by Farley Mowat
It did not flow between well-defined banks like an ordinary river. It spilled over the edge of the bowl and roared down the rocky slope in one mighty cataract of foam and spray that seemed to stretch for miles.
The river was formidable enough, but the land through which it ran was even more fearsome to behold. It was a totally dead land, so strewn with frost-shattered rocks that it looked like one titanic slag heap. Nothing, not even a caribou, could have crossed it on foot. Only the roaring river offered a passage to the east.
Ohoto stared glumly at the river for a long time. When he turned toward the boys again his usually jovial face was creased with lines of worry. He spoke to Peetyuk in a low voice.
“Ohoto say he never see Big River before except in wintertime when all frozen up,” Peetyuk translated. “He say he never know she such bad river. He say maybe better go back to Innuit camps and take canoes south by way we came, or wait till winter and take dogsleds south.”
Peetyuk and Awasin looked at Jamie.
“No, we can’t do that,” Jamie said slowly. “Remember Elaitutna and the way the Eskimos were acting when we left? If we went back that old devil would say we had to, because of the curse, and then he’d have all the people on his side. They’d probably never let us get clear with the Viking stuff. Anyway, if we did go south the way we came the chances are we’d be picked up by the police even before we got to The Pas. And we’d never get past The Pas without being caught. Either we have to go down Big River or admit we’re licked and lose the Viking stuff. One thing though, I think it’s too big a risk to take Angeline with us any farther. Anything could happen to us on this river. I think she ought to go back with Ohoto and come south to Thanout Lake with him in the wintertime.”
Jamie had meant well by this suggestion, but the girl’s reaction was as furious as if he had struck her in the face. With blazing eyes she faced him, so tense with anger that Jamie backed up a step.
“You will not leave me behind!” she cried. “Many times you have tried to do that, Jamie. I think you hate me because I am a girl. But I am as good a traveler as you are. Perhaps I am better. After all you are only…only a white man!” She almost spat out the last words.
Roughly Awasin caught her arm and pulled her back.
“Be quiet, sister!” he said sharply. “Jamie does not hate you. He is afraid for you. And you will not have to go back to the Eskimo camps. You are almost a woman now and you may make your own choice. But act like a woman!”
It was Peetyuk who smoothed out the quarrel.
“We look after Angeline easy. We not able let her go back anyhow. Who would paddle with Awasin, eh? One fellow alone in canoe not live long on this river.”
“Look, Angeline,” Jamie said placatingly, “I wasn’t trying to be mean. I was just scared something might happen to you. But you’re pretty near as good a ‘man’ as any one of us, and Peetyuk’s right, we need you. No hard feelings?”
Angeline’s burst of temper had been short-lived. Shyly now she touched Jamie’s arm.
“I am sorry, Jamie. And you will see, I will be no trouble. Now I think we have talked long enough. Men always talk too much. Let us go before there is another argument.”
“Right,” Jamie said. “If we stand here looking at this mess of white water much longer we’ll get too scared to lift a paddle.”
The leave-taking from Ohoto was brief and unemotional. Since they had made up their minds to go on, he accepted the decision without comment. He rubbed noses with Angeline, whacked each of the boys heartily on the shoulder and, singing a snatch of Eskimo song, trotted to his kayak, pushed off, and was soon winging up the bay with never a backward look. Eskimos believe it is bad luck to look back at a leave-taking.
The voyagers lingered a little longer on the ridge, assessing the river and the rapids and making a plan for running the first part of it. Now that they were committed, their lethargy seemed to vanish.
“It is best we start down the center channel,” Awasin suggested. “Once we are past that little island we can swing to the south channel. Beyond that we will have to see. I will lead for the first part if you wish. Then we can take turns picking the channels.”
“Good enough,” said Jamie. “Okay, you crowd of voyageurs, let’s see what we can do with this Big River!”
