Death on the Barrens

by George James Grinnell

  As a new, young husband, Art attempted to earn a living guiding paddlers down the Albany River. With an old motion-picture camera loaned by a neighbor, Art made a film of life along the river, and in the winter he toured around and gave lectures about the Cree way of life. There was not much money in the enterprise, and although his benefactor had left him enough to buy a house, there was not enough to retire on. He would either have to go down to New York City and “place himself on the Madison Avenue market,” as he said, or head deeper into the wilderness.

  Art decided to head deeper into the wilderness.

  He bought a new motion-picture camera and nine thousand feet of 16 mm film and then launched himself, with us in tow, into the largest uninhabited wilderness in North America. Making a film was not his true vocation, though. The wilderness called him in other ways.

  The portage up to the height of land dragged on for three weeks. The North is a country for young men, and despite his greater experience, Art suffered more than the rest of us on this long portage. The packs and boxes weighed heavily on his slight frame. At thirty-six, he stood on the cusp of middle age. While we younger members of the expedition grew stronger with each passing day, Art felt the vigor of youth draining away. He never complained, but his diary spoke of exhaustion:

  July 4: The tump pulling on my neck was too much to take for more than 100 yards at a time. To take the strain off my neck I would pull on the sides, at my ears, with my hands—this made my arms so stiff at the elbows I couldn’t straighten them out. To rest, I had to find a rock high enough to set the box on … I walked slowly. I was tired.

  George and Pete each made two trips while I was doing my one. Iron men. George never rests. Good man. Joe says he found saying “son of a bitch, son of a bitch” at every step helped for a while. But the flies are terrible.

  Art was the smallest man on the expedition, but he carried the heaviest load, which contained his camera and film. He rarely spoke. I misunderstood his silence for stoicism. I wanted him to be the father who could pick me up if I fell and carry me on his shoulders, along with his other loads. It did not occur to me that I could have been sharing his burden.

  Art was worried: worried about his children, his wife, the financial success of the expedition, and worried about his own ability to face the grueling physical punishment the wilderness was meting out. Outwardly, Art put on a brave face, but inwardly he wrote a different story: “Can’t recapture confident, carefree air of first Albany trip in 1937.”

  As we sat by the campfire in the evening, I had the naive idea that Art would have been insulted had I offered to help him carry the camera chest, which was proving to be too heavy for him. Instead, I regaled him with my philosophy of life; I thought my youthful sense of liberation and power, my desire to live life to its fullest, would impress him.

  Art nodded his head in an absentminded sort of way before nodding off in the warmth of the fire.

  July 8: Spent morning sewing up pants burned night before while discussing philosophy with George.

  Art carried an aging wind-up pocket watch that did not tell time very accurately, but because we carried no radio, we were unable to synchronize our watches to the central standard time on which civilization to the south hung its schedules. As we headed into the wilderness, for lack of any more reliable frame of reference, we set our watches to agree with his: “Moffatt time,” we called it.

  CHAPTER 4

  The First Sugar Dispute

  The magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone and ours only for a time.

  —D. H. LAWRENCE

  As the days passed into weeks we burned the fatty lining from our esophagi so that we felt hungry before, after, and during meals. The hunger began to express itself at dinner with a “friendly” rivalry to be first in line, then by an intense concentration as each of us took our turn dipping the doling cup through the “glop.”

  Glop consisted of two boxes of Catelli macaroni (scrounged from the storehouse of the Hudson’s Bay Company at Stony Rapids), two tins of tomato paste, two packages of dehydrated soup, and two cans of Spork or Spam, all boiled up in a gallon of water. The water was free, and Art made the most of it.

  The food was not elegant, but we loved Art’s glops. The hungrier we became, the more we loved them, particularly the fatty Spork and Spam. On the portages, we were using up about twice as many calories as we got from our rations, and the more calories we burned, the more we craved food, especially fatty food. Art cut the Spork and Spam into small pieces and stirred them in well, but all pieces were not of the same size. Being first in line for dinner meant a better opportunity to snare the biggest chunks.

