Читать книгу Paddling the Boreal Forest - Stone James Madison - Страница 11

2 A Brief History of Boating andCanoeing in Quebec-Labrador

LONG BEFORE EUROPEANS came to this land, the Aboriginal Peoples — the Inuit, Cree and Innu (the latter formerly called the Naskapi and Montagnais) — had long explored its convoluted waterways and regularly travelled long distances from inland to the coast. And no doubt also coast to coast when the spirit moved them to do so. Summer and winter travel followed traditional routes to procure food and trade with neighbours. Many of the ancient routes were well-established, with the portages cleared and trodden innumerable times by moccasined feet.

Europeans have nibbled around the edges of this land since the Vikings sailed to the coast of Labrador over 1,000 years ago. In the 1400s, fishermen from the Basque region of Spain came to the coast of Labrador in search of whales and established settlements along the coast. Other Europeans came here in search of the fabled northwest passage to China. In 1535 Jacques Carrier explored the St. Lawrence River. He and his men endured a very cold winter where today we can relax in hot tubs in the luxurious hotels of Quebec City. Samuel de Champlain set up the first trading posts at both Quebec City and Tadoussac in 1600. In 1610, Henry Hudson sailed into the bay that now bears his name and his bones after being set adrift by his mutinous crew.

A few Europeans dared to travel far inland in the Quebec-Labrador region before 1700, in the quest for furs and souls. In 1667 two French entrepreneurs, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart Sieur des Groseilliers¹ travelled overland to James Bay, and then worked with the Hudson's Bay Company to set up their first trading post on the coast of James Bay at Rupert House. By this time ships came not in search of a passage to the orient, but for furs. Soon other coastal posts were set up on both the east and west shores (the East Main and West Main) of Hudson Bay and James Bay.

When A.P. Low took this photograph of Rupert House in the 1880s, the Hudson's Bay Company operated a dairy farm there. Note the cow in front of the shed on the left. Courtesy of LAC photo collection, PA-038089, A.P. Low.

The ongoing search for furs led inland along existing Cree and Innu routes, although most fur traders were reluctant to leave the security of the coast. Some Europeans followed the water routes inland, not in search of furs, but in search of souls. In 1672 Father Charles Albanel,² an adventurous Jesuit priest, became the first European to travel overland from New France, from Tadoussac on the shores of the St. Lawrence to James Bay, via Lake Mistassini and the Rupert River. This is a route also followed by Low and, from Mistissini down the Rupert, by us. In the early 1800s, two expeditions are reported to have reached as far inland as Lake Nichicun, and established posts there.³ The Hudson's Bay Company may have established a trading post⁴ on Lake Nichicun some 500 miles (806 km) inland from James Bay as early as 1816. Or was it 1834? The records from this period are confusing, and no one seems to really know. In 1819–20, James Clouston, an Englishman in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, explored as far inland as Nichicun. Clouston drew a rough sketch map of his inland routes, which A.P. Low found in 1888 at the HBC post at Great Whale River and used in his travels.

In 1827, Dr. William Hendry,⁵ travelled from Richmond Gulf on the east side of the great circular feature of the east coast of Hudson Bay, through Clearwater Lake and Seal Lake to the headwaters of the Larch River, which he then followed to Ungava Bay. There he established Fort Chimo (now called Kuujjuak).

One of the spectacular hills of Richmond Gulf, as photographed by A.P. Low in 1896. Courtesy of LAC photo collection, PA-037569, A.P. Low.

Low noted in his 1895 Report⁶ that Hendry's expedition inspired a popular story for boys. Ungava; or; A Tale of Esquimau Land, by R.M. Ballantyne,⁷ is a colourful tale of a daring and bravado, exaggeration, hyperbole and tall tales mixed with the reality of the fur trade and northern travel. It is replete with phrases like “bloody savages,” and “oily varmints,” peopled with powerfully built heroes with blond hair and English accents, with a supporting cast of French-Canadian voyageurs, Cree guides and Inuit innocents. Low followed this route himself in 1896, but all of Ballantyne's characters seemed to have disappeared.