As the canoes swung out into the oily funnel which marked the head of the first chute, all four paddlers were tense and strained, their mouths dry, and their eyes staring. But as they entered the slick water and were swept swiftly into the first rapids the high excitement of the moment gripped them. In the lead canoe Angeline swung her paddle expertly, reacting instantly to Awasin’s commands. And that normally staid youth was soon shouting and whooping like a movie Indian while his little canoe shot back and forth from eddy to eddy like a scared trout. Jamie and Peetyuk were close behind, Peetyuk’s red hair flying in the wind of their passing, and Jamie’s eyes as bright as a squirrel’s as he searched the foam for signs of rocks ahead.
Once started there was no stopping. For what seemed like hours, but was in reality only fifteen or twenty minutes, the headlong plunge continued. Then, at a sharp bend in the river, the two canoes whipped out into a small lake and the paddlers had time to catch their breath.
“Wheee-ew!” Jamie shouted. “That’s better than a roller-coaster! This old river’s not so bad! We never so much as ticked a rock. How about you, Awasin?”
Awasin grinned and wiped his brow. “I have a good bow paddler. She is a better woman than I am, anyway.”
“I should hope so,” Jamie laughed. “Well, come on, sports, let’s not hold back. At this rate we’ll be in Churchill tomorrow night!”
For the next several hours the run continued. Alternating with long stretches of white water were several small lakes, but even in these the current flowed at two or three miles an hour. By mid-afternoon the constant excitement and tension had begun to tell on the youngsters, and when Awasin detected a deeper note in the roar ahead he swung to shore, and the others followed, glad of a chance to rest.
It was as well they went ashore when they did.
When they clambered up on the bank to stretch strained muscles they saw ahead of them a cataract which made the rapids they had already run look like riffles in a gutter.
Up to this point Big River had been playing with them. Now it showed its teeth. As far downstream as they could see there was no water—only a mass of foam punctured by the sleek wet shapes of innumerable boulders. The river seemed to have spilled right out of its bed and to be running hog-wild over a land that sloped steeply down to the eastward.
The exhilaration of the past few hours vanished.
“That’s not a rapid!” Jamie muttered. “I don’t know what to call it, but I know one thing…no canoe can go down there.”
No one argued with him. For a long time they stared in apprehensive silence, broken finally by Peetyuk.
“Now I think maybe Ohoto right. Maybe should go back and try some other road.”
“We cannot go back,” Awasin replied. “We have been running more than five hours now. You forget the speed of this river. To go back we would have to track the canoes upstream for thirty or forty miles. We would be many days, and it is much more dangerous to track up on such a river than to run down it.”
“Awasin’s right, we can’t go back,” said Jamie. “We have to go on…but how?”
“Only one way,” said Peetyuk. “Make big portage. This country all flat. Not like country we just come through. Got no hills, no rocks, easy to walk. We got not much to carry. Canoe, they light. We do easy, eh?”
“It’s walk or stay, I guess,” Jamie answered. “But let’s camp here tonight. I’ve had enough of Big River for one day!”
The next day was one which none of the four would ever forget. Dawn brought gray skies but not a breath of wind. Long before daylight the mosquitoes arrived. And with them came the second of the Barrenland plagues—black flies.
Black flies breed in the eddie
s of swift water, and Big River mothered them in myriads. The flies swarmed over the youngsters in such numbers that a haze formed around their heads. Flies crawled into every crevice in their clothing, and when they found flesh they bit, leaving a little drop of blood and a rising welt that itched furiously.
Once out of their sleeping bags the travelers found it impossible to remain still long enough even to light a fire and get some breakfast.
“Come on! Come on!” Jamie yelped. “Grab the stuff! We got to get out of here!”
Wordlessly, Awasin seized one canoe and Peetyuk grabbed the other. Flipping them upside down they hoisted them to their shoulders and set off at a dog-trot over the saturated muskeg. Jamie and Angeline followed close behind, festooned with packs, robes and paddles. Not everything could be carried at one time and so some of the bundles were left for a second trip.
