The Last Voyageurs

by Lorraine Boissoneault

  Ken wasn’t overly concerned. They’d all become strong over the past two weeks and proven their ability to handle the canoes. Besides, it was easy enough to take a day off since their schedule had been built with an extra week to take the weather into account. If a storm came up, they just wouldn’t leave land.

  Sandbanks Provincial Park, Ontario

  August 30, 1976

  The end of August on Lake Ontario was filled with unpredictable weather and unanticipated difficulties. First there had been the rumor of potential vandalism when they visited the town of Bath. A group of the men were selected for guard shifts, adding sleep deprivation to their list of physical difficulties. Then there were the bugs. They’d seen mosquitoes on the St. Lawrence, and everyone had mosquito netting if the vampiric beasts grew too numerous. But one night while camped out on marshy ground near the abandoned Prince Edward Point Lighthouse the netting proved useless.

  The campsite was a disaster from the start, with sharp reeds jutting up from the ground and the smell of rotting vegetation hanging like a miasma in the air. Each footstep squelched and the sleeping bags inevitably got wet. But far worse were the newly hatched mosquitoes that rose from the ground in the hundreds that night. Everyone awoke choking on tiny insects that swarmed around in their shelters. The air buzzed with the droning of thousands of mosquitoes in flight. When Barton Dean, the expedition’s photojournalist who occasionally paddled and camped with the crew, flicked on his flashlight (he was allowed to carry one since he wasn’t officially a voyageur), the beam barely penetrated the dense thicket of insects around him. It was a miserable night; there was no way to escape the hungry bugs. Dean counted thirty-five bites on his forehead alone the next morning.

  Finally, there was the weather. Nothing but rain, wind, and storms practically every day since they’d left the St. Lawrence. On August 28 the water was too rough for the expedition to leave its campsite, and the next day they were forced to stop three miles short of their destination, Point Petre, because of high winds and big waves.

  Although nowhere near as dramatic or devastating as the plagues of Egypt, the incidents sometimes felt like biblical trials. Each one added to the normal levels of stress that built up over the course of a day. For Ken, sometimes the accumulating stress felt like layers of calcareous rock slowly accreting on top of him, adding to his growing sense of mental and emotional fatigue and making him appear ever rougher and more unapproachable to other crew members. The lack of alcohol and nicotine was a constant source of irritation, especially around the rest of the crew who were free to smoke tobacco in pipes and drink whatever their hosts might offer them. Ken had been smoking and drinking since early high school, and quitting the two vices at once, especially smoking, made him miserable. Then there was the growing unease he felt about leaving his wife alone for eight months. The decision to participate in the expedition had been an added strain on top of other smaller problems, and now he worried some of those problems might have grown too large to fix when he got back. Everything contributed to the roiling emotions he felt each day. The only person he was comfortable talking to about his struggles was his brother, but Reid already had enough on his plate. There was nothing to be done but push on. He’d never before given up when faced with adversity, and he wasn’t planning on starting now.

  The morning of August 30 seemed to augur a change for the better. The sun rose into a cloudless sky as the cooks for each of the three modules reheated bean and pea soup leftover from the night before. The resulting glop was thick enough for a wooden spoon to stand straight up in the middle of it and tasted slightly burned. Ken didn’t mind the quality of food they ate when they weren’t served community banquets. He was always hungry enough that the importance of flavor receded in favor of filling an empty stomach. Sometimes the peas and beans weren’t fully cooked by the time a meal was served and you had to chew your way slowly through every fibrous mouthful. The cooks had taken to filling a pot with peas, beans, and water, setting it in the back of the canoe, and letting the legumes soak for the day while they paddled. It seemed to help, but the soup was still thick.

