Читать книгу River Rough, River Smooth - Anthony Dalton - Страница 13

CHAPTER 4 York Boats

JOSEPH CONRAD WROTE, “THE LOVE that is given to ships is profoundly different from the love men feel for every other work of their hands.”¹

The taciturn boat-builders born on the windy, almost treeless, Orkney Islands in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would, no doubt, have agreed with Conrad. Boat-building was a special skill. It was also a labour of love. The Orkney Islanders had learned well from their Viking ancestors. Some of them would carry those skills to the new world.

It is not certain exactly when the first York boat went into service in the North American wilderness. It is, however, well known that the earliest York boats were not used on the Hayes River system. Nor did they originate at York Factory.

An Orkneyman named Joseph Isbister² (pronounced Eyes-bister), is credited with having had the foresight to design and build the first York boat in the first half of the eighteenth century. Isbister was the factor in charge at the Hudson’s Bay Company post at Albany House, on James Bay. Perhaps tired of the limited strength and cargo-carrying capabilities of the freight canoes, Isbister wanted something much more durable.

His eventual creation owed a lot to the open fishing boats used by his kinsmen around the shores of the far-off Orkney Islands, north of Scotland’s mainland. They in turn bear remarkable construction and design similarities to the Viking longboats of an earlier era.

Isbister’s heavy wooden boats began work for the company sometime after 1745. For a long time they were simply known as “inland boats.”³ The term “York boat” came later when York Factory was their main port. By 1779,York boats were the regular means of transport on the Albany River and by 1790 they could be found as far away as the Assiniboine River, some five hundred kilometres west of the head of the Albany River. There is little doubt that many of those York boats had made the long journey far inland from Albany House.

Around 1795,York boats started hauling freight — furs primarily — downriver from Cumberland house to Norway House and York Factory. Their journeys took them along parts of the Saskatchewan and Nelson rivers and most of the Hayes. Compared to later models, the earliest York boats were quite small, possibly only half the size: certainly they were nowhere near the size of the great grey hulls decorating the lawns at Lower Fort Garry.

Ken McKay’s newly built expedition York, a large boat, measured forty-four feet in length (13.4 metres), with a beam of ten feet (three metres). Fully loaded it still only had a draught of eighteen inches (forty-six centimetres).

When Ken McKay decided to build his boat, he didn’t have far to look for suitable wood. The forests around Norway House have an abundance of spruce trees, the traditional wood used in York boat construction. Ken made good use of the forest’s bounty. Almost the entire boat, including oars and sweeps, is made of spruce. The ribs are the only exception. They are of oak. They were steamed and bent to shape in a homemade steamer outside McKay’s furniture factory in Norway House.

The hull is lapstrake construction with fastenings mainly of stainless-steel bolts and nuts. The caulking is hemp and silicone. In keeping with tradition, the hull is painted black with a red trim: Hudson’s Bay Company’s colours. The eight long oars and two steering sweeps are also red, to match the trim.

In a paper on the labour systems of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1821–1900, author Philip Goldring⁴ has reproduced lists of materials required to build an inland, or York, boat.These include such details as the exact amount and size of nails required, and the amount of caulking material and tar needed. For example: forty-four cartons of varying size nails; sixty pounds (twenty-seven kilograms) of iron; ten to twenty pounds (five to ten kilograms) of oakum; thirty pounds (thirteen kilograms) of pitch; two gallons (eight litres) of tar. The list of wood required to build a York boat with a thirty-foot-long (9.14-metre) keel is extremely detailed in the document:

20 boards 18’ [5.5 metres] long:

4 pieces 8” x 1” [20 x 2.5 centimetres]

5 pieces 9 1/2” x 1” [24 x 2.5 centimetres]

4 pieces 11 1/2” x 1” [29 x 2.5 centimetres]

1 piece 11 1/2” x 1 1/4” [29 x 4.4 centimetres]

6 pieces 12” x 3/4” [30. 5 x 2 centimetres] 22 boards 16’ long:

6 pieces 11” x 1” [28 x 2.5 centimetres]

4 pieces 11 1/2” x 1” [29 x 2.52 centimetres]

6 pieces 11 1/2” x 1 1/8” [29 x 2.8 centimetres]

6 pieces 12” x 3/4” [30.5 x 2 centimetres]

2 boards 13’ long [4 metres]: 11 1/2” x 1 1/2” [33 x 3.8 centimetres]

For Floor Timbers:

5 planks 16’ [4.8 metres] long 8” x 2” [20 x 5 centimetres]

1 plank 16’ [4.8 metres] long 9” x 2” [22.8 x 5 centimetres]

1 plank 16’ [4.8 metres] long 10” x 2” [25.4 x 5 centimetres]

2 planks 16’ [4.8 metres] long 12” x 2” [30.5 x 5 centimetres]

2 planks 10’ [3 metres] long 9 1/2” x 2” [24 x 5 centimetres]

1 plank 10’ [3 metres] long 12” x 2” [30.5 x 5 centimetres]

1 piece hewn to 6” [15.2 centimetres wide] x 3” [7.6 centimetres thick] x 40’ [12 metres long] sawn in two for gunwales.