  Young Peter Franck was in the habit of darting the doling cup along the surface so he could keep an eye on what he was doing. At eighteen, Peter was the youngest member of the expedition, although he had lied about his age, claiming to be nineteen. He had been down the Albany River with Art two years earlier. Art was fond of him and had demonstrated that fondness by buying him a new paddle and by appointing him sternman in the third canoe. Peter was proud of his new stern paddle, which was longer than those wielded by us bowmen. When I joined the group, Peter sat in the cabin at Stony Rapids and sanded his new paddle for hours until it looked more weathered, like Art’s and Skip’s; but after the varnish was sanded off, the paddle still looked new, and, to Peter’s great dismay, the naked blade warped when he put it in the water.

  While Peter Franck was almost always first over the portages and Joe Lanouette almost always last, Joe came alive at feeding time and could generally beat Peter and the rest of us to the head of the line. He also seemed to have an iron mouth and could gulp down his first bowl in record time and be first in line for seconds as well.

  The scooping technique of husky Joe Lanouette was much more successful than that of nervous Peter Franck. He dipped the doling cup deep into the pot, moving it slowly, ever so slowly, along the bottom. His was a matter of faith because he could not see what the cup was picking up, but physics was on his side, as the heavier chunks of meat tended to sink, and he always seemed to come up with the most desired morsels. Joe and Pete were by no means, however, the only ones to compete in the rush for glop.

  For the first time in my life, I was experiencing the reality of hunger, the long-term, gnawing reality of hunger that reminded me that my life depended on things beyond my control. We six had broken our dependency on civilization, but now my hunger reminded me of my dependency on the supplies we carried in the canoes, controlled by Art and Skip, our leaders.

  When the last item was eaten, what then?

  As we traveled deeper into the wilderness, my rush to the glop pot became ever more intense. The only men who did not rush were Art and Skip—Art because he always helped himself before calling the rest of us to dinner (he also ate out of a larger bowl than the rest of us, taking his seconds along with his first helping) and Skip because he was a man of high principles. While the rest of us laughed triumphantly when we scored the fattest of morsels, Skip stood silently to one side and scowled.

  After about two weeks, when it became clear to everyone that Skip did not approve of our dinner manners, lanky Bruce LeFavour, Skip’s bowman and tentmate, decided to follow Skip’s noble example. One evening, when Joe, Pete, and I rushed to the pot, Bruce and Skip outdid each other in politeness, to the point that their deference became absurd parody and Skip finally insisted, as second-in-command, that Bruce stand in line ahead of him.

  That evening, as he hurried to be first in line for seconds, Joe Lanouette emitted a horrendous belch. This was too much for Skip. “Just because we are living in the wilderness,” he scolded, “doesn’t mean we have to act like savages.” There was silence all around, but for the word savages ringing in our ears. Skip had just denigrated savages by comparing them to us. Art worshiped the so-called savages. No one said anything for a long time, but all eyes focused on Art, who finally managed a discreet, but audible belch of disapproval.
We all laughed—all, that is, except Skip, whose face turned various shades of purple before he looked sheepishly at Art.

  Art smiled at him.

  Skip smiled back, but beneath the surface, their attitudes toward leadership, toward the “conquest” of Nature, and toward “savages” were all very different. As the days passed into weeks, these differences began to surface with ever-increasing intensity.

  As the trip wore on, the image of Art in my dreams changed from that of a sergeant in the army to that of a wealthy banker. In one dream, Art was dressed formally in a white shirt, black tie, tuxedo, and patent-leather pumps. He was welcoming a multitude of five thousand hungry guests to a great banquet on a mossy, rock-bestrewn wilderness. He was serving glop. I stood off to one side, afraid to enter the feast. Art came over to greet me. He was welcoming, but I felt out of place. I was not sure I had been invited to the banquet, and I feared that I would be turned away with nothing to eat. My clothes were inappropriate. I was not dressed like Art in black tie, nor like the others in their wilderness garb, but as a beggar. My feeling in the dream was one of great anxiety.