They fled, but they were hotly pursued. The cloud of insects kept increasing in size. Awasin and Peetyuk had to use both hands to hold the gunwales of the canoes steady, and so could not beat off the swarms which crawled over their faces, into their eyes, up their nostrils and into their panting mouths. They had not trotted more than half a mile when they were forced to fling down the canoes so they could flail away at their tormentors.
Jamie and Angeline were not much better off. When they caught up to the other two, they also flung down their loads and joined in the mad dance.
“I can’t stand this!” Jamie cried. “We got to do something!”
“Open the packs! Get out the spare shirts,” Awasin commanded. “Wrap them around your heads and over your faces. Tie up the wrists of your jackets. It will help a little. We must go on. Maybe we can find a clump of willows by the river and build a smudge.”
“Leave canoes here,” Peetyuk added in a muffled voice as he wrapped a long flannel shirt around his head. “We run quick. Find wood, make big smoke!”
Thrusting the bundles under the canoes, the others followed his advice and soon the four of them were running over the sodden plains as if beset by devils.
Half crying with fatigue and misery, they stumbled into a little valley through which a tiny stream ran down to Big River and in this protected place they found a copse of willows. Tugging and pulling at the green branches like wild animals, they soon piled up a high heap. With trembling hands Awasin touched a match to some dry moss which he stuffed under it.
The wood was green and wet and burned slowly and with no heat—but it was not heat the travelers wanted. Great coils of yellow smoke rose from the smoldering mass and hung low in the still air. One after another the four flung themselves into the smoke, only to be driven out again coughing and spitting and with their eyes streaming. Each time they emerged they were met by a new wave of flies and driven back again.
The hours that followed were sheer agony. The choice was one of being choked to death or of being driven mad by the flies. When deliverance finally came in the form of a heavy rain followed by a rising easterly wind, all four were at the end of their endurance.
The relief of being free of the flies was so great that they ignored their soaking clothes and the chill of the east wind and lay in exhaustion on the saturated moss until Awasin roused them.
“We must go back to the canoes. If this wind gets too strong it will turn them over and all our gear will get wet.”
“Let it rain! Let it rain!” Jamie cried. “Boy! I never thought I’d live to bless the rain. Okay, Awasin, you’re right as usual. Let’s go.”
They plodded back across the dark plain to the abandoned canoes. There was no point in trying to move on until the rain let up, so they crawled under the canoes, and there, wet and shivering, they put in the rest of that miserable day. Towards night the rain slackened to a drizzle and they emerged, stiff, swollen and utterly dispirited, to lug the canoes and gear to the little valley. After a long struggle they finally got another fire to burn but it could not be made to boil the tea pail, and so they had to content themselves with a mug of warm water each, instead of tea. Wearily they erected the tent and crawled into it.
Lying all together in one wet huddle, like half-drowned pups, they finally dozed off, but not before Peetyuk had spent several moments mumbling mysteriously in Eskimo.
“What are you up to, Pete?” Jamie asked him.
“Not laugh at me, Jamie. I make old medicine song to Spirit of the Wind. I ask him blow and blow and never stop blow.”
“Laugh at you? Listen, Pete. You tell me the words and I’ll sing too. I’d rather have a hurricane than face those flies again!”
Whether the Wind Spirit heeded Peetyuk’s song, or whether luck was simply with the travelers, the wind kept blowing all that night and shifted to the north The morning dawned clear and cool and free of flies.
After a hearty breakfast the travelers again took up their loads, and led by Peetyuk, who seemed able to find firm footing in the worst of the muskeg, they continued their portage.
It was not as long a march as they had feared. Some five miles from the head of the wild cataract they came to the borders of a good-sized lake. Here Angeline and Awasin set up camp while the other two went back to pick up the balance of the gear. It was almost dark before they returned, but a big fire and a huge meal of meat roasted on long sticks over the coals was waiting for them.
They snuggled into their robes tired but content. Ahead of them lay several miles of easy paddling on quiet waters. They did not let themselves think about what might lie beyond the lake. The two Crees and the Eskimo boy had known from early childhood that one must live each day without worrying overmuch about what the following day would bring. Jamie was learning that this was an essential attitude for those who had to live the nomad life. He was phlegmatic as he sleepily summed up the trip that night.