  Ken hopped in the canoe after swallowing down all his breakfast, and they shoved off the beach into two-foot waves and a light breeze. They had fifteen miles to cover and it looked like they might finally make some decent progress after two days of being stymied by strong winds. The attitude in his canoe was one of comfortable camaraderie. They didn’t always talk or sing, but when they did it proved amusing. Fredenburg, the gouvernail, had a great voice and could sometimes be convinced to sing satirical verses from Second City or Saturday Night Live. The most popular request made by the other paddlers was the comedic “Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio,” written by Randy Sparks and made famous by John Denver on The Tonight Show. Fredenburg sang from the back of the canoe while the others hollered with laughter. Hess was also good for provoking a laugh, going off half-cocked on whatever came to his mind. And LeSieutre was a smart guy, never failing to provide interesting topics of conversation. The boat also managed to stay in the front of the pack most days, an ever-important measure of success. Although the crews of the six canoes had been instructed not to race one another, there were feelings of inferiority among the crew members whose boats lagged behind. The crew of the Fleur-de-Lys, Ken’s boat, never struggled to keep up.

  As the fleet of canoes rounded Wicked Point, they paused for Hobart to consult his charts. The wind was steadily building and coaxing the water into higher and higher waves. They decided to try to cut across the big bay and land at Sandbanks Provincial Park. The trek might require extra bailing due to the white-capped waves that rolled the canoes around, but they’d dealt with a little water sloshing around in the boats before. No reason to doubt their abilities now. That didn’t stop a few of the men from pulling on the boxy yellow or blue life jackets.

  Shortly after the group set off again it became apparent that the conditions were much worse than anything they’d yet faced. The white-capped waves rose higher and higher until they were seven and even nine feet high. Although the six canoe crews tried to stay close together, it was a challenge to keep track of one another. The wind whistled incessantly, deafening the crew. The boats disappeared into the troughs of waves, becoming momentarily surrounded by walls of green water. When the canoes climbed out of each trough onto the crest of a wave, crews frantically reoriented themselves and attempted to locate the other canoes before descending to the bottom of another wave. At the front of Ken’s canoe, LeSieutre felt a jolt of fear at the sight of every new wave. The towering wall of water loomed above him at such an extreme angle that he was sure this would be the one to curl down and break over him. But equally frightening was reaching the top of a wave and preparing to surf back down. With such high waves, the narrow canoes could easily be thrown off balance and suddenly roll, sending the paddlers straight into the water. Capsizing now was an urgent danger. The water wasn’t cold enough to cause immediate hypothermia, but if someone got injured during the capsizing—if he hit his head on the gunwales or twisted a wrist or an ankle on the way over—there was no telling how long it might be before help could be summoned, or if the other crews would even notice.

  In the back of Ken’s canoe, Fredenburg struggled to keep the vessel from tipping. Making the task more difficult was the direction of the waves, which rolled parallel to the shore. Though the voyageurs could barely communicate with one another over the sound of wind and waves, it was obvious that they needed to get off the water as soon as possible. But for hours now they’d been paddling past cliffs that went straight up out of the water. At last the sandy shoreline of Sandbanks Provincial Park appeared in the distance—the destination everyone knew they needed to reach. It wasn’t going to be an easy journey. If Fredenburg tried to head straight for the beach, the forces acting on the canoe might flip the vessel the moment it came too close to perpendicular with the waves. If he tried following the shoreline, he’d be battling for control of the boat each time they
skated down a wave, and they’d never get any closer to landing. The best solution was to quarter the waves, a strategy that meant climbing up and skating down at a forty-five-degree angle. Once they were close enough to shore, the boats could turn straight in. It was exhausting work, but adrenaline kept him and the other paddlers well supplied with energy. Every so often Fredenburg instructed Ken to stop paddling and start bailing. Having one less man paddling slowed their progress, but he couldn’t allow the canoe to sink.

  No one wore or carried a watch except Reid, so no one knew how long they’d been paddling. It felt like an eternity. At some point between alternating paddling and bailing, Ken realized it had been a while since he’d seen Reid’s canoe. He looked up from his work when they reached the zenith of a wave and scanned for the others. Nothing. That didn’t initially worry him. The boat crews could see one another only if they were on a crest at the same time, so it might take a cycle of five or ten waves before seeing them all.

