Mina kept her tremulous smile hidden, her back to the men. The pinch on her neck was fading away. She started walking again.
“We can make do without them axes, missus.” It was George who spoke. She turned to face him.
Joe said, “If them fishes can build chairs without axes, we can cut firewood, can’t we?”
Gilbert told her, “They don’t even have hands or arms. How hard can it be?”
She let her eyes drift from one man’s face to the next. Such strong, handsome smiles those men wore. How loyal and brave.
Job told her, “We oughta at least give a try, missus. Only way to know we can do it or not.”
It sounded so much like something her husband would have said.
The men’s faces began to blur. “All right, Job. We’ll give it a try.” And she turned away quickly again. This time, however, there was no ache of sadness in her heart.
“Beyond this point,” Mina would later write in her typical understated fashion, “our progress was slow and difficult. There were days when we made less than two miles, and these were the discouraging days for me, because there was ever hanging over me the thought of the necessity of reaching Ungava by the last week in August. … However, by poling and tracking, by lifting and dragging the canoe through the shallow waters near the shore, or again by carrying the entire outfit over the sandhills or across boulder-strewn valleys, we won gradually forward.”
Frequently they climbed a nearby hill to reconnoitre and choose the most advantageous route. Always their method of travel was dictated by the terrain. The same day might find them slogging through a marsh, then trudging over sandhills, then taking to the canoes for a short paddle to the next set of rapids, then marching through acres of burned-over spruce forest, and finally hiking over a carpet of spongy reindeer moss they were too exhausted to enjoy.
The blue-green moss grew everywhere, on bare boulders and rich soil alike, sometimes to a depth of six inches. When dry and deep it made for cushiony walking, which at first seemed exquisitely soothing but soon tired legs and ankles. When wet the moss was the consistency of jelly, and every bit as easy to tread upon.
Every step was an adventure, every misstep a potential tragedy. Sometimes their path led through forests whose floors were choked with a tangle of rotting limbs, while on every side great dark holes and crevices yawned, some partially or wholly concealed beneath a layer of matted leaves.
All along the way, whether by water or land, mosquitoes and blackflies accompanied them. The flies were tiny things, small enough to crawl through the mesh of the black silk veil Mina wore. Other flies, called bulldogs, were as big as bumblebees and twice as aggressive. On warm nights the interior walls of the tents were black with mosquitoes.
The weather was no more predictable than the terrain. The ground at dawn might be white with frost, yet the noon temperature might soar into the eighties beneath a flawless blue sky, with a shower of icy rain at suppertime.
On the morning of July 6, Mina’s party reached a place where the river expanded around a cluster of islands. She described the scene in her book: “Around these islands the river flows with such force and swiftness that the water can be seen to pile up in ridges in the channel.” Not only was this an important milestone on their march to Michikamau and the Height of Land, it was also the site of a trapper’s tilt owned by Gilbert’s older brother, Donald. Each winter the brothers trapped together up the Naskapi Valley, their trapline extending as far as Seal Lake, one hundred miles from the North West River Post.
Tilts like this one, minimalist in construction, were used by trappers as they moved, day by day throughout the season, along their traplines and home again. The door to Donald’s tilt was low and narrow and through it came the cabin’s only sunlight. There were no windows in the tilt, no floor other than the earth itself. But dangling from the crossbeams were pails filled with rice, beans, flour, lard and candles.
“Thrown across a beam,” Mina wrote, “was a piece of deerskin dressed for making or mending snow-shoes; and on a nail at the farther end was a little seal-skin pouch in which were found needle, thread, and a few buttons. A bunk was built into the side of the room a few feet above the ground, and lying in it an old tent. Beside a medley heap of other things piled there, we found a little Testament and a book of Gospel Songs. The latter the men seemed greatly pleased to find, and carried it away with them. We took the candles also, and filled one pail with lard, leaving one of the pieces of bacon in its place. Already we were regretting that we had no lard or candles with us. They had been cut out of the list when we feared the canoes would not hold all the outfit, and later I had forgotten to add them. The men were hungry for fried cakes, and the lard meant a few of these as a treat now and then.”
