The Athabasca Transport of which we form joyous part makes a formidable flotilla: seven specially-built scows or "sturgeon-heads." Each runs forty to fifty feet with a twelve-foot beam and carries ten tons. The oars are twenty feet long. It takes a strong man to handle the forty-foot steering-sweep which is mounted with an iron pivot on the stern.
Our particular shallop is no different from the others, except that there is a slightly raised platform in the stern-sheets, evidently a dedication to the new Northern Manager of the H.B. Co. We share the pleasant company of a fourth passenger, Mrs. Harding, on her way home to Fort Resolution on Great Slave Lake. The second sturgeon-head carries seven members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, jolly laughing chaps, for are not they, too, like us, off duty? Inspector Pelletier and three men are to go with our Fur Transport as far as Resolution and then diverge to the east, essaying a cross-continent cut from there to salt water on Hudson Bay. For this purpose they ship two splendidly made Peterborough canoes. The other three members of the force are young chaps assigned to Smith's Landing on the Slave River, sent there to protect the wood bison of that region, the world's last wild buffalo. The third craft we observe with due respect as "the cook boat." The remaining four scows carry cargo only,--the trade term being "pieces," each piece from eighty to a hundred pounds, a convenient weight for carrying on the portages.
[Illustration: A "Sturgeon-head" at Athabasca]
June 6th at a quarter of seven saw the whole populace of Athabasca Landing on the river bank--dogs, babies, the officials of the Hudson's Bay, parson, priest, police, and even the barkeep,--and with the yelping of dogs and "Farewell, Nistow!" we are off. We