In 1837, John McLean, a Scot in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, was given the task of opening a fur trade post in the interior of the Quebec-Labrador peninsula. He and a co-worker, Erland Erlandson⁸ trekked overland in winter from Fort Chimo (Kuujjuak) to the North West (now Northwest) River Post on Lake Melville, just inland from Hamilton Inlet on the Atlantic coast of Labrador and near the present-day community of Goose Bay. (The community of North West River, the oldest community in central Labrador, was founded in 1743 as a fur trading post. In 1836, the Hudson's Bay Company set up a trading post here, which they called North West River.) Erlandson returned to the central part of this area and built Fort Nascopie along Lake Petitskapau the next summer. By the time Low paddled here in 1894, the post had been deserted for several decades. Low writes:

the ruins of Fort Naascaupee [sic] stand in a small clearing, close to the shore of the lake…the houses were built of small squared logs, with board roofs…the dwelling-house was in a fair state of repair, with the window sashes and some of the glass still in place… This building is about twelve by eighteen feet…about fifty yards behind, the powder-house covered with earth was seen… Adjoining this is a small burying place with a large wooden cross in its center…close to the house were several patches of rhubarb eighteen inches high…⁹

The route between Fort Nascopie and Goose Bay led McLean and Erlandson down the Hamilton River. They were stopped by Grand Falls (now Churchill Falls), which McLean described as one of the greatest spectacles in the world.”¹⁰ Finding no way around the falls, the party returned the way they had come, back to Fort Chimo. These two men were the first Europeans to see these falls.¹¹ When Low came this way in 1894, travelling upstream from the Atlantic, he found an Aboriginal portage route around the falls. No wonder McLean missed it — the route involved 11 portages, covering over seven miles, and more than a dozen lakes, before rejoining the river below the falls via a precipitous two-mile portage.

In the 1860s and 1870s, not long before Low's explorations, Père Babel, OMI (Oblates of Mary Immaculate)¹² travelled north from Mingan on the Gulf of St. Lawrence with the Montagnais. Low writes, “…the map made during his wanderings, is kept at the mission station of Betsiamites, and when consideration is taken of his imperfect instruments and other disadvantages, its accuracy is wonderful.”¹³ Low followed some of the peregrinations of the good Father in his own wanderings from the head-waters of the Hamilton River to the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Low ventured into this vast territory as a scientist. He brought to light the geography and geology of the Quebec-Labrador peninsula, along with detailed observations on its people, wildlife, vegetation and climate, thus filling in many of the blanks on the map of this region. After him, a new type of paddler would follow his trail and paddle strokes — not because it was part of their job, but rather to seek adventure in one of what was, in the perception of these outsiders, the last true wilderness areas on the continent. Of course, to the Aboriginal Peoples who had lived there for millennia, Quebec-Labrador was simply home.

The first of this new breed of paddler was William Brooks Cabot. He was an American from New England who came north in 1899, making the long trek from Lake St. John (now Lac Saint-Jean), about 200 miles (about 320 km) north of Quebec City, to Lake Mistassini, the same route Low followed in the spring of 1892 by canoe. Cabot was guided by two Montagnais men, one of whom, John Bastian, had accompanied Low on several of his explorations.¹⁴ Bastian regaled Cabot with tales of the interior of Labrador with its immense lakes and vast herds of caribou, and where many Aboriginals still lived beyond the touch of European civilization. In 1903 Cabot travelled north, with the intention of journeying with Naskapi people. By coincidence, he met Leonidas Hubbard Jr. who was also drawn by the promise of a Labrador wilderness. Sadly, Hubbard would be lured to his death. Cabot had much more luck. He spent five summers travelling with the Naskapi families who traded at North West River, the HBC post at the head of Hamilton Inlet which at the time included what is now Lake Melville in Labrador, and made many winter trips into the Lake Mistassini area.