  Although we had all contributed equally toward the expedition’s food supply, control of that food—that wealth—belonged to Art and Skip. As in my dream, they were enormously rich, and I desperately poor. While he never told us what to do, Art’s understanding of Reality was sufficiently astute to know where the wilderness source of authority lay: “He who controls the food …,” he had warned us before we embarked.

  As the days passed into weeks, I forgot about trying to impress Art with my youthful philosophy and thought more about setting my aims at a duck, but the first time I raised my rifle to attempt to contribute to our wealth, Art yelled, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! It’s a mother!”

  Reluctantly, I lowered my rifle.

  The next day, I made sure the duck was male and then took aim with my .22. Again the same response: “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! It’s a mother!” We bowmen made fun of the “Moffatt Maternity League,” dedicated to the defense of all mothers, young and old, female and male.

  Art, being a pacifist, had never carried a gun, neither in the wilderness nor in the war. Skip and Pete, who had been on other expeditions with him, followed his example. But we novices, sitting in the bows of the canoes, were heavily armed, lanky Bruce LeFavour with a .30-.06, husky Joe Lanouette with a .30-.30, and me with a .22.

  I put down my rifle but began to wonder about the wisdom of trying to cross the largest uninhabited wilderness in North America with insufficient food, with no radio, and under the leadership of a guru who turned out to be an animal-rights activist.

  Sometime in his early childhood, after his mother had died, Art developed the habit of picking up dead birds in the forest and bringing them home to paint. This horrified his father’s housekeeper, so Art then sneaked the dead birds up to his bedroom. Possibly he believed that his mother had flown off to heaven as a bird. At any rate, he loved birds and could not bring himself to kill one, regardless of whether he was starving.

  I admired Art, but as I followed him through the wilderness, the hunger of my soul pushing me on, the hunger of my body pulled me in another direction.

  Saint Paul once asked, “Did philosophy die for you?” and as we continued on, I became more and more convinced that philosophy would not die for me, but that, Art notwithstanding, perhaps a duck would.

  A few days later, as we paddled down the lake, the air filled with smoke. A forest fire was burning nearby, and the smoke became so dense that it completely obscured our way. We paddled until we hit land and made camp without knowing whether we were on an island or on the mainland. There was no wind. The smoke became thicker. We were afraid the fire would overtake our campsite and kill us all. Dinner was a nervous affair.

  Because we had landed early, Skip took the opportunity to check our supplies. After we had eaten dinner, he announced that if we continued to consume sugar at the current rate, we would run out before the trip was half over. “Gentlemen,” he addressed us all, “what do you think should be done about it?” As he asked this, he was looking disapprovingly, and directly, at Joe, as if to accuse him of having taken more than his share of sugar.

  Joe scowled back at Skip. “Divide up the sugar six ways,” he demanded angrily. “Let each man look after his own!” Art sat on a rock and sipped his tea from a white china cup. I did not know whether Skip was attacking Joe or indirectly attacking Art.

  Every morning at breakfast and every evening at dinner, an open press-top tin of sugar was placed on a rock near the campfire so that we could help ourselves. All our food was rationed except tea, the dehydrated milk we put in it, and the sugar. Because these were the only supplies we were allowed to be liberal with, the heaps of sugar we used grew higher and higher, and the cups of tea we drank more and more numerous.

  Art loved his tea, and he liked it sweet. He drank from a cup that was different from the ones the rest of us used, and, being in the habit of sipping tea into the wee hours, he drank more tea than the rest of us. Unlike Skip, Art was not one to stand last in line for dinner or to ration himself more severely than the rest of us.

  I felt anxious. The smoke thickened; my breathing grew more labored. I wondered if I were really suffocating, or just scared. I wanted control of the air I breathed and the food I ate. I supported Joe’s motion that we divide up the remaining sugar six ways so that each man might look after his own. Peter Franck and Bruce LeFavour also sided with Joe. Had the expedition been run democratically, the four of us would have prevailed, but then lanky Bruce turned to Skip and asked him what he thought should be done.

