their capacity. A boat of one-hundred-and-twenty pieces carried 9,600 pounds (4,364 kilograms) of freight, plus at least eight rowers, one steersman, a lookout, and, at times, a passenger or two, in addition to its own weight: a substantial load to move. Those small hardy tripmen of the last century were — of necessity — powerful men.
One young lady, who had the fortunate experience of travelling in a York boat in the late 1800s, likened the York boat’s passage to a giant bug walking across the water: an allusion to the great oars, lifting and lowering like a procession of well coordinated legs.9 In the days to come I would understand and appreciate her description, I saw the effect so often from the canoe and occasionally from the riverbanks.
York boats made some surprisingly tough journeys in the one hundred years or more they were in regular use. The long haul from Norway House to York Factory and back, on behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company, was a major route — known as the “York Mainline.”10 A few made the rough voyage on Hudson Bay from Churchill to York Factory.11 We know they voyaged across much of Rupert’s Land, from what we now call northern Ontario, into Assiniboine country, in present-day Manitoba. They eventually went as far west as the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Some were actually built at Rocky Mountain House12 and travelled the North Saskatchewan River, via Edmonton, to Lake Winnipeg and on to Norway House. In the early- and mid-nineteenth century, York boats made the return trip from Red River to Fort Simpson on the great Mackenzie River; a round trip of 6,500 kilometres (4,000 miles).13
RCMP Inspector Denny LaNauze set out from Fort Norman, on the Mackenzie River, in a York boat in 1915.14 He and his party were searching for two missing priests. LaNauze went up the Bear River to Great Bear Lake and crossed it to the mouth of the Dease River. All told, his York carried seven people, their baggage, some freight, and two canoes. Their long-distance quest resulted in the discovery that the priests had been murdered. The Mounties, as always, got their men.
Delving into York boat history, one comes across fascinating nuggets of information, particularly regarding the cargoes carried. The bells for Winnipeg’s St. Boniface Cathedral, weighing three quarters of a tonne, were shipped across the Atlantic fromWhitechapel, London, to York Factory.15 They were delivered from there by York boat. Wheeled carriages and the first pianos, for the comfort and pleasure of the gentry and their ladies, arrived the same way. Cast-iron stoves, furniture, books, fine French wines — whatever was required by residents of the slowly burgeoning town on the Red River — all were delivered by York boats.16
It is even possible that the first billiards table to reach the Red River Settlement did so by York boat.17 Portaging standard “pieces” and York boats was, and is, brutal work. On the Hayes River there were thirty-four portages. The idea of manhandling a piano over a long portage is frightening. The possible musical interludes would hardly be worth the sustained physical effort. By comparison, portaging a cumbersome billiard table is beyond comprehension. Military cannons, too, for the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, travelled up the Hayes River by York boat to Red River. Perhaps the most bizarre piece of cargo carried was a package of human remains, destined for a long odyssey from continent to continent on wild rivers and deep oceans.
When travelling upstream against a strong current, tripmen used long poles to force their York boat ahead.
John Rowand was chief factor for the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Edmonton in 1854, and responsible for the enormous Saskatchewan District. In the spring of that year he set out to attend a factors’ convention at Norway House, before continuing downriver to York Factory. During a stop in Fort Pitt, where his son, John, was in command, Rowand senior, whom HBC governor George Simpson once referred to as, “Of fiery disposition and as bold as a Lion …” died of a heart attack while trying to stop a fight between two tripmen. The ebullient yet brave factor was initially buried at Fort Pitt, but later exhumed and prepared for travel to Montreal, where he was to be interred beside his father. This created an obvious problem: how to preserve a decomposing body for the long journey, which would take a few weeks. The solution was quite drastic. Rowand’s mortal remains were boiled down until only the bones remained. They were then packaged and carried to the Red River Settlement by none other than his friend, Governor George Simpson. There, concerned that the package might get thrown away by superstitious boatmen, Simpson had Rowand’s bones sent to Montreal by a monstrously circuitous route. First, they travelled down the Hayes River to York Factory. From there the gruesome package sailed to England before being transhipped back across the Atlantic to its final resting place in Montreal.18
Robert Ballantyne wrote of the difficulties incurred with two young buffalo. They were being transported from Norway House to York Factory by York boat; from there to be taken to England on the HBC ship Prince Rupert. Ballantyne said of the bison, “They were a couple of the wildest little wretches I ever saw, and were a source of great annoyance to the men during the voyage.”19
Domestic cattle were regularly freighted across the west in that way, which must have added considerably to the tripmen’s labours. Sharing a York boat with a couple of highly strung, prob–ably terrified, half-wild calves would not be most peoples’ idea of a pleasure cruise. Cattle, I remembered from my early years in the English countryside, have a nasty habit of voiding their bowels when under stress.
CHAPTER 5 Sea River Falls
THREE QUARTERS OF THE WAY across Sea River Falls on the Nelson River there is a small, rocky island with a few trees clinging desperately to its tenacious clumps of earth. The island separates the main flow from a tumultuous torrent rushing through a chute about ten metres wide. In capable hands, a canoe could be safely paddled down the main rapid, right beside the island’s east rock. An expert could probably take one down the chute and survive. The York boat, however, was too big for the narrow channel on the main rapid. It would have to go down the chute on the west side of the island. Rowing it in that narrow maelstrom would be nearly impossible. We would have to track it, or handline, from the island. Every possible man would be needed on the ropes.
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