Gilbert had led the party here with the promise of an axe. But no axe was to be found. He did, however, appropriate a small frying pan and a pail.
Newly provisioned, the party was soon on the move again. They portaged all afternoon over rough ground paralleling the river. Rain fell off and on. Then, toward evening, the rain fell steady and hard, with no indication that it would let up soon. Hurriedly George located a likely spot for their camp.
He called a halt, then instructed Mina to sit on a gear bag so that he could spread the men’s tent over her as protection from the rain while her own tent was being set up.
“George’s tone of authority was sometimes amusing,” Mina wrote. “Sometimes I did as I was told, and then again I did not.”
This time she did, though inwardly she chafed at George’s protectiveness. Still, she was wet and cold already and therefore inclined to follow his instructions without protest. She only wished the mosquitoes and flies could be so obedient. Or maybe they thought George had invited them under the tent as well, for no sooner had he laid the silk fabric over her head than a few battalions of biting, stinging, buzzing and droning insects joined her there.
Once her tent was in place, she quickly ducked inside. George knelt at the flap for a moment, watching as she shook the rain from her hair, then ran her fingers over the myriad of throbbing wounds on her face and neck. By touch she scarcely recognized her face; it felt swollen to twice its normal size, every inch home to an itchy welt.
“I wish I had a mirror to see myself right now,” she said.
George, bent low while the rain cascaded off his back, said, “Maybe it’s a good thing you don’t.”
She could not help but laugh. Always before, when she had made some disparaging reference to the way she looked, George had assured her that she looked “just right.” That he, this time, felt comfortable enough to tell her the truth made Mina blush with pleasure.
In the past she had been a woman prone to blushing, shy and self-effacing, easily embarrassed. But that seemed a long time ago now. When was the last time she had blushed so warmly? Aboard the Harlow, the night she encountered Wallace on the deck. But the heat of that blush, the glow of cold anger, had been far less warming than this latest one.
“I’m pretty frightening, am I?” she said.
George shrugged. “You always look just right to me.” And then, perhaps realizing the implications of his statement, George blushed too.
With each day Mina’s respect and admiration for the men in her party increased. They were, she wrote:
gentle and considerate, not only of me but of each other as well. They had jolly good times together, and withal were most efficient. Gilbert was proving a great worker, and enjoyed himself much with the men. He was just a merry, happy-hearted boy. Joe was quiet and thoughtful, with a low, rather musical voice, in a pretty, soft Scotch accent, for all his Russian name. He spoke English quite easily and well. Job did not say much in English. He was very reserved where I was concerned. I wanted to ask him a thousand questions, but I did not dare. George was always the gentle, fun-loving, sunny-tempered man my husband admired.
Mina was finding it increasingly difficult to think of George without, a moment later, thinking of her
husband. The two men had become linked somehow. And not only because George had accompanied Laddie on the first trip. Not only because George’s loyalty to Laddie and his sense of guilt over Laddie’s death had not permitted him to refuse to accompany Mina on this trip. George was every bit as kind to her as Laddie had been, and even more solicitous of her comfort.
One evening, while the other men prepared dinner, George sat by the campfire in a light rain and mended Mina’s moccasin where a mouse had eaten through it the previous night. She had not asked him to do this, had not even pointed out the hole to anybody. She had removed her moccasins and was sitting there warming her stocking feet near the fire when George pointed to one of the moccasins and asked if he could have a look at it. After she handed it to him he pulled a needle and thread from his pocket and set to work. Later, wanting to do more, he offered to sew her moleskin pouch to her leather belt for safekeeping. Mina protested, but only weakly. Sometimes, as on this night, she enjoyed being tended to. George wanted to take care of her, and she had to admit that sometimes, when troubling thoughts did not intrude, she basked in his attention.