While Cabot was a self-described “minor wanderer,” Hubbard, a journalist, was out for glory. On July 15,1903, Hubbard, along with his friend Dillon Wallace, (a New York lawyer) and George Elson, (the son of a white Hudson's Bay Company employee and a Cree woman named Abigail Ottereyes from Rupert House on James Bay, set out from the HBC post at North West River. The plan was to head up the Naskapi River to Lake Michikamau (now part of the Smallwood Reservoir), and then descend the George River to Ungava Bay. Hubbard thought that a trip across some of the toughest and least known parts of North America would make excellent fodder for articles for the magazine Outing, which employed him as a writer and also funded the expedition.

Hubbard deliberately chose a less-known route where “no footsteps would be found to guide him.”¹⁵ Taking the wrong river at the start of their trip, for weeks the small party dragged, pushed and carried their canoe and gear up a narrow, tumbling river, now called Susan Brook. On September 21, they gave up. Exhausted and starving, they retraced their steps back to North West River. Hubbard didn't make it. He collapsed and was left in their tent, while the two others struggled on in search of help. A few days later, on October 18, in the midst of the winter's first blizzard, Wallace collapsed. Elson continued on alone. Upon reaching Grand Lake, Elson built a raft of driftwood and eventually reached a trapper's cabin. A rescue party was organized. Wallace was found, barely alive. Hubbard had died of starvation, and was found wrapped in blankets in the tent where they had left him.

Wallace blamed Low's map of Labrador for their tragedy. “Its representation as to the Northwest River [Grand Lake is shown as a widening of the river]…proved to be wholly incorrect, and the mistake it led us into cost us dear.”¹⁶ The map Low had prepared in 1896 was indeed inaccurate, and showed too few rivers entering the head of Grand Lake. But a close look at Low's map shows that the details of Grand Lake and the rivers flowing into it are sketched with dotted lines, which Low always used when the information was based on hearsay, or represented his best guess. This map was clearly a speculative rendering of the geography of the area, and it was never intended to be used as an authoritative guide.

That misinterpretation was their first mistake. They also didn't listen to Low's advice about travelling in Quebec-Labrador. Hubbard had written to Low asking about travel in the region. While we were unable to find Low's reply to Hubbard, Low's travel advice to others was always consistent — take all food needed for the entire trip, take big canoes (19 feet, built for three people plus gear) and take a local guide. Wallace and Hubbard took only minimal provisions and counted on living off the land as they travelled. Seemingly they could not find a local guide, and, for some reason, only had one pair of moccasins each.¹⁷

The story does not end here. In 1905, Dillon Wallace returned to Labrador to finish the expedition he and Hubbard had started. At the same time, Hubbard's widow, Mina, secretly organized her own expedition. She blamed Wallace, not only for her husband's death, but also for discrediting him in the account of the tragedy, The Lure of the Labrador Wild, published in 1905. She felt that Dillon made him appear weak, both mentally and physically. In our opinion, Wallace told it “like it was.” Hubbard, as the expedition leader, must have been riddled with self-doubt when he ultimately realized that his mistakes were likely to be fatal.

George Elson, out of loyalty to Leonidas Hubbard, agreed to guide Mina Hubbard's expedition. This time, both expeditions took sufficient food and hired local guides. And both expeditions made it to Ungava Bay successfully, although Mina's got there first, making her the “winner.” Mina Benson Hubbard became somewhat of a celebrity, being the first white woman to travel through Quebec-Labrador. Perhaps the clincher in this wilderness melodrama is George Elsor's hinted-at unrequited love for Mina Hubbard according to the well-written book, Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure, published in 1988.¹⁸

The story continues to this day. One hundred years after the Hubbard tragedy, a party of four young people from New England (Troy Gipps, Jim Niedbalski, Brad Bassi and Caroline Scully) retraced the 1903 route of Leonidas Hubbard, Wallace and Elson, pushing up Susan Brook, portaging to the Smallwood Reservoir, then paddling down the George to Kangiqsualujjuaq (formerly George River Post), Quebec, at the mouth of the George River. Troy Gipps has also followed Low's routes on the Clearwater River and Nastapoka River on the east side of Hudson Bay.

