(A Land That Followed) Its Own Order and Rule Great Whale River 1997 By Bill Seeley Guide Dedicated to Christine for her unending patience and the memory of George Heberton Evans III for being an inspiration to generations of wilderness paddlers young and old. There is a story, hammered out long ago on a now ancient manual typewriter, that hangs under the bow end of a canoe in the Matthew Ridgeway Lodge at Keewaydin Camp on Lake Temagami, Ontario. It is framed, but the six by eight inch stationery sheet, unprotected by glass, is faded with time,. The canoe above it is inscribed, 2000 Mile Mojo Trip: Hudson’s Bay, Great Whale River, Belcher Islands. The story reads: _______________________________________________________ ...................................................... ------------------------------------------------------- Belcher Island Trip - 1915 July 15 - September 22 CAMPERS: Chess Kittredge, Phil Barnes, Al Kittredge GUIDE: Jack Green The group traveled via Cochrane and the Mattagami, Kapuskasing, and Moose Rivers to Moose Factory by canoe and headed to the Great Whale River which runs into Hudson’s Bay from the peninsula of Labrador. Few white men had ever seen the mouth of this river. By sailboat, with canoes lashed to the sides, they reached Charleton Island--tired and seasick. Picking up the steamer, they journeyed on, stopping for a goose shoot and a stop at Strutton Island. Arriving in Hudson Bay they were in the land of the “Esquimaux” and saw seals and whales. Here they decided to stick with the steamer and not go up the Great Whale River. After a look at the mouth of the river they proceeded on to the Belcher islands where they arrived far behind schedule. After bartering with the natives the group headed south on August 30th arriving at Moose Factory on September 7th. They then faced the upstream paddle of the Moose and Abitibi Rivers in rain and wind. Arriving in Cochrane they were greeted by telegrams from home concerning their safety!!! September 22nd found them at Bear Island. Keewaydin was closed for the winter so the group headed for home, tired, late, but having completed the longest trip in Keewaydin history [then only 22 years old], over 1900 miles by train, canoe, sailboat, and steamer! _______________________________________________________ ....................................................... ------------------------------------------------------- Jon Berger’s trip notes, which we used to navigate the river, open with the following quote from George Beste’s 1578 account of the voyages of Martin Frobisher: How dangerous it is to attempt new discoveries; either for the length of the voyage, or the ignorance of the language, the want of interpreters, new and unaccustomed elements and airs, strange and unsavory meats, danger of thieves and robbers, fierceness of wild beasts and fishes, hugeness of woods, dangerousness of seas, dread of tempests, fear of hidden rocks, steepness of mountains, darkness of sudden falling fogs, continual pains-taking without rest, and infinite others. How pleasant and profitable it is to attempt new discoveries either for the sundry sights and shapes of strange beasts and fishes, the wonderful works of nature, the different manner and fashions of diverse nations, the sundry sorts of government, the sight of strange trees, fruit, fowls, and beasts, the infinite treasure of pearl, gold and silver, the news of new found lands, and many others. Jon Berger adds: Speaking to me over the centuries, Beste vividly describes the two pulling forces of joy and hardship to be found on a long and unknown trip. I can only concur that the lure of the Labrador wilds, which has drawn explorers and adventurers over the centuries, is the lure of the unknown which carries with it the rare and often forgotten pleasure of the infinite possibility of both tangible and internal discoveries. It is hard to say exactly where this story begins. Perhaps it begins in late August of 1992 at my friend Tim Wood’s apartment in the south end of Boston. I was en route to Brooklyn, on my way home from my first summer as the guide of Keewaydin Camp’s* Hudson Bay Trip. As I recall, an imitation kerosene lamp burned dimly on a small round oak table, and a bottle of Bushmill’s Irish Whiskey slowly faded to neglect as the clock over the stairwell chimed hours lost to our attention. Goose Bay and the Atlantic Ocean seemed remarkably close to Kuujjuarapik and Hudson Bay on the pages of Tim’s atlas. (Thank you Nuala for your patience.) That night launched several years of planning, still in the works, for a monumental journey from the