“It’s sure a crazy country. One day we whip along like an express train and go maybe forty miles. The next we crawl like a sick lemming. Ah well, some day we’ll get there…I suppose.”
CHAPTER 20
Of Wolves and Sails
ON THE FOLLOWING DAY, THEIR third on Big River, the travelers made good progress. A light wind kept the flies at bay and helped the canoes along. Not that they needed any help, for Big River continued to flow downhill at an appalling speed. The voyagers had only to paddle hard enough to keep steerageway on the canoes while the current carried them along sometimes at eight or nine miles an hour.
Rapids were frequent, but the boys and Angeline were becoming hardened to them. During this day they ran twelve major rapids and innumerable smaller ones without mishap.
Being more relaxed now, they had more time to look about them, but there was not much to see. Big River continued to carry them through flat tundra country. Towards evening, the monotony of the barren plains was broken by a range of low hills. Everyone kept a sharp lookout for spruce thickets. The Eskimos had told them they would touch the edge of timberline just before reaching the only really large lake on Big River.
As they crossed a little lake in early evening Peetyuk, in the bow of the lead canoe, gave a shout and pointed with his paddle. Under the southern slope of a high sand esker they all could see a tiny stand of woods. Excitedly they headed for it and beached the canoes on a fine sand beach a few feet from the “forest.”
It was a pathetic forest, consisting of a few dwarf black spruces that looked more like bushes than trees. These were the tough outriders of the forests to the south. Here on the edge of the open plains they somehow managed to survive. When Jamie chopped one of them down he discovered from the rings in the wood that it was over a hundred years old even though it was no more than six feet tall.
For the first time in weeks the travelers were able to have a really big, hot fire that night. They luxuriated in the joy of leaping flames, while their bedding and clothing hung steaming on surrounding trees.
The heavy dusk which passed for darkness in the summer Barrens had settled over the land, and Peetyuk and Angeline had already crawled into their sleeping bags. Jamie a
nd Awasin were having a last mug of tea when Jamie stiffened, spilled half his tea, and hissed at Awasin.
“Look! Down by the beach!”
Awasin turned his head, and what he saw made the hairs on his neck rise. Not more than thirty feet away sat two immense white wolves with eyes glowing green in reflected firelight.
For a moment both boys were too startled to move. Then Jamie cautiously reached out his hand for the rifle. Never taking his eyes off the wolves, he dragged the gun slowly toward him, worked the lever to shove a shell into the breech, and began to raise the muzzle.
“Wait, Jamie!” Awasin whispered. “Don’t shoot. They mean us no harm. See? They are just curious.”
Somewhat dubiously Jamie lowered the rifle. But as the shock of the encounter began to wear off he realized that Awasin was right. The wolves made no hostile moves but continued to stare with open curiosity at the two boys.
Finally the smaller of the two wolves—the female—got to her feet, shook herself like a dog, and with several slow, tentative wags of her bushy tail advanced a few careful steps toward the fire. She looked very much like an enormous and friendly husky, and the last of Jamie’s panic vanished.
“I think they do not see men before,” Awasin whispered. “They do not know enough to be afraid of us. Watch now; I will throw them the bones from supper.”
Rising slowly to his feet, Awasin stepped away from the fire and picked up several rib bones. At his first movement the nearest wolf froze in her tracks, with one leg lifted, while the larger wolf got to his feet and backed off a little way.
Awasin began to make a low rumbling growl, like that of a dog who wishes to make friends with another dog. At the sound the ears of both wolves pricked sharply forward.
Carefully Awasin tossed the bones toward the wolves and then rejoined Jamie by the fire.
“They don’t know what to make of us,” Jamie muttered. He could hardly refrain from chuckling, for the wolves looked thoroughly puzzled and kept glancing at one another as if to say, “What should we do next?” Finally the female timidly edged forward until she could snatch one of the bones, whereupon she turned and fled down the beach as if all the devils of hell were after her. Her mate followed close on her heels.