1 board 24’ [7.3 metres] long 8” x 1” [20.3 x 2.5 centimetres]

1 board 24’ [7.3 metres] long 8” x 1 1/2” [20.3 x 3.8] (for keelson)

1 board 22’ [6.7 metres] long 8” x 3/4” [20.3 x 1.9 centimetres] (for ceiling [decking?])

1 board 16’ [4.8 metres] long 12” x 1 1/4” [30.5 x 3.2 centimetres] at one end and 1 1/2” [3.8 centimetres] at the other end for rudders.

1 board 16’ [4.8 metres] long 12” x 1 1/8” [30.5 x 2.8 centimetres] for stern sheet wings.

3 boards 12’ [3.6 metres] long 8” x 1” [20.3 x 2.5 centimetres] for stern sheets.

1 keel 30’ [9 metres] long.

The list goes on to detail the sails and the rigging:

Sails: 18’ [5.4 metres] high and 9 breadths of canvas, single seam, require 54 yards [49 metres] canvas #7. Plus 30 fathoms [approximately 54 metres] staple rope 1 1/2” [3.8 centimetres] for bolt rope with sheets and tacks.

Rigging: 24 fathoms [approximately 44 metres] staple rope 1/2” [1.2 centimetres], fully sufficient for two shrouds. 2 fore and aft stays and 1 pair of halyards.

Mainlines, should not be more than 2/5 of a coil of 2 1/4” [5.7 centimetres]. Whaleline equal to 52 fathoms [approximately 95 metres], but in seasons of low water steersmen ask for half a coil, or 65 fathoms [approximately 119 metres]. Painter needs 6 to 8 fathoms [approximately 11 to 14 metres] staple rope 2” [5 centimetres].

It’s not really surprising the lists were so detailed. The boats were built at the Company’s forts and, one assumes, the factor had to account for each nail, every yard of sail cloth, and for each length of rope used.

There’s a telling quote on the fur-trade era diorama at the Lower Fort Garry Museum near Winnipeg. Relating to construction materials, including those for boat building, it comments on the problems of two men cutting trees lengthwise with a double-handed planking saw: “Two angels could not saw their first log with one of these things without getting into a fight.”

York boats were sturdily built; strong enough to withstand considerable daily abuse. Even so, the early York boat crews, or tripmen, declined to take their heavy vessels over the more difficult portages on the Hayes River. Rightly they recognized the overland crossing would not be good for their boats. For a while, canoes were still used to ferry goods between some sections of the river, noticeably from Oxford House to Gordon House, on the Rock Hill River.⁵ The problems of portaging a boat weighing up to one tonne, and measuring anywhere from six metres to thirteen metres in length were immense. We would soon find that out for ourselves.

York boats were normally worked by up to eight oarsmen. The largest vessels, about the size of Ken McKay’s boat, or even a little longer, could have held as many as fifteen men aboard. Unlike most rowing boats, the York’s oarsmen rowed from the opposite side of the boat to their oar blades. This practice required staggering the crew left and right alternately along the sides of the boat. At the start of each stroke the men stood up, leaning with all their weight on the long oars to raise them up and back. As they forced the blades down, deep into the water, they slammed themselves back on the thwarts. The resultant noises: of the oars striking the water; of the oars leaving the water, and of the rowers smacking down on their seats, sounded like far-off thunder.

I have heard the repetitive drumming rhythm. On the Hayes I listened to it almost every day, sometimes all day. I have winced at the squealing and grinding of the wooden oars between the steel thole pins⁶ for hour after hour until I thought my ears would go on strike. It’s easy to understand why people on shore likened the noise to the coming of a distant storm.

The steel thole pins on Ken McKay’s York boat gradually wore down the oars. Traditional York boats had wooden thole pins, which also wore down as they wore down the oars.

Ken McKay’s only major variation from the traditional layout of the York boats of old is in the rowing system. Ken has his rowers sit on the same side as their oar blades. Just in front of the steersman, facing him on his left, sits the lead rower. Behind him, in the next three rows seated side by side in twos, there are six rowers. The final rower sits alone, with his back to the foredeck, on the opposite side to the lead rower. The rowing effort for each oarsman is, therefore, less due to the lighter weight and shorter length of the oars.

We know the old method worked tolerably well. Ken McKay and his crew, in their turn, have had regular successes in the annual York Boat Days races at Norway House with their system. Both methods are efficient and effective. The traditional tempo of thirty strokes per minute was regularly maintained for hours at a time. Decades later, Ken’s crew proved they could match their forefathers when called upon to do so.

Tripmen usually rowed for roughly two hours at a stretch, before taking a five- or ten-minute break for a smoke. They then continued for a further two hours, and so on. Consequently, the time they were rowing became known as “a pipe.”⁷ Unless they had to portage, the only times they went ashore during the day were for breakfast and for overnight camp. Lunch was eaten in the boat while on the move.

