Читать книгу New Rivers of the North: The Yarn of Two Amateur Explorers - Footner Hulbert - Страница 16

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It has been related how Wingy Sullivan in an excess of enthusiasm induced by squirrel whisky presented us at the Summit with his wagon and team. During the rest of that day we were out-and-out freighters on the tote road. We joined forces with another team bound our way, and camped in company at Mile 10, B. C. In spite of our interesting adventures en route we were distressed at the slowness of our progress. Here we had been fourteen days on the road and had covered but seventy-five miles. Our plans called for a journey of nearly three thousand miles. On this night it was galling to be obliged to stop at six o'clock with four good hours of daylight ahead, and when we had turned the horses out to graze, we pushed down through the bush to have a look at the Fraser River.

The actual summit of the Yellowhead pass is so slightly defined that the Miette River which runs ordinarily to the east, at times of high water spills over the west side as well. Yellowhead Lake lies three miles west of the Summit. It has a small outlet into the Fraser, and it is about four miles farther west that the Fraser itself comes plunging down into the pass from its source among high glaciers to the south.

First to last the Fraser is a watercourse of strong individuality. It is a river of sharp rises and falls, of frightful descents, of impassable gorges—and of peaceful stretches of great loveliness. Every year it nonchalantly collects its heavy tribute of lives. The stretch of it that we purposed descending had already drowned nine that season. The men of the country regard it with a rueful respect as a creature that is insolently superior to their will. They have affectionate profane names for it. All the way from Edmonton we had been fed on the tales of its terrors, and I may confess that we were thoroughly scared.

At Mile 10 it was a smooth and rapid stream about a hundred yards wide, flowing between tall spruce trees, with fore-shortened snow-clad mountains sticking up above the spruces. We knew that Moose Lake lay some seven miles by road below, but we had no idea of what was comprised within the seven miles. However, after an anxious debate we decided to leave the team with the freighter in trust for Wingy and chance the river.

After supper we set up our folding boat on the bank. She had never known the touch of water. The freighter marveled to see the shapeless bundle of canvas and sticks grow into a boat before his eyes. When the last peg was driven in we surveyed our future home narrowly. She seemed stout enough, and very capacious, but absurdly tubby in her lines. We instantly christened her the Blunderbuss. She reminded us of a cross between a wash-tub and a Venetian blind, and sometimes we called her the "Walloping Window-Blind" after the well-beloved ballad.

By nine o'clock everything was stowed, and we pushed off on our unknown voyage with hearts in our mouths. The current instantly gripped us as in a gigantic hand, and around the very first bend we fell plump into a roaring rapid. The poor little Blunderbuss had an astonishing christening-party. She was engulfed in a smother of waves and spray, and the shores flew by at railway speed. At times it seemed as if she stood straight on end, and I expected my partner in the bow to come tumbling back on my head. Then she would somersault into a hollow which threatened to swallow us entire. For pure excitement there is nothing like shooting rapids.

It was all over in a minute. We landed below to get our breaths, to bail out, and to discuss the revealed characteristics of our craft. Her first trial was disappointing; she was too short and too light for rough water. It was very hard to keep her straight on, and if she broached ever so slightly the water came pouring aboard. On the other hand she answered to the paddles admirably, and later, when we had learned to handle her (she had to be humored a little like all of the sex) we were satisfied that we could not have had anything better suited to our needs.

The hour that followed is written down in our note-book as the most exciting of our lives up to that time. The rapids followed in close succession, and each one offered a new set of problems. There was one time when we were hurled on the crest of a torrent straight at a spruce tree that had partly fallen out over the river. We thought we were gone then, but we paddled like maniacs, and in the act of resigning ourselves to the worst, somehow we got around the end of the tree. In another place the river was completely blocked by a fantastic jam of great trees brought down on the last freshet. We had to land here and carry all our stuff around through the forest.

One of the nastiest bits was at a place where the railroad had undertaken to build a jetty to divert the course of the river. It was not quite finished, and the whole river poured through a fifteen foot opening to make a right-angle turn immediately beyond. Around the bend the situation was further complicated by a boom stretching all the way across the river to enable the workmen to pass back and forth. However, we made the plunge and the turn successfully, and the whole gang rushed to hold up the end log of the boom to enable us to pass beneath. We went our ways pursued by friendly cheers and jeers.

This stretch of the river was most beautiful, but we could hardly take it in since our eyes were glued to the capricious river ahead. It wound back and forth in its narrow valley like a wrong-headed person, launching itself vainly against the bases of the mountains on one side, and then straight back against the other. Where it was seven miles to Moose Lake by road, it must have been fifteen or more by the river. We had glimpses of dazzling cataracts falling over the sky-scrapers above our heads. We camped at the head of the worst rapid so far. The drop at the beginning was so great we could not see from the boat what lay beyond.