River Rough, River Smooth. Anthony Dalton
accepting me into his publishing family. My editor, Shannon Whibbs, deserves special mention for her patience with me during the editing process and for her considerable editing skills. Thank you so much. I have enjoyed working with you, Shannon.
CHAPTER 1 Rowing Down the River
There is no place to get to know companions more intimately than in a small craft on a voyage.
— Tristan Jones (1929–1995), To Venture Further
“AHA, BOYS! OHO, BOYS! Come on, boys! Let’s go, boys!” Ken McKay’s rich voice echoed down the wilderness river. A few crows took alarm. They cawed their disapproval and launched themselves skywards, flapping shiny, black wings urgently away from the intrusive cries. As Ken’s words reverberated off the smooth, granite boulders on either side, eight strong backs bent over long, slim oars. Before his command had been completed, sixteen tired arms picked up the tempo. An equal number of legs braced against any solid object as dozens of muscles took up the strain. Eight oars sliced into the river as one.
Directly in front of me, Wayne Simpson’s red oar blade bit deeply into the cold water, ripped through it, and burst up into the warmer air. Sparkling drops of the Hayes River spilled in a cascade of miniature jewels behind it. Without hesitation, the oar plunged to the river again to complete the cycle: and then to start all over again. For once oblivious to my surroundings, I followed, forcing my oar to mimic the one in front.
Wayne had been rowing regularly for much of the summer on Playgreen Lake, beside Norway House. I had enjoyed little recent practice. He was twenty-seven. I was fifty-four. The age difference was uncomfortably obvious, especially to me. My arms felt like lead as I fought to maintain his rhythm. Drop the blade into the river, force back hard, and lift out again. Into the river, force back hard, and lift out again. Over and over the brief monotonous cycle was repeated. My eyes focused on a point in the middle of Wayne’s powerful shoulders, just below the collar of his white T-shirt, where the manufacturer’s oblong label showed vaguely through the material. As he moved back, pulling hard on the oar, so I pulled back at the same time, desperately trying to keep time by maintaining a constant distance between my eyes and that arbitrary spot on his shirt.
I rarely took a seat at the oars. My job was photography and writing the expedition log. Cameras and oars are not compatible when used by one man at the same time. For the moment my cameras were safely stowed near my feet. Shutter speeds and apertures were far from my mind. Determined to row as hard and for as long as those around me; forcing myself not to be the first to rest his oar, I allowed my mind to slide into a different realm. Think rhythm. Think Baudelaire.
Bau-del-aire. Three short syllables. One for the blade’s drop into the river. Another for the pressure against living water. The third — just as it sounds, I told myself — back into the air. Bau-del-aire. Bau-del-aire. Bau-del-aire.
Allons! Allons! Allons! 1 (Let’s go on! Let’s go on! Let’s go on!)
My rowing rhythm improved a little with the beat in my head. Subconsciously, silently, I recited the sensual lines from my favourite parts of Baudelaire’s “Le Voyage”:
Chaque îlot signale par l’homme de vigie Est un Eldorado promis par le Destin; L’Imagination qui dresse son orgie Ne trouve qu’un récif aux clartés du matin. 2
My lips moved repetitiously, mimicking each thrust of my oar — pulling me and my pain along with the boat.
Sweat soaked my cap, saturating it until its cloth could hold no more. A rivulet escaped and trickled down my temple, followed by a flood that rolled from the top of my head, down my brow, and poured into my eyes. The salt stung and I blinked furiously to clear my vision; to maintain eye contact with that spot on Wayne’s shirt. The passing scenery — the banks of the Hayes River — was a blur of green and grey. I wondered how Baudelaire had fared on his long sea voyage to and from India in the 1840s.3 I was sure he had travelled in far greater comfort than we, the York boat crew.
Beside me, to my left, Simon grinned and grunted with the exertion. Behind us, toward the front of the boat, five other rowers bent to the task. The York boat leapt forward, creating a sizeable bow wave. Ken looked steadfastly ahead. His eyes, hidden as usual behind dark glasses, betrayed no thoughts: the copper skin of his face an expressionless mask. Both of his hands firmly gripped the long steering sweep. In the canoe, close by our stern, but off to starboard a little, Charlie and Gordon kept pace with us, their outboard motor purring softly.
Charlie called out to the rowers in encouragement; his powerful voice driving us to greater effort. We responded and dug deeper, into ourselves, and with the oars. The physical efforts of the previous weeks had been worthwhile. The rowers worked as a team, concentrating on a steady rhythm. As long as I followed Wayne’s fluid movements, I knew I could keep up with the others.
We all knew there were more rapids ahead, more dangers; more hard work. McKay’s often-heard cries of tempo change, “Aha, boys! Oho, boys!” were designed to break the tedium of long hours on the rowing benches, as well as to increase speed. Sudden spurts of acceleration tended to force the adrenaline through all our bodies, whether we were rowing or not. We would need that extra drive to negotiate the whitewater rapids and semi-submerged rocks still to come.
We were alone on the river. Our last contact with people was back at Robinson Portage, on the first night of that back-breaking overland traverse. Since then the river, the granite cliffs, and the forests of spruce, tamarack, and lobstick pine on either side, had been ours and ours alone. Briefly our passing touched both as we, twelve Cree, one outsider, a York boat, and a canoe rambled onward toward the sea.
Behind us stretched an invisible trail of defeated rapids. All, in some way or other, attempted to block our progress. Some almost succeeded, for a while. A few, wilder than others, tried to dash our expedition hopes and our boat on sharp-edged rocks. So far all had failed, though we and the boat bore the scars of each and every successive encounter. Our hands were cracked and blistered. Arms and legs bore multiple cuts and bruises. As they healed they were replaced by fresh slashes and new contusions. We were destined to earn many more superficial injuries in the next day or so.
Less than two weeks before, I was in Winnipeg studying York boats and their history, while nursing slowly mending broken ribs — the result of a fall in the Swiss Alps two weeks prior. Now, with a long oar clamped in both hands, I pulled with all my might, the injured ribs all but forgotten. My eyes focused on Wayne’s shirt. My mind wandered away from Baudelaire, trying to recall half-forgotten lines from another poet’s classic prose.
Pilgrim of life, follow you this pathway. Follow the path which the afternoon sun has trod. 4
Rabindranath Tagore’s words sounded lonely — as lonely as I sometimes felt on the river, although I was constantly surrounded by people. A pilgrim of life following a river the afternoon sun was already preparing to leave. My pathway flowed against the sun. My progress determined not by a celestial body, but subject to the whims of the Cree. Where they go, I go.
During those few days in Winnipeg, I spent many long hours curled up in my hotel room with books, historical articles, and my notepads. The rest was good for my ribs and beneficial to my mind. I studied for hours each day.
The Hudson’s Bay Company (also referred to in this book as HBC), which controlled the Hayes River York boat and canoe freight route for over twenty decades, came into being in its earliest form in 1667 in London, England.5 A syndicate of businessmen,6 headed by Prince Rupert,7 formed the Company of Adventurers with the intention of exploiting the reportedly fur-rich lands, and possible mineral wealth, to the west of Hudson Bay.8
Nonsuch,9 the first vessel actively employed by the syndicate that would eventually become the Hudson’s Bay Company, was no leviathan