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CHAPTER 2 The Historic Hayes

The Hayes River is the largest naturally flowing river in Manitoba, and drains the third largest watershed in the province. It begins its course near the head of Lake Winnipeg, flows north for 550 [sic. This is a typographical error. The river is closer to 650] kilometres through the vast wilderness of the Precambrian Shield and the Hudson Bay Lowlands, and empties into Hudson Bay. This seldom travelled river is characterized by remote stretches of white water, large lake systems, deep valleys and gorges and the unspoiled wilderness of the northern boreal forest.¹

SO READS THE OPENING PARAGRAPH of a background study by the Canadian Heritage River System (CHRS) produced in 1987. Perhaps fortunately (and no doubt due to its remote location), the Hayes River is still rarely travelled in the early years of the twenty-first century. Certainly it is nowhere near as busy as it was in the heady decades of the fur-trade era, 150 to 250 years ago. Manitoba Parks Branch recognized the importance of the Hayes River in 1983 when it designated it as a provincial recreation waterway.² Parks Canada had acknowledged the river’s historic importance eleven years earlier.³

Map of Canada.

The Hayes River was named by French explorer and fur-trade entrepreneur Pierre Radisson⁴ after Sir James Hayes,⁵ a charter member of the Hudson’s Bay Company and, at one time, the largest shareholder. He was also, in effect, the founding father of the Company. Sir James was the personal secretary to Prince Rupert, who had been instrumental in forming the Company of Adventurers, which became the Hudson’s Bay Company. Hayes drafted the sailing instructions for the original Nonsuch voyage to Hudson Bay. He went on to become a deputy governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The Hayes has coursed through the Manitoban wilderness since the many glaciation periods of the extensive Pleistocene era.⁶ Extending from the Precambrian Shield to the Hudson Bay Lowlands, the river’s level is at its peak in May and June due to ice and snow melt in the spring.

Along its length, the Hayes is home to an impressive collection of wildlife, although, due to the densely forested nature of the river’s banks along much of its upper reaches, many species are rarely seen by river travellers. Among the large land mammals reported in the region are moose (Alces alces), woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), barren ground caribou (Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus), polar bear (Ursus maritimus), black bear (Ursus americanus), timber wolf (Canis lupus), wolverine (Gulo gulo), and lynx (Lynx canadensis). Smaller crea–tures are headed by the all-important beaver (Castor canadensis), Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), hare (Lepus americanus), muskrat (Ondonata zibethicus), marten (Martes americana), fisher (Martes pennanti), white-footed deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus), mink (Mustela vison), and otter (Lutra canadensis).⁷

Perhaps due to the river’s isolation, far removed from proximity to permanent human habitation (with the exception of Oxford House), three raptors are occasionally seen: bald eagle (Haliaeetus leusocephalus), the extremely rare golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), and osprey (Panilion haliaeetus canadensis).⁸ Numerous waterfowl frequent various parts of the river, including tens of thousands of snow geese⁹(Anser caerulescens), which use the Hudson Bay coastline between York Factory and the Manitoba-Ontario border as a breeding ground, and as a staging area during migrations.

Far beyond the last of the rapids, in sight of Hudson Bay, estimates suggest as many as two thousand beluga¹⁰(Delphinapteras leucas) feed in the Hayes River estuary and the nearby Nelson River estuary during the ice-free season. In addition, harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) are common in the final few kilometres of the river before it flows into Hudson Bay. Two other species, ringed seal (Phoca hispida) and bearded seal (Eragnathus barbatus) are to be found in the estuary.

The Hayes River Route.

According to the CHRS report, the source of the Hayes River is at the confluence of the Echimamish and Molson rivers.¹¹ Royal Navy Midshipman Robert Hood,¹² a member of Lieutenant (later, Sir) John Franklin’s¹³1819–1921 overland expedition to the Arctic coast, referred to Painted Stone Portage as one of the Hayes’s sources. Franklin agreed. He made comment on that portage site as, “… [It] may therefore be considered one of the smaller sources of the Hayes River.”¹⁴ Most modern maps, however, show the origin of the Hayes River to be Molson Lake to the south of Painted Stone Portage.

