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Writing the acknowledgements spells the end of the trail for a book. I write this aspect last. In so doing, there is a celebratory quality to the moment and a feeling of gratitude to the many people who have had a role, major and minor, in putting the book together.
First there are friends from the trail who have been inspirational and have shared campfire stories. Then there are friends who have provided ideas for the content within. Then there are primary researchers whose work I have pursued with great curiosity in the library and in the field. Finally, there is the publishing crew. These are folks who have encouraged me to write and helped in the process as readers, editors, and computer-savvy people (I’m happy to share my learning needs). I need lots of help from this final category of people. Heck, I need and get help from many along the trails of the book writing process on all fronts. I’m just a guy who really likes a good story or a useful theory, and who loves to share both. After that, I seek help as a writer for details and for writing cues. It really is a team process.
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I had wondered before our canoe trip why Franklin had decided to commence the walking retreat off the barren lands from the Hood River. The Hood River mouth is further north down the Bathurst Inlet coast from the Burnside and has a more formidable canyon to negotiate (though he didn’t know that last point). Perhaps he simply did not know about the Burnside River? When you are at the mouth of the Burnside River you look across the inlet to a long row of islands and Elliot Point. If you are travelling down the east shore of Bathurst Inlet as Franklin did, the river mouth is easily obscured from view. Despite the grandeur of the Burnside River sandbars, the river was not observed even with Franklin’s detailed survey work in the Inlet. This becomes clear on site, on the ground, and from the air. I had a partial answer. The Burnside River, though a better walking route inland, was never found.
On returning from our summer 2010 travels, I went back to the books. In all, there are four accounts of various aspects of the Franklin expedition of 1819–22: Hood, Back, Richardson, and Franklin. I had wondered if the Mara and Burnside rivers were known to the Franklin party, and I had assumed not, a point significant to their overall fate. A March 20, 1820, entry in Franklin’s journal, at Fort Chipewyan, provided the full answer. There, the infamous Métis Francois Beaulieu,[12] along with a Chipewyan named Black Meat, provided a rough map with distances and directions to the mouth of the Coppermine and Anatessy (now Burnside) rivers.[13] Franklin had been looking for this Anatessy River as a direct waterway to Contwoyto Lake, a significant landmark to return to Fort Enterprise. Indeed, the Hood and Western rivers were at first confused as the Burnside by Franklin. So conventional wisdom prevails: indigenous knowledge provided the explorers with the best options, but they failed to find it. Also, Franklin had wanted to complete the survey of the eastern shore of Bathurst Inlet. Had I known all this while our group was at the Burnside, I would have taken great delight in bringing our river of travel more directly into the Franklin story. I agree with the main expeditions editor, C. Stuart Houston: “had they found and recognized the mouth of the Burnside they might possibly have chosen this river as their return route as far as Contwoyto Lake.”[14] I’d add, if they had found the river when in the area (August 4, 1821) and identified it as the suggested best option to return, then the death march across the barren grounds that forever defines this expedition might not have happened. The decision was made to ascend the Hood River out of Bathurst Inlet on August 15. The tired men then paddled to the more northern mouth of the Hood River and began to walk with supplies on August 31 (twenty-seven critical days later).
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