  Skip deferred to Art.

  Art deliberated for a while and then said, “There is no need; restrict yourselves to two spoonfuls for a bowl of oatmeal and one for a cup of tea. Just be on your honor not to take too much.”

  Art’s gracious honor system was carried unanimously because he had suggested it. Skip still scowled at us, though, and felt the need to enlighten us with a lecture on “group consideration and altruistic behavior.” I disliked Skip’s admonitions, and I would have preferred control of my own rations, but then Joe made me laugh and I forgot about my growing distrust of the way the food was controlled by Art and Skip.

  Art may have restricted the amount of sugar we placed in each cup of tea, but not the number of cups of tea we could drink. Joe presented us with a scenario in which everyone pretended not to notice how many times we were all getting up in the night to “look at the stars,” a telltale sign of having drunk too much tea. The more I laughed, the more Joe went on. He imitated us surreptitiously spitting into the bucket to create sticky lumps or wetting our spoons before dipping them into the sugar bucket in order to attract more grains of sugar to the bottoms. The more Joe and I laughed, the more annoyed Skip became; and the more annoyed Skip became, the more I laughed, until I ended up rolling on the ground, holding my belly in pain and choking on the smoke.

  Skip looked on in disgust; Bruce looked back and forth, from us to Skip, alternately smiling and scowling. Once Skip fixed his eyes on Bruce’s, though, Bruce just scowled.

  Art sat on a rock, witnessing this scene in a detached manner until, eventually, a bemused smile spread across his face.

  CHAPTER 5

  Panic

  Trees are like good people who care for others. They have to keep standing in the sun, but they give shade to others. Whatever fruits they bear, they do not eat themselves but give them to others. How kind they are.

  —VIKRAMA CARITAM 65, HINDU SACRED TEXT

  After climbing the rapids of the Chipman River for nearly a month, we approached the height of land, a low range of hills in the distance. Behind us, the rivers flowed south, back toward civilization; ahead of us, over the height of land, they flowed north, toward the Arctic.

  Art called for a holiday. Two weeks had passed since our last one, and we appreciated the rest; but idleness gave us time to think, and the more I thought, the more scared
I became. By dinner that day, I had worked myself into an advanced state of panic, convinced that I was going to break a leg, that I’d get appendicitis, that we would run out of food and I would starve to death, that we would capsize in a rapid and I would drown. Surely I would freeze to death if nothing else killed me first. I became absolutely certain that I was going to die; the expedition seemed to me to be total madness. My desire to follow Art into the wilderness had diminished with each terrified thought until I was finally ready to turn around and go home, which, at this point, still would have been easy. All we had to do was turn around. Once over the height of land, though, the rivers flowed in the wrong direction, away from civilization. We would be trapped by the rapids, forced to continue into the Barrens toward inevitable death. I wanted to turn around before it was too late.

  The woods were becoming thinner, which contributed to my nervousness. Trees provided fuel for our fires, but on the Barrens there would be no trees and no protection from the cold Arctic blizzards. I imagined losing paddles in the rapids and being unable to fashion new ones; gales would break our wooden tent poles, our tents would collapse, and we would be unable to find new ones. Across the height of land lay death and destruction. That evening at dinner, I was silent. I did not want the others to know how frightened I was.

  Dinners were usually happy, noisy affairs, with much laughter and kidding around, but that evening everyone was silent. Finally, while we were sipping our tea, lanky Bruce LeFavour, the great conversationalist, piped up with, “Say, Art, you know that story about Hornby and Christian, what really happened anyway?” We all took up the cue and began pressing Art for more details.

  John (“Jack”) Hornby, an Englishman, had been an adventurer much like Art. Before World War I he had acquired a taste for the Canadian wilderness, and during the war he had become convinced, like Art, that the world had gone mad. The first chance he had, he returned to the wilderness, and with a fellow veteran, Captain Bullock, wintered in a log cabin on the beautiful Thelon River.