Over more than two centuries this river has watched a significant part of the history of Canada unfolding. It has done more — as a transportation highway it helped formulate the early economic value of this great land.

In terms of the fur trade, the Hayes River route from York Factory to Norway House can be confusing. Whereas we now know the complete route from York Factory to the eastern end of the Echimamish River as the Hayes, in the nineteenth century the nomenclature of the various segments of the river was quite different. The initial ninety kilometres upriver from York Factory was the Hayes River. It then forks into two: the eastern branch is the Shamattawa River (now God’s River) and the western arm is the Steel River. The Hayes River route followed the Steel River until it also branched into two. The more westerly fork is the Fox River.The continuation of the Hayes route along the opposite branch was then known as Hill River until it joined Swampy Lake. At the western end of the lake, Jack River was a thirteen-kilometre link between Swampy Lake and Knee Lake. Between Knee Lake and Oxford Lake, the fur traders followed what they knew as the Trout River. From Oxford Lake to Painted Stone Portage the route once again became the Hayes River to some and the Jack River to others.¹⁵

In the summer, the river’s flow varies from a snail’s pace on the upper reaches, where the sluggish Echimamish meanders through vast fields of bulrushes, to long stretches of fast whitewater over the falls and down the rapids, and a still considerable current in the Hudson Bay lowlands. In winter, by contrast, most of the river freezes over, including the most dramatic falls and rapids in the harshest years. Toward the end of his first two years with the HBC, the young Scotsman, R.M. Ballantyne,¹⁶ later to become a popular author of adventure books for boys, wrote of the river ice beginning to break up on May 18, 1843, at York Factory, after being frozen to a depth of six feet (1.83 metres) with ice for the previous eight months:

The noble river …was entirely covered with huge blocks and jagged lumps of ice, rolling and dashing against each other in chaotic confusion, as the swelling floods heaved them up and swept them with irresistible force towards Hudson Bay….Where it was not so closely packed, a huge lump suddenly grounded on a shallow; and in a moment the rolling masses, which were hurrying towards the sea with the velocity of a cataract, were precipitated against it with a noise like thunder, and the tremendous pressure from above forcing block upon block with a loud hissing noise, raised, as if by magic, an icy castle in the air …”¹⁷

Ballantyne noted that the river mouth was choked with ice for a week, causing the water level to rise ten to fifteen feet (3.05 to 4.57 metres). It remained in that flooded state until, he wrote, “… About the end of May, the whole floated quietly out to sea …”¹⁸

With an average navigation season of no more than four months, between the beginning of June and the end of September, it was imperative that the heavily loaded brigades of York boats and canoes move as quickly up and down stream as possible.

With the spring break-up, as the ice flowed to the sea, it was followed by boats laden with furs from Norway House and farther west. Meanwhile, at York Factory, the residents eagerly awaited the news of the arrival of that year’s first ship from England. Many of the immigrants carried on that vessel, and on the many ships that came after, would struggle up the Hayes River through a wilderness of trees to a new life in what is now Manitoba. Much of the cargo would follow, in freight canoes and in York boats.

In the summer of 1846, the normally peaceful Hayes River was disturbed by 347 soldiers, men of the Sixth Regiment of Foot¹⁹ (later to be known as the Royal Warwickshire Regiment), and their artillery as they made their way upriver from York Factory to the Red River Settlement. Possible signs of that army’s passing, in the shape of campsites, are still in evidence.

The Hayes River is a river for summer travel only. In winter it freezes over for most of its length. Few people have braved the wicked winter cold to experience its beauty once the temperatures plummeted to way below zero. But it has been done. The eminent nineteenth-century Canadian explorer and geologist J.B. Tyrrell is reported to have trekked up the length of the Hayes River from York Factory to Norway House in less than a month in the winter of 1893, mostly on snowshoes.²⁰

I had flown over the Hayes one summer while en route to Churchill. I recalled seeing long stretches of obvious rapids and whitewater flanked on either side by endless vistas of green. In the summer of 1994, I was ready for a much closer look.