Mina Hubbard was not the only woman to undertake a long overland journey in the Quebec-Labrador peninsula. Maud Watt, the strong-willed wife of Hudson's Bay Factor Jim Watt, was no ordinary woman. In 1917, the Watts were running the HBC post at Fort Chimo, on Ungava Bay. In 1917, the supply ship, Naskopi, did not arrive. This was not unexpected, as the First World War was causing upheavals in the world that even reached such far-flung outposts as Fort Chimo. The Watts were in a difficult position, as they had no way of knowing when the Naskopie or another ship would arrive. They decided to take a desperate measure — to travel overland in winter from Fort Chimo to the St. Lawrence River, where supplies could be obtained and the plight of the Aboriginals at Fort Chimo communicated to the Hudson's Bay Company.

On April 18, 1918, they hitched up the dogs to a “tatilabinask” (a sled designed to carry a canoe) and headed south on snowshoes. At Fort Mackenzie, a post the Watts had set up two years earlier at the junction of the Caniapiscau and the Swampy Bay rivers, they were welcomed by several Aboriginal families who agreed to guide them. It took one month for the party, which now included several Aboriginal children, to reach the site of Fort Nascopie, the abandoned HBC post that Low had visited in 1894. They continued south, crossing over into the St. Lawrence River watershed and heading for the Moisie River. Low took a different route to the St. Lawrence in 1984, descending the Romaine and St. John (now Rivière St. Jean), which he considered the most difficult route in all his extensive travels.

The routes the Watts were guided to may have been easier, but before they reached the Moisie River warm spring weather had made the ice treacherous, and Jim fell through several times. Once the ice cleared, they abandoned sleds and continued in their canoes, reaching the St. Lawrence 55 days after leaving Fort Chimo, 800 miles (1287 km) to the north.

After this remarkable journey, Jim and Maud Watt moved to Rupert House, where Jim was appointed factor. They arrived when the beaver population was in steep decline. Beavers had been nearly obliterated in the country between the Rupert and Eastmain rivers by over-trapping. The Cree, without beaver to trade for guns, ammunition, flour and other now-essential goods, were starving. The Watts decided that the solution was to set up a beaver sanctuary. In the winter of 1930, Maud trekked across James Bay on snowshoes, with her two children aged three and six, to Moose Factory where she continued south to the railway, and then to Quebec City to plead her case to the government. She was successful, and soon a 7,000 square-mile reserve was established, and the beaver population rebounded. This was the first of many large wildlife reserves set up by the Quebec government.

Although her husband died in 1944, Maud, known as the “Angel of Hudson Bay” remained at Rupert House the rest of her life.¹⁹

There are many others who have, in their way, travelled in the footsteps of Low. The year is 1930 and North America is just emerging from the Great Depression. One man does not quite emerge. Elliot Merrick remains depressed, not about the state of the economy, but at the prospect of a life spent working among the brick and concrete towers of a shadowy city. There he struggles to sell a product he cares nothing about, to people he knows nothing about, only to return at the end of each day to a “little box of a house in a suburb, a little wife, a little car with a little garage to put it in…”²⁰ — and little hope for a life of fulfillment. In desperation, he and his wife Kay, a nurse, move to North West River, at the head of Hamilton Inlet, where the mighty, and then undammed, Hamilton River meets what is now called Lake Melville.

They travelled up the Hamilton River in the fall, following the route taken by Low in 1894, with local people accompanying them for a year as they hunted and trapped. Merrick's account paints a rare and vivid picture of life in the Labrador bush in the early 1930s — a life that today has largely disappeared. They describe a land still wild, with a tapestry of characters — people of Scottish, Inuit and Innu (Montagnais and Naskapi descent), who are tough, resilient, enduring and, above all, filled with humour and joy.