  But after a bit longer, it became clear that Reid’s canoe had gotten separated from the group. Ken felt the first touch of fear, like a cold stone sinking in his stomach. “Where’s my brother?” he asked the other three men in his canoe. “Have you seen my brother?” No one had.

  Oh no, Ken thought. He bit the dust somewhere.

  Ken was well acquainted with the precise sensation of dread. He knew what it was like to feel truly at risk of dying. He’d served in the Naval Air Force in the sixties and flown large planes to detect Soviet antiaircraft subs. There had been some hairy moments. Once, his plane had been targeted by Libyan radar as he flew around the Mediterranean. If the Libyans had decided to push one button, missiles would have shot after the plane and taken it down. Evasive maneuvers were impossible in the type of large, slow plane he flew. It was a terrifying experience, knowing that at any moment he might be blasted out of the sky. It forced him to contemplate his mortality in a way he’d never done before. But even that was nothing compared to thinking his younger brother might be injured or dead.

  Ken had always been protective of Reid. As kids, they would occasionally get in fights that ended with both of them rolling on the ground pummeling each other. But the moment another person so much as threatened Reid, Ken was there snarling in his defense. As adults, there was much less reason for Ken to jump to Reid’s aid. His younger brother regularly managed to take on spectacularly difficult tasks and see them to completion. But that didn’t stop Ken from worrying about him. And if something happened to Reid now, what would their parents say? Before they’d left, their mother had told them, “I have all my eggs in one basket, so be careful.” And now, on the first day of truly rough conditions, Reid’s canoe was the one that had disappeared.

  As he was starting to get seriously concerned and trying to formulate a rescue plan, Ken finally sighted Reid’s boat. It was at least a half mile away from everyone else and heading farther out into the lake. Jesus, Ken thought. Reid, change your course. You have to take your chance and risk broadside action, at least quarter into the waves! But whatever telepathic bond they may have shared at certain points in their life, it didn’t seem like Reid could hear his older brother now.

  Ken felt physically sick. If he could convince his canoe to go out farther, they could provide support to Reid’s canoe in the event that anything happened. The canoes were supposed to stay grouped closely together anyway, because they were the only ones looking out for one another. How had Reid let his canoe get out so far? Of course, Reid wasn’t the one steering—DiFulvio sat behind him in the gouvernail position, but Reid could’ve encouraged him to go closer into the beach.

  But no, Ken couldn’t ask the three teenagers in his boat to risk their lives by heading farther away from the shore. He’d have to focus on getting to land and then do whatever he could from there. He didn’t want to think about what that might be. Instead, he told himself to dig in deeper with each paddle, ignore the cramps in his legs and back, ignore the fear for his brother and the fear of being swamped in their own canoe.

  Finally, the five canoes surged shoreward on the backs of wild waves. White foam swirled around them and thrust the canoes ever faster toward the beach. One by one the avants gauged the depth of the water and jumped out of the canoes to help slow the boats’ momentum—and one by one they tumbled over like a lopsided row of dominoes, unable to stand after sitting so long in the same position. The canoes swept past them and crashed onto the beach, some men falling out while others jumped out to go help the waterlogged avants. Once the boats had been pulled out of the water and everyone had a few breaths to recover from their three hours of barely contained panic, they all began whooping with joy, as exuberant as if they’d just won the World Series. The rush of surviving ten-foot waves in twenty-foot canoes with no damage done to their vessels was unimaginably powerful. It was more than relief, more than excitement; it was bliss. When they went up against the elements, the odds were always against them. It made winning that much sweeter.

  And there, one hundred yards down the shore, came Reid’s boat. They’d taken a much sharper angle than the rest of the boats, but they’d survived the experience as well. Ken ran out to them and felt the knot of tension in his stomach uncoil. He breathed a huge sigh of relief and watched as DiFulvio hopped out of the canoe and embraced Kulick, shouting, “We did it!” Back at the other end of the beach, where the five other boats had landed, John Fialko declared, “We are now all seasoned canoemen.” Coming from him, the crew member who most epitomized a professional outdoorsman, it was the highest praise. They’d all survived. Ken still had a brother.

