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).
At our trip’s end, further along in the low-level flight path, I was scouting for river crossings. At what is now known as Belanger Rapids, on the upper Burnside, their fragile canoe upset. Belanger was left stranded in the middle of the river. Franklin (with a second canoe swamping) reached the far shore, but Pierre St. Germain was swept downstream. It was mid-September. Snow was on the ground. Eventually a rope was secured across the two riverbanks and all got across. Imagine the scene: at Obstruction Rapids on the Coppermine, by October 4, 1821, the travellers were now without a canoe. Here St. Germain, with a piece of canvas and river willows, fashioned a “little cockleshell canoe.” Others were hunting or preserving energy. This river crossing was a spirit breaker. Following this nine-day delay with many failed crossing attempts, the large group is forced to separate into stronger and weaker parties for a last push to Fort Enterprise.
But one must pause every once in a while when reading history like this; Pierre St. Germain did what? The pause is needed so as not to gloss over the facts and to afford time to imagine the scene and the effort. What about St. Germain’s building of a cockleshell to cross the rapids? While this skilled hunter and interpreter had his request to abandon the expedition denied at the mouth of the Coppermine, he soon became its most indispensable member. One would be right to marvel at Pierre St. Germain’s determination on the return overland walk with two major river crossings. First at the Burnside River crossing, St. Germain was prominent in ferrying the party across at great hardship to himself. But the big story was at Obstruction Rapids on the Coppermine. Here, without any watercraft to cross, St. Germain spent four days searching unsuccessfully for wood to make a raft. He did scrounge enough river willow to fashion a cockleshell out of the fragments of canvas available. All relied completely on the ingenuity and stamina of the starving St. Germain. This crossing was the critical moment of failure or success for the already wretched return to Fort Enterprise. St. Germain had found the way.
But how did he do it? How can one man build a craft to cross a wide river with a strong current with such meagre resources? And what exactly is a cockleshell canoe anyway? Enter my friend André-François Bourbeau. He too was caught by this moment. He too was forced to pause in his reading to ponder. Then, unlike me, he set about duplicating the life-saving canoe building endeavour.[15] (See Chapter 12.)
Reading all four officers’ accounts — Franklin’s, Richardson’s, Back’s, and Hood’s — I was impressed less with the role of these men and more with the role of interpreters, voyageurs, and Yellowknife hunters (Akaicho’s Indians, as they were sometimes called). In particular, Pierre St. Germain stands out. While St. Germain was at times a “ringleader of discontent” (looking back, who could blame him for that — I’m reminded of Yossarian’s plea in the novel Catch-22, “the enemy is anyone who is going to get me killed”). How could St. Germain not voice concern about Franklin’s obsession with pressing on beyond the reaches of food and Native hunter support while travelling in ever more leaky birchbark canoes further along the stormy September Arctic Coast? Taking in personal views of the Arctic Coast from the mouths of the Burnside and Horton rivers provides a bit of perspective on what the coast might have been like to paddle in a stormy September season. I, for one, will stick to the rivers, particularly as the early autumn season kicks in. Pierre St. Germain remains my go-to guy when I contemplate that land expedition.
Back in the Twin Otter float plane, I followed water and land from the air with a keenness to see the Burnside River crossing and then the Coppermine. The picture I imagined of these men dealing with the river crossings sent a chill down my spine. And while I can’t claim to have crossed paths with either rapid, the big rivers and lakes evident from the air showcased the extreme challenges faced by starving men between September and November 1821.
Then, as we flew south, we passed the site where a near mutiny took place. On August 13, 1819, at Reindeer Lake (now called Descension Lake) at the Yellowknife River headwater after days of gruelling upriver travel and frequent portaging, a mutinous spirit broke out. The disgruntled voyageurs requested more rations. The trip leader, Franklin, wrote of this incident:
… whilst this meal was preparing, our Canadian Voyageurs, who had been for some days past murmuring at their meagre diet, and striving to get the whole of our little provisions to consume at once, broke out into open discontent, and several of them threatened they would not proceed forward unless more food was given to them. This conduct was the more unpardonable, as they saw we were rapidly approaching the fires of the hunters, and that provision might soon be expected. I therefore felt the duty incumbent on me, to address them in the strongest manner on the danger of insubordination, and to assure them of my determination to inflect the heaviest punishment on any that should persist in their refusal to go on, or in any other way attempt to retard the Expedition.[16]
The officer George Back wrote on the same day:
… about 10 a.m. a mutinous spirit displayed itself amongst the men — they refused to carry the goods any farther alleging a scarcity of provisions as a reason for their conduct — Mr. Franklin told them we were too far removed from justice to treat them as they merited — but if such a thing occurred again — he would not hesitate to make an example of the first person who should come forward — by “blowing out his brains” — this Salutary speech had a weighty effect on the weather cock minds of the Canadians — who without further animadeversion returned quietly their duty.[17]
I have always taken great delight in these two passages. Franklin is proper in tone. Back, I cannot help think, is more truthful. I shared this story on our trip and discussed how travel literature must always be interpreted and how having more than one account adds fuel to the imaginative fire.
Hours into our return flight to Yellowknife and we were still