Labrador coast to Kuujjuarapik/Wapmagoostui via the Naskapi, Kanariktok, McPhayden, and Great Whale Rivers. That planning was instrumental to the trip herein described, both for the logistics worked out by Tim, and for a dream unleashed in the wee hours. Perhaps this tale was born with Nicky Adams on a midnight boat ride with his father to deliver the child of a proud Native American family, or with Faulkner’s tale of a small boy’s trip to a flagstop hunting camp to carefully track a bear, both read canoeing in the Ontario wilderness as a boy during summers past. Perhaps. But certainly it starts in a dark and musty lodge on Lake Temagami, where the colonial flag of Ontario still hangs amidst records of countless Canadian canoe trips dating back to 1903. There, under the watchful gaze of an old Bull Moose and the 42 1/2 lbs. lake trout caught by Henry MacCloed in 1913, a 12 year old boy first looked up at the bow of a canoe that read “2000 Mile Mojo Trip: Hudson’s Bay, Great Whale River, Belcher Islands”, and dreamed of a mysterious and far away shangri-la where Inuit and Cree hunt whales, seals, and caribou under pewter skies on the eastern shore of a great frozen sea. JUNE 23: Danny, Steve and I left camp at 1pm, just after lunch, so that we could run some last minute errands before picking up the boys at North Bay Airport. The sun was out, but the threat of late afternoon thundershowers hung in the air. Our main mission was to find powdered tomato sauce and dried tomatoes in order to lighten the loads. We would have only one food drop and 21 days of canned spaghetti sauce fixings can be quite cumbersome. Unfortunately we were SOL so the boys would be stuck with canned goods for the duration. Heavy Loads!!! We puttered about in North Bay and I called Christine. Wal-Mart is always the highlight of this trip. This year we needed rope, and what Steve, with a big grin, always refers to as Alaskan Birch Bark--lamp oil for the breakfast fire. Queen Elizabeth II was due in town in a couple of days and there was a convoy of deep blue horse trailers carrying the black stallions of the R.C.M.P. (The Canadian Mounties, Steve) parked long the shoulder of Route 17. We were hoping for a glimpse of them performing exercises, practicing in preparation for the arrival of the Royal Family. No such luck. A cook who had once worked for Ojibway* was apparently preparing the Queen a meal. But we were to miss the festivities as we would be camped somewhere along the James Bay Highway en route to points north and east. I gracefully bowed out of the all you can eat Chinese food buffet (our first real task as summer mountain-men) after only one plate in order to leave room for dessert. Ice Cream and Cookies!!! Tom Taber and Jimmy Carr were already in attendance at the airport when we arrived. Tom’s folks had arrived in a black 1997 Fleetwood to collect their 20 foot v-stem freighter canoe from the Temagami Canoe Company. That would be quite a sight to see, the Cadillac of the bush on board the Cadillac of the road. A pair of German F-16 training jets were on the runway with their engines out for an overhaul. North Bay is a NATO jet fighter training base. The engines looked like cruise missiles to my untrained eyes. I called Christine again. The boys arrived only 12 minutes late, and this year there were no stragglers left behind in Toronto. It was the first time in six years that no one had missed their connection. We arrived at Boat Line Bay at 10pm and proceeded up the lake in the pitch black under overcast skies. I rode with Danny and we spent most of the ride dodging the wake kicked up by Matt in the Gully Gust. At night the running lights reflect off of the windshield making it tough to see so one must trade off between visibility and being visible which makes for a harrowing ride. We cut close by the buoy at Witch’s Point and into open waters without incident. We put the boys up on Fifth Avenue in the old Temagami Wigwam platform tents and I was off to bed just about midnight. JUNE 24: We woke the boys up at 7 with the first breakfast bell. As the summer progressed this wake up would seem luxurious. The guide headed for his last shower for the duration. Eggs and bacon for breakfast. The outfit was complete, including the cheese and bacon, by 10 am, so we dispersed to prepare our personal gear. As per usual the guide was dead last to get ready to go and scurried into lunch a couple of minutes late. We had a good crowd to see us off including the Ojibway staff. Danny and Matt drove us down. Steve and I had loaded most of the gear down the day before en route to pick up the boys.