  Scarborough, Ontario

  September 7, 1976

  Chalky white cliffs running along the shoreline stretched into the distance and towered three hundred feet above the mock birch-bark canoes, providing an impressive backdrop for their landing point. Sunlight glinted off the water, refracting and breaking in the voyageurs’ eyes. In any other circumstances, the men would be wearing sunglasses instead of squinting into the glare. But not on this expedition. It would ruin the illusion.

  A crowd of reporters and townspeople on the sandy beach watched as the six dark spots on the water drew closer and took on a definite shape. They were escorted by a modern police boat, making an odd fleet. One canoe carried a flapping white flag in its stern. The gold fleur de lys painted on it flickered in and out of view as the fabric rippled in the wind. The voyageurs pulled their paddles through the water in a hypnotic rhythm. The closer they paddled and the clearer the details of their attire became, the more unreal they seemed. Several wore white headbands to hold back their long hair, and one had a leather vest held shut by small, imperfect buttons carved of antler. Another wore a bright red jacket with gold cuffs and a black felt hat. All were bronzed and muscular. Pulling close to the shore, the men raised their paddles into the air in unison, saluting the crowd. They looked like phantoms next to the Scarborough Bluffs, travelers from an era before the bluffs were given their name by an Englishwoman.

  The fricative crashing of surf and the noisy splashing of voyageurs hopping out of their canoes to protect the boats from a hard impact broke the sense of fantasy surrounding the ghostly crew. They were real, solid flesh, smelling of campfires and sweat. They could be approached for pictures and answered questions the gathered audience might ask as they set about the task of building their camp.

  Scarborough Mayor Paul Cosgrove greeted the voyageurs on horseback, wearing a royal blue coat as if he were the French Sun King. Ken liked to see towns embracing the narrative and donning costumes of their own to briefly inhabit a different persona. Escaping to another character was one of his great joys; it made history much more vivid and approachable. As soon as he appeared in front of a crowd, Ken threw himself into his alter ego, Antoine Brossard. During his previous reenactment voyage, on the Jolliet-Marquette expedition, Ken had interpreted his historical persona as a scurrilous character. This time around he took the opposite approach: he liked to think of Brossard as a decent
guy with a fondness for telling long yarns. It was a good persona for interpreting the lives of the voyageurs for the civilians who came to see them. Being Antoine Brossard meant Ken didn’t have to worry about fund-raising or publicity or personal problems outside of his immediate crewmates. Being Brossard made his life feel appealingly simple.

  Scarborough was the expedition’s penultimate stop before exiting Lake Ontario. Ahead lay the Toronto Portage, a thirty-two-mile, twelve-day hike through the heart of the city, carrying thousands of pounds of gear and the six canoes. It promised to be a torturous, backbreaking experience unlike anything the voyageurs had encountered thus far. Not that Lake Ontario had been a holiday. They’d almost been bested by the lake at Wicked Point, and even after they put the worst conditions behind them, there had been other difficulties along the way.

  On the last day of August the crew had camped on a sandy beach near Brighton where eight five-hundred-pound bombs from World War II lay dormant and unexploded. Among themselves the crew joked about not pounding in their stakes too hard, though they’d been assured of the safety of their campsite by locals. When a massive squall erupted late that night, a reverberating crack of thunder woke half the camp and convinced a few men that one of the bombs had exploded. Antoine Brossard never had to think about hidden explosives, although the risk of having an enemy’s tomahawk buried in his skull was probably equally worrisome.

  But the main sources of tension had little to do with natural or artificial obstacles along the route. The issues came from within, linked to the various personalities of the voyageurs and the social rules and strictures imposed on them. It wasn’t just hunger and fatigue that gnawed on frayed tempers and made people liable to snap. It was an absence of clear leadership.