The size of a York boat was most often measured by the number of pieces of cargo it could carry, rather than by its length.⁸ Each package of freight was measured at eighty pounds (thirty-six kilograms).York boats were therefore known as “sixty-piece” boats or “one-hundred-piece” boats, even “one-hundred-and-twenty piece” boats, depending on their capacity. A boat of one-hundred-and-twenty pieces carried 9,600 pounds (4,364 kilograms) of freight, plus at least eight rowers, one steersman, a lookout, and, at times, a passenger or two, in addition to its own weight: a substantial load to move. Those small hardy tripmen of the last century were — of necessity — powerful men.

One young lady, who had the fortunate experience of travelling in a York boat in the late 1800s, likened the York boat’s passage to a giant bug walking across the water: an allusion to the great oars, lifting and lowering like a procession of well coordinated legs.⁹ In the days to come I would understand and appreciate her description, I saw the effect so often from the canoe and occasionally from the riverbanks.

York boats made some surprisingly tough journeys in the one hundred years or more they were in regular use. The long haul from Norway House to York Factory and back, on behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company, was a major route — known as the “York Mainline.”¹⁰ A few made the rough voyage on Hudson Bay from Churchill to York Factory.¹¹ We know they voyaged across much of Rupert’s Land, from what we now call northern Ontario, into Assiniboine country, in present-day Manitoba. They eventually went as far west as the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Some were actually built at Rocky Mountain House¹² and travelled the North Saskatchewan River, via Edmonton, to Lake Winnipeg and on to Norway House. In the early- and mid-nineteenth century, York boats made the return trip from Red River to Fort Simpson on the great Mackenzie River; a round trip of 6,500 kilometres (4,000 miles).¹³

RCMP Inspector Denny LaNauze set out from Fort Norman, on the Mackenzie River, in a York boat in 1915.¹⁴ He and his party were searching for two missing priests. LaNauze went up the Bear River to Great Bear Lake and crossed it to the mouth of the Dease River. All told, his York carried seven people, their baggage, some freight, and two canoes. Their long-distance quest resulted in the discovery that the priests had been murdered. The Mounties, as always, got their men.

Delving into York boat history, one comes across fascinating nuggets of information, particularly regarding the cargoes carried. The bells for Winnipeg’s St. Boniface Cathedral, weighing three quarters of a tonne, were shipped across the Atlantic fromWhitechapel, London, to York Factory.¹⁵ They were delivered from there by York boat. Wheeled carriages and the first pianos, for the comfort and pleasure of the gentry and their ladies, arrived the same way. Cast-iron stoves, furniture, books, fine French wines — whatever was required by residents of the slowly burgeoning town on the Red River — all were delivered by York boats.¹⁶

It is even possible that the first billiards table to reach the Red River Settlement did so by York boat.¹⁷ Portaging standard “pieces” and York boats was, and is, brutal work. On the Hayes River there were thirty-four portages. The idea of manhandling a piano over a long portage is frightening. The possible musical interludes would hardly be worth the sustained physical effort. By comparison, portaging a cumbersome billiard table is beyond comprehension. Military cannons, too, for the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, travelled up the Hayes River by York boat to Red River. Perhaps the most bizarre piece of cargo carried was a package of human remains, destined for a long odyssey from continent to continent on wild rivers and deep oceans.

When travelling upstream against a strong current, tripmen used long poles to force their York boat ahead.

John Rowand was chief factor for the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Edmonton in 1854, and responsible for the enormous Saskatchewan District. In the spring of that year he set out to attend a factors’ convention at Norway House, before continuing downriver to York Factory. During a stop in Fort Pitt, where his son, John, was in command, Rowand senior, whom HBC governor George Simpson once referred to as, “Of fiery disposition and as bold as a Lion …” died of a heart attack while trying to stop a fight between two tripmen. The ebullient yet brave factor was initially buried at Fort Pitt, but later exhumed and prepared for travel to Montreal, where he was to be interred beside his father. This created an obvious problem: how to preserve a decomposing body for the long journey, which would take a few weeks. The solution was quite drastic. Rowand’s mortal remains were boiled down until only the bones remained. They were then packaged and carried to the Red River Settlement by none other than his friend, Governor George Simpson. There, concerned that the package might get thrown away by superstitious boatmen, Simpson had Rowand’s bones sent to Montreal by a monstrously circuitous route. First, they travelled down the Hayes River to York Factory. From there the gruesome package sailed to England before being transhipped back across the Atlantic to its final resting place in Montreal.¹⁸

Robert Ballantyne wrote of the difficulties incurred with two young buffalo. They were being transported from Norway House to York Factory by York boat; from there to be taken to England on the HBC ship Prince Rupert. Ballantyne said of the bison, “They were a couple of the wildest little wretches I ever saw, and were a source of great annoyance to the men during the voyage.”¹⁹

Domestic cattle were regularly freighted across the west in that way, which must have added considerably to the tripmen’s labours. Sharing a York boat with a couple of highly strung, prob–ably terrified, half-wild calves would not be most peoples’ idea of a pleasure cruise. Cattle, I remembered from my early years in the English countryside, have a nasty habit of voiding their bowels when under stress.