In more recent times, many adventurous travellers have followed in Low's footsteps. Stewart Coffin is one of these modern explorers who was lured by the “shaggy spires of black spruce silhouetted against the sky, stretching uninterrupted across the entire horizon.”²¹ Stewart was one of the last paddlers to view Grand Falls (with Dick Irwin) on the Churchill River (by then its name had changed from Hamilton River) before it was diverted through tunnels and turbines. In 1980, Stewart, with a party of six intrepid paddlers, followed Low's 1894 route from the watershed of the Churchill River over the height of land into the upper Romaine River. However, Low, on advice from his Aboriginal guides, portaged from the Upper Romaine watershed into the St. John River to descend to the St. Lawrence. Low writes:

Nothing is known of the river for over fifty miles below this point [where the portage route to the St. John River leaves the Romaine], except that it is quite impassable for canoes, probably on account of long rapids with perpendicular rocky walls, where portages are impossible. Nothing but the absolute impossibility of passing up and down this part of the river would induce the Indians to make use of the present portage route, which is the longest and worst of those known to the writer anywhere in northeastern Canada. Careful inquiries from a score of Indians met coming inland offered no information concerning this part of the river, which has never been descended by anyone so far as known.²²

With a testimonial like that, who could resist? Coffin and his party started their descent of the Romaine River which, as far as they knew, had never been paddled for its entire length. But they found traces of previous travellers at the most impassable of many impassable gorges. Here, a trail marked by axe blazes on trees led over a steep hill and down a steep gully back to the river. It was the only practical route past the gorge. Who made the trail remains a mystery.

Duke Watson, the peripatetic northern traveller already mentioned, took three consecutive trips on the Rupert and the Eastmain, then down the Caniapiscau to Fort Chimo (Kuujjuak) in 1974, just before the James Bay Hydro power project robbed the Caniapiscau River of its headwaters and turned them backwards to flow into the La Grande River. In a letter to Che-Mun magazine in 2003, Duke reminisced that these trips “were among the most challenging and rewarding of my numerous experiences in the north.”²³ Herb Pohl, an Austrian who now lives in Burlington, Ontario, has, like Duke Watson, paddled far and wide on trips across the northern reaches of this continent on trails so rugged that few will follow him. He too has taken several trips up the rivers from Richmond Gulf, also following in the footsteps of Low. After his initial trip, the first words he heard upon arriving in the community of Kuujjuarapik at the mouth of the Great Whale River were, “You look beat.²⁴

Some of the most intrepid trips following Low's routes have been done by teenagers. Camp Keewaydin, headquartered in the Temagami area of Ontario, began organizing ambitious trips on rivers in the James Bay area, in 1934. The first trips, descending the Rupert River from Lake Mistassini, depended on the sketchy maps made by Low in 1885. Dan Carpenter Sr. was the leader of many of these early excursions. He began a legacy of trip leaders emanating from his descendents that now collectively add up to almost a century and a half of guiding and paddling on James Bay rivers. G. Heberton Evans III may be an unlikely name for a paddler, but Heb Evans, of New England, (nicknamed by his camp colleagues as “Master of the Bay”) was the personification of the wilderness way of Camp Keewaydin, leading 15 river trips to James Bay between 1962 and 1976, including the Eastmain River and Rupert River routes. He met Maud Watt during his first visit to Rupert House in 1964. At that time, she was still active and operating a bakery. With Dan Carpenter Sr. as a mentor, along with Métis guide Nishe Bélanger of Mattawa, Ontario, whom he credits with teaching him the most about running wild rivers, Evans took traditional wilderness trips for teenagers to a new level of challenge and difficulty.²⁵

Also following the tradition set by Heb Evans for Camp Keewaydin is Bill Seeley, whose notes²⁶ Jim and I consulted frequently. Bill has led seven expeditions over six weeks in length to James Bay. His river routes include the Upper Rupert, Eastmain and the Tichegami (a major tributary of the Eastmain). With three companions he followed the same rough river route in 2002 as Low did in 1888, from the La Grande to the Great Whale River by way of the St. Denys River. Like us, they took with them photocopies of Low's field notes and hand-drawn maps. Like us, they tried to follow Low's exact route. Like us, they were humbled by the accuracy of Low's maps and the pace of his travel. Bill Seeley writes, “…in the face of the barrenness of the burned landscape and the odd lack of any trace of the Cree at all, Low's notes were a welcome companion.”²⁷ We would come to know exactly what Bill meant. There are many other modern travellers of Low's routes whose exploits cause us to shake our heads in wonder and respect — Pat Lewtas, Dick Irwin, George Luste, Bob Davis, Hugh Stewart, Garrett and Alexandra Conover….²⁸ What they all hold in common is their awe and admiration of A.P. Low's trips.