Later she described the incident in her book:
He finished putting the pouch on, and handed the belt back to me with a satisfied smile. Instead of taking it I only laughed at him, when he discovered he had put the pistol-holster and knife sheath on wrong-side first. There was no help for it, it had to come off again, for the sheaths would not fit over either buckle or pouch. I comforted him with the assurance that it was good he should have something to do to keep him out of mischief. When the mistake was remedied he showed me how to make a rabbit-snare. Then the rain drove me to my tent again.
The passage ends with the tantalizingly oblique observation, “It was horrid to eat in the tent alone.”
But the time alone gave her time to think, time to contemplate why she had come to Labrador in the first place, what she should and should not be doing. And the next day, as the party portaged through especially heavy brush, with the men hurrying ahead to reach calmer water, Mina felt herself weighted down by her thoughts, and could not keep up with the others. Again and again George asked her to hand him her rifle—the only thing other than her cameras that she was ever permitted to carry.
“Thank you, no,” she said.
“You will be able to walk faster without it.”
“If I am moving too slowly for you, George, go on ahead with the others.”
“Just let me carry your rifle for you.”
“No thank you!”
Finally, in frustration, he simply reached for it, moved to lift it off her shoulder. She spun toward him, eyes alight with defiance. He lifted his hand away, then backed away from her and looked at the ground until she turned and strode forward again.
In the next moment her anger vanished. How could she treat him so harshly? It wasn’t George who made her angry, not really. It was her own confused emotions.
Her diary entry for July 16 illuminates her emotional turmoil:
Oh, what this trip would be if he were here. I have to keep reminding myself that the hills he is climbing now must be so much grander and more beautiful to escape an ever-recurring feeling that it is wicked for me to be here when he is not and Oh how desperately hungry and desolate and sad…. I never dreamed it could be so splendid. And the grander and more beautiful it grows, the more I hunger for the one who made all things beautiful. …
Dillon Wallace’s expedition, July 17, 1905
AT THE HOUR OF DUSK, after an arduous day of tracking their canoes through icy rapids, then portaging over slippery boulders, sometimes climbing hills to scout ahead, Wallace and his crew were portaging their outfit through a strength-sucking marsh, sunk to their knees in muck, every footstep a Herculean effort. A wind out of the west drove pricking sheets of rain into their faces.
The men had been grumbling for days, complaining about the incessant hordes of insects, the weather, the insufficient rations, the lack of fresh meat. Only Duncan McLean, who had initially agreed to accompany the party as far as Seal Lake, had grown silent, even withdrawn. Wallace, struggling with a heavy load of gear on his back, fell behind the others so as to walk beside Duncan.
“I’m willing to bet the Indians don’t take this route,” Wallace said with a sheepish grin. It had been he, after all, who, after scouting the rapids, had laid out their present, unfortunate course.
“Not after they’d been here once or twice.”
“I imagine you’re looking forward to getting home soon.”
“It’s been on my mind. Yes sir, it has.”
Wallace nodded. “Can you stick with us as far as Lake Nipishish? We’ll hit it for sure tomorrow or the next day.”
“I can do that,” Duncan answered.
“We’ll have more water after that. Plus fewer and easier portages. Then on to the Height of Land.”
“I reckon that’s right.”
“The only thing that could slow us down after that is the weather.”
“You can never tell about it, that’s for sure.”
They walked in silence a while. Then Wallace said, “I’d be grateful if you could take some letters back with you. Post them for us at Groswater Bay. I would very much like for my sisters to know that I’m getting along all right.”
“I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear from you.”
“I’ll start on those letters as soon as I get the chance. And I’ll tell the other men to do the same.”
Duncan slapped at a mosquito and bloodied it against his neck, then picked off the little corpse and flicked it away.
