By the end of October, the lakes were frozen and they had to abandon the canoes, set up camp and wait for winter to set in. From here on, travel would be by toboggan and snowshoe. The expedition got underway again before the end of November, and finally arrived at the Hudson's Bay Company post on Lake Mistassini on December 23! Low wrote that for the last week of travel the men were on short rations and temperatures fell to -40 degrees.2
When Low returned to Lake Mistassini in 1892, he took a much easier route, by his standards. He took the train from Ottawa to Quebec City. From there, one could now take the Quebec and Lake St. John Railway to the community of Roberval on Lake St. John.3 This was the end of the line. In 1892, Mr. H.J. Beemer's magnificent summer hotel at Roberval on the shore of Lake St. John had all the “modern conveniences,” including electric light and could accommodate 300 guests!4 But from here, all travel was by canoe or on foot. It took another two and a half weeks of hard work to reach the trading post at Lake Mistassini. The route followed the Ashuepmouchouan,5 now called the Chamouchuane River, leading over to the height of land separating waters flowing to the St. Lawrence and waters flowing to James Bay. The rivers are swift, with many rapids and waterfalls, and the portages often horrendous. At one portage of 1,600 yards everyone sank to their knees in mud at almost every step. The lakes leading to Mistassini, Chatogoman (the Lake With Many Narrows, now called Obatogamau), Chibougamau and Waconichi (the “Lake with Lichens on the Rocks”), are described by Low's assistant as “much finer than any part of the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, and would make a most magnificent summer resort.”6 In Canada's first published canoe guide, the trip from Lake St. John to Lake Mistassini is described as, “…well-known to the Cree Indians who come down annually for their winter supplies, and is also familiar to many trappers and prospectors, but the outsider would be well advised to secure competent and experienced guides. The trip (300 miles, 42 days) makes a never-to-be-forgotten holiday, as it traverses the Ashuapmuchuan [sic] River, whose waters are as difficult as its name, and many charming mountain lakes and streams before the height of land is crossed…?7 Much of this route is still just as beautiful and rugged.
A.P. Low's photograph of the birchbark survey canoe on Lake Mistassini in the summer of 1885. James Macoun, foreground, holds a survey rod with two targets that were used to estimate distances with the Rochon micrometer. Courtesy of Natural Resources Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, photo GSC199578, A.P. Low.
If just getting to Mistissini seems like an incredible adventure for Low and his assistants that few of us would be equal to doing today, wait until we tell you how he got home after his explorations.
There has been an outpost of European civilization here at Mistissini since at least the 1670s, following the explorations of Father Charles Albanel, the first European to travel overland from the St. Lawrence to James Bay.8 In 1892, Low followed the same route to Lake Mistassini from Lake St. John. After the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759, the North West Company, operated by mainly by Scottish businessmen out of Montreal, established a trading post here in the late 1700s, known as “Canadian House.” After the North West Company amalgamated with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, the name of the post was first changed to Mistassini,9 and more recently to Mistissini, which comes from the Cree word for the name of the lake, and means “big rock,” referring to a large glacial erratic close to the outlet of the Rupert River. This enormous boulder is a landmark in finding the portage that offers a shortcut across a narrow neck of land separating the lake and the Rupert River.
Low's Eastmain supplies were ferried to Mistassini, as shown in this 1892 photo taken at Lake Chibougamau. His last trip to this lake was in 1905. Courtesy of Natural Resources Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, photo GSC199587, A.P. Low.
We drive up and down the wide dusty roads of the town. Jim has a tourist brochure that lists “roofed accommodation” in Mistissini. We ask a young Cree man at the local gas station — “Where's the motel?” The young fellow laughs and points. “See that hole in the ground? That's where your motel will be next year. But if you follow this road down to the lake, you'll find a place where we camp often. Just ask at the last house.”
We follow his directions, and after a few wrong turns, the road finally ends at a poplar grove on a point by a sheltered bay of vast Lake Mistassini. There's a small white house. Somewhat uncertain about what to do next, I knock diffidently on the door. As I look through the window of the door, I can see two children playing in the kitchen, and an elderly woman coming from the kitchen. She opens the door. She looks at me, saying nothing.
“Umm, I was wondering if we could camp here for the night,” I ask, hesitantly.
She points across the lawn to the poplar grove. There are several teepees set up there, and a rectangular structure made of spruce poles with a big blue Canadian Tire tarp pulled over it.
“Down there,” she says, and quietly closes the door and walks back to her kitchen.
While setting up our two tents, we see a man paddling aione in a C2, a type of canoe normally paddled by two persons in marathon canoe races using bent-shaft paddles, and displaying excellent paddling technique as he slips quietly by. As an old “has-been” marathon canoe racer, I notice these details. A few hours later, we were inside the largest tepee, eating our supper of noodle soup and taking shelter from the rain. A Cree man walks down from the house on the hill to talk with us. He is the fellow who had been paddling the racing canoe, and we trade a few names of canoe racers and races we have in common.
“These teepees are for educating our young ones about our traditions,” he tells us, “how to skin and cook geese, fillet fish, story-telling — that kind of thing. You should see this place when we're cooking up a feast of country food. We make a fire just big enough to roast the geese. The geese are skewered on sharpened sticks and we hang them from strings, so they spin and cook just right — close enough to the fire to roast, but not too close to blacken.”
Jim and Don and I are salivating. In this teepee, many geese have been cooked and goose fat had dripped onto the spruce bows on the floor. We can still smell the aroma.
“How do you cook your bannock?” Jim asks, thinking of new tricks for the 70 pounds of bannock mix we have brought with us.
He smiles, obviously thinking of feasts past, “The kids…they like to cook it on pointed sticks. We just shove them into the ground around the fire, and turn the sticks to cook it evenly. Sometimes a dozen sticks going all at once.”
Our visitor then turns and walks back to the house. We don't even know his name. We feel a little deflated. Our boiled noodle supper, even though it's flavoured with Jim's famous Thai curry and powdered coconut mix, seems so inadequate.
The next morning, we take a drive around the town to find the float plane dock and rustle up some breakfast and coffee. Mistissini doesn't look much like it did when A.P. Low was here more than a century ago, when he reported that 25 families were living and trading at the Hudson's Bay Company post. The population today is over 3,000. It looks like any small community with gasoline stations, large modern schools, an arena, soccer fields, a community centre, convenience stores, video rentals, and the Denise Restaurant which serves very fine food. There are rows of neat bungalows with green lawns. Pickup trucks send up clouds of dust along the gravel roads. There is a noticeably large number of baby carriages being pushed along the roads.
Soon we're sipping coffee in the Denise Restaurant in the heart of the village. The chatter from the other customers is neither English nor French. They are speaking Cree. Dark eyes framed by handsome