Neil MacDonald of Petawawa, Ontario, was passing through the lobby of the Labrador Inn in Goose Bay when a framed photograph caught his eye — a black and white shot showing a group of men dressed in anoraks, wool pants and mukluks, with a canoe and a sled and a partially frozen river in the background. Clearly this was not your average canoe trip. The photo struck Neil as “a scene of pure exploration as compelling as any modern shot of an astronaut on the moon.”²⁹ The photograph was taken by A.P. Low in March 1894, when he and his party were trying to get an early start travelling up the Hamilton River. Inspired by this unique photograph, Neil set out in 1999 to retrace much of this route travelling by canoe and, in the winter, by snowshoe and sled. Neil writes:

while…we both carried our canoes on sleds…made multiple trips over the same ground, and relied on similar equipment, our experience serves mainly to highlight the difficulties of Low's. Our loads were …not nearly as heavy [Low's party hauled 300–400 pounds], our mileages were nowhere near as far…the sheer size of the territory covered by Low on this expedition would defy credulity if it were not described with such detail and authority. The standard of what was normal in his world of exploration eclipses any current standard of wilderness tripping…His example as a wilderness traveller, as a leader, and as a scientist all inspire respect; his accomplishments simply inspire humility and awe.”³⁰

We think Neil says best what we, and others who have travelled in the footsteps of Low, feel.

All these people have followed the challenge of Low for adventure. Low, of course, travelled as part of his job. There are a few others who have gone to great lengths — thousands of miles — travelling in his footsteps as part of their jobs. Of these, two men stand out in particular: Murray Watts and Jacques Rousseau.

Murray Watts,³¹ a geologist and mining engineer, is best known for his adventurous prospecting trips in the far north of Quebec, across the largely treeless area of Ungava. He made seven trips there between 1931 and 1951, where, he said, “the only previous visitors were A.P. Low…and Robert Flaherty, who filmed ‘Nanook of the North.’”³² At the age of 22, he made a 1,200 mile (1,931 km) canoe journey from Moose Factory, at the southern end of James Bay. He travelled north up the coast of James Bay and Hudson Bay where Low had sailed and paddled a half-century before him. Even at that time, Watts said that Ungava was “…Canada's last frontier, the only real wilds we have left to us…”³³

Jacques Rousseau (1905–70), a Quebec botanist and naturalist in the classical sense of the term, was an ardent admirer of Low, and followed several of his routes as part of his studies, including the one from Richmond Gulf to Fort Chimo. But he did what Jim and I can only dream of — in the early 1940s he hired Raphael Siméon, one of Low's guides, and learned first-hand of the stories of Low's trips. Rousseau recorded several statements of admiration as told to him by his aged companion — “There was no better guy than Low.”³⁴

These people who have followed Low's routes are largely urban folk who have written about their trips. It is their writings that have led us to them. But the first travellers of these rivers, the Cree, Naskapi, Montagnais,³⁵ and Inuit, knew them intimately long before Low set foot and paddle on them. In recent times, these Aboriginal people are “rediscovering” some of the ancient routes, the routes followed by their ancestors and by A.P. Low. Their stories are still not written down and are found only by speaking to their friends and descendents. The region is so well-known to the Aboriginals, that we have avoided using the term “explorer” for Low and others as most of them depended on Aboriginal guides and their route descriptions.