“It always makes me feel better to write to my sisters,” Wallace said. He had done little complaining of his own on the trip, thought it unwise for the expedition leader to voice the slightest misgiving or reveal any breach in his confidence. But now, knowing that Duncan would be leaving soon, he felt some of his reserve begin to slip away. He looked out across the wide expanse of marsh. Beyond it stood the black spears of a burned-over forest.
“It really is a godforsaken place up here, isn’t it?” he said.
“Some of it is. Yes, sir, for sure some of it is.”
“But you like it in Labrador all the same.”
“Because it’s home to me. It’s the place I know. Just gets into your blood, I guess.”
Wallace thought about his own home then, thought about warm, dry rooms and dry shoes and dry socks. He thought about his cozy office, where he smoked his pipe and sat at the window and looked out upon the city. He thought about the restaurants he liked and the dishes they served, the great heaping platters of beef and the baskets of rolls and the bowls of sweet butter. And sweets—how he missed his puddings and cakes!
And he thought about Hubbard, that uncomplaining, indomitable man. Two years earlier on this same date, Wallace and Hubbard and Elson had barely been on their way but had already made two disastrous mistakes. At the North West River Post, where they intended to purchase a gill net, they had been informed, just as they had been in Rigolet, that no nets were available.
And so, with only a worn-out net salvaged from the post, they had begun on that July 15 what Wallace later described as their “plunge into the wild.” Shortly after one o’clock that day they had reached the upper end of Grand Lake and entered what they thought was the Naskapi River. They had a mile of easy paddling; then, soon after,
the water was so swift and shoal that we could take only a part of the outfit in the canoe, which meant that we had to return at intervals for the rest and track all the way, Hubbard pulling on the line while George and I waded and pushed. Sometimes we were scarcely knee deep in the water, and at other times we would sink up to our armpits. Frequently we were swept off our feet…. The work was awful, it was heartrending.
Even more onerous, though, were the hordes of blackflies that attacked them. “They got into our nostrils, into our ears, into our mouths, into our eyes even, and our faces and hands were streaked with blood from their bites. They were vil
lainous, hellish.”
The river, of course, was not the Naskapi but the Susan, a fact Hubbard would never learn. And with that sudden, enervating remembrance, the grief hit Wallace again, coming out of nowhere like a great black-winged bird swooping down: Hubbard is gone. Hubbard was gone, and Jennie was gone, and there was nobody waiting for him back in the city. Here he was, knee-deep in a marsh on his second plunge into the wild, again being eaten alive by insects, and he was unremittingly alone. Yes, Labrador truly was a godforsaken place. But was New York City any better?
His next footstep was the hardest of the trip. He could not extricate his boot from the muck, could not lift it clear. And finally, with a soft moan, a sound he had not meant to make, he came to a halt.
Duncan McLean looked back. “You all right, Mr. Wallace?”
Wallace blinked. Perspiration dripped from his forehead. His feet were numb with cold. “Sometimes,” he said, “I …” But he would not allow himself to finish. What good would it do?
“I just need a moment to get my breath.”
Duncan waited beside him. “We’ll likely be out of here soon.”
But on this point, Wallace knew, Duncan was wrong. Wallace would never be out of Labrador, no matter where he lived. Labrador would hold him its prisoner forever.
Mina Hubbard’s expedition, third week of July 1905
IN A SMALL CLEARING a few hundred yards from the river, Joe and Job and Gilbert dropped their loads on a bed of moss. They waited several minutes for George and Mina to catch up. After they had, Joe asked, “How’s this for tonight’s camp?”
“Suits me,” George said, and he slipped off the heavy pack.
“We’ll bring the rest of the outfit forward,” Joe said. He and Gilbert and Job retraced their steps to where they had left the canoes and the remaining gear.
George studied the surroundings. A sparse line of trees ran across the centre of a hill approximately a quarter-mile away. He told Mina, “I bet if we climb that rise there we can look back and see how far we’ve come.”
Heart So Hungry Page 11
