"Stick" Indians, who had come with us as packers, had stored away in this vicinity under the willows of the lake's beach, a couple of the most dilapidated looking craft that ever were seen. To call them canoes, indeed, was a strain upon our consciences. The only theory to account for their keeping afloat at all was that of the Irishman in the story, "that for every hole where the water could come in there were a half a dozen where it could run out." These canoes are made of a species of poplar, and are generally called "cottonwood canoes;" and as the trees from which they are made are not very large, the material "runs out" so to speak, along the waist or middle of the canoe, where a greater quantity is required to reach around, and this deficiency is made up by substituting batten-like strips of thin wood tacked or sewed on as gunwales, and calking the crevices well with gum. At bow and stern some rude attempt is made to warp them into canoe lines, and in doing this many cracks are developed, all of which are smeared with spruce gum. The thin bottom is a perfect gridiron of slits, all closed with gum, and the proportion of gum increases with the canoe's age. These were the fragile craft that were brought to me with a tender to transport my effects (nearly three tons besides the personnel of the expedition) almost the whole length of the lake, fully seven or eight miles, and the owners had the assurance to offer to do it in two days. I had no idea how far it was to the northern end or outlet of Lake Lindeman, as I had spent too many years of my life among Indians to attempt to deduce even an approximate estimate from the assurances of the two "Sticks" that "it was just around the point of land" to which they pointed and which may have been four or five miles distant. I gave them, however, a couple of loads of material that could be lost without serious damage, weighing three hundred to four hundred pounds, and as I did not know the length of the lake I thought I would await their return before attempting further progress. Even if they could accomplish the bargain in double the time they proposed I was quite willing to let them proceed, as I understood the outlet of the lake was a narrow river full of cascades and rocks through which, according to Indian reports, no raft of more than a few logs could possibly float. I did not feel disposed to build a couple of such cumbersome craft to traverse so short a distance. A southern gale setting in shortly after their departure, with waves running on the lake a foot or two high, was too terrible a storm for the rickety little boats, and we did not see any thing of them or their owners until three days later, when the men came creeping back overland—the gale still raging—to explain matters which required no explanation.
LAKE LINDEMAN. CAPE KOLDEWEY ON THE RIGHT.
The view is taken from the upper (southern) end of Payer Portage, looking (south) toward Kotusk Mountains. Perrier Pass is on the extreme left wrapped in fog. Named after Captain Koldewey of the German Navy.
[Pg 94]
[Pg 95]
In the meantime, having surmised the failure of our Indian contractors, the best logs available, which were rather small ones of stunted spruce and contorted pine, had been floated down the little stream and had been tracked up and down along the shores of the lake, and a raft made of the somewhat formidable dimensions of fifteen by thirty feet, with an elevated deck amidships. The rope lashings used on the loads of the Indian packers were put to duty in binding the logs together, but the greatest reliance was placed in stout wooden pins which united them by auger holes bored through both, the logs being cut or "saddled out" where they joined, as is done at the corners of log cabins. A deck was made on the corduroy plan of light seasoned pine poles, and high enough to prevent ordinary sized waves from wetting the effects, while a pole was rigged by mortising it into one of the central logs at the bottom and supporting it by four guy ropes from the top, and from this was suspended a wall tent as a sail, the ridge pole being the yard arm, with tackling arranged to raise and lower it. A large bow and stern oar with which to do the steering completed the rude craft. On the evening of the 14th of June the raft was finished, when we found that, as a number of us had surmised, it was not of sufficient buoyancy to hold all our effects as well as the whole party of whites and natives.
The next day only three white men, Mr. Homan, Mr. McIntosh and Corporal Shircliff, were placed in charge. About half the stores were put on the deck, the raft swung by ropes into the swift current of the stream so as to float it well out into the lake, and as the rude sail was spread to the increasing wind, the primitive craft commenced a journey that was destined to measure over thirteen hundred miles before the rough ribs of knots and bark were laid to rest on the great river, nearly half a thousand miles of whose secrets were given up to geographical science through the medium of her staunch and trusty bones. As she slowly obeyed her motive power, the wind began blowing harder and harder, until the craft was pitching like a vessel laboring in an ocean storm; but despite this the middle of the afternoon saw her rough journey across the angry lake safely completed, and this without any damage to her load worth noticing. The three men had had an extremely hard time of it, and had been compelled to take down their wall tent sail, for when this was lashed down over the stores on the deck to protect them from the deluge of flying spray breaking up over the stern there was ample surface presented to the furious gale to drive them along at a good round pace, especially when near the bold rocky shores, where all their vigilance and muscle were needed to keep them from being dashed to pieces in the rolling breakers. They had started with a half dozen or so good stout poles, but in using them over the rocks on the bottom one would occasionally cramp between a couple of submerged stones and be wrested violently from their hands as the raft swept swiftly by before it could be extricated. The remainder of the personnel, white and native, scrambled over the rough precipitous mountain spurs on the eastern side of the lake, wading through bog and tangled underbrush, then up steep slippery granite rocks on to the ridge tops bristling with fallen burned timber, or occasionally steadying themselves on some slight log that crossed a deep cañon, whose bed held a rushing stream where nothing less than a trout could live for a minute, the one common suffering every where being from the mosquitoes. The rest of the stores not taken on the raft found their way along slowly by means of the two dilapidated canoes, previously described, in the hands of our own Indians.
As we neared Camp 7, at the outlet of Lake Lindeman, on the overland trail we occasionally met with little openings that might be described by an imaginative person as prairies, and for long stretches, that is, two and three hundred yards, the walking would really be pleasant.
An inspection of the locality showed that the lake we had just passed was drained by a small river averaging from fifty to seventy-five feet in width and a little over a mile long. It was for nearly the whole length a repetition of shallow rapids, shoals, cascades, ugly-looking bowlders, bars and network of drift-timber. At about the middle of its course the worst cascade was split by a huge projecting bowlder, just at a sudden bend of the stream, and either channel was barely large enough to allow the raft to pass if it came end on, and remained so while going through, otherwise it would be sure to jam. Through this narrow chute of water the raft was "shot" the next day—June 16th—and although our predictions were verified at this cascade, a few minutes' energetic work sufficed to clear it, with the loss of a side-log or two, and all were glad to see it towed and anchored alongside the gravelly beach on the new lake, with so little damage received. Here we at once commenced enlarging its dimensions on a scale commensurate with the carrying of our entire load, both personnel and materiel. Around this unnavigable and short river the Indian packers and traders portage their goods when making their way into the interior, there being a good trail on the eastern side of the stream, which, barring a few sandy stretches, connects the two lakes. I called these rapids and the portage Payer Portage, after Lieutenant Payer, of the Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872–74.
By the 17th of June, at midnight, it was light enough to read print, of the size of that before my readers, and so continued throughout the month, except on very cloudy nights. Many bands of pretty harlequin ducks were noticed in the Payer Rapids, which seemed to be their favorite resort, the birds rarely appearing in the lakes, and always near the point at which some swift stream entered the smoother water. Black and brown bears and caribou tracks were seen in the valley of a small stream that here came in from the west.