One of the most significant of the people pioneering the rediscovery of their own heritage was Charlie Brien. He was born “on the trapline” on May 12, 1936, in northern Quebec near the now-abandoned trading post of Nichicun. His father, Billy Brien, raised him “in the bush,” wise in the ways of life in the boreal forest. One hot summer day in July 1954, Charlie married Janie Neeposh. Together, they raised 13 children. Every winter Charlie hunted and trapped near Lake Nichicun and, in the summer, he always returned to the village of Mistissini. Charlie walked with a limp and, in the early 1960s, his “gimpy” leg forced him to remain there over the winter. He worked for the Hudson's Bay Company and while there learned about running a business. By the late 1960s, construction was booming in the village and, in 1968, Charlie opened his first business, hauling a sled loaded with coffee, doughnuts and sandwiches to construction sites. Shortly after that he opened the first Cree-run business in Mistissini, a restaurant which he simply called “Coffee Shop.” Charlie wanted his operation to do more than serve up good food. He envisioned a community meeting place where friends and family could gather for good food, good times and good conversation. He bought the first television set in Mistissini, and on Saturday nights the restaurant would be packed for the hockey game. His spot was also busy on nights when the CBC series “Adventures in Rainbow Country” was shown. This series, made in the early 1970s, featured a character named Pete Gawa, an Ojibwe teenager, played by Buckley Petawabano, a Cree from Mistissini. No wonder the restaurant was packed, as friends and relatives crowded in to watch “Pete” thwart jewel thieves, kidnappers, hijackers and even the devil himself! The restaurant, now called Denise Restaurant after his youngest daughter and operated by his two oldest daughters, still does a thriving business.

But Charlie never forgot his close ties to the land. Late in his life, he took an interest in canoeing and, in 1988, he took four teenage boys on a summer-long trip from Mistissini back to his traditional home near Nichicun. He wanted to help the Cree teenagers understand their heritage and their past. He believed that only by knowing where they came from, could they see their way clearly to the future. Each day, he would teach his young charges a new bush skill and tell stories about the past. He hoped the program would continue, and it has. Charlie passed away March 8, 2002. On our trip from the James Bay Highway to Waskaganish in 2003, we met a group of Cree teens travelling with an elder, paddling upstream on the Rupert River to the small town of Nemiscau. They are the legacy of Charlie's vision. He would be pleased.³⁶

What is the siren call that keeps us coming back to this boreal land? Perhaps, both for us escapees from our urban lifestyles and for the Aboriginal Peoples who live here, it is the unchanged nature of the land and its beauty. The Europeans who travelled in this land in these early days, remarked on how the hard life led by the Aboriginal inhabitants seems to result in a people who were happy, strong, kind and wise in the ways of living. “Nothing could be more strenuous than freighting on the Rupert River, but it is…natural work, the very strenuousness of it is decidedly beneficial to his [the Cree canoemen] moral and physical well-being.”³⁷ In his book, True North, Elliot Merrick recounts the words of an Eskimo trapper named Bert Blake, “…there's nothing for me like travellin' a new river, seein' the beeg heels close in behind and the bends open up ahead, breathin' cold sunshine and seein' new country every day…I wouldn't want to go and live away…”³⁸

Perhaps a people who live with uncertainty staring them in the face each day — uncertainty about whether they could find enough food to survive the harsh winters — the uncertainties inherent in a life that involves long, arduous journeys through wild country, brings with it a kind of freedom that we have lost in our highly technological world. A freedom that we glimpse on our trip through this land. Despite the rain, despite the wind, the cold, the portages — every day brings a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Every day is spent in beauty. Every day we feel so close to the land, the weather; every task seems worth doing. Every day and every action has a consequence that we can feel or see right away.

Leading a life of uncertainty has led to great gifts for these people including a freedom to move, a deep understanding of the forces of nature and the pride of self-sufficiency in a harsh environment. But the gifts run deeper than the water in the Rupert. A life spent living closer to the land than we can imagine leads to a kind of genius that we, with all our technological wizardry, cannot comprehend — an understanding of the relationships that bind the world together, the patience to accept what cannot be changed, the will and resourcefulness to change what can be, and, as that well-known epithet by Reinhold Niebuhr says, “the wisdom to know the difference.” These are gifts that are hard to come by, and easy to lose. Perhaps it is the quest for some of these same gifts that keep us, and others, coming back? Do modern wilderness travellers, equipped with Global Positioning Systems to tell them exactly where they are and satellite telephones to ensure that rescue is only a phone call away, lose these gifts that a greater measure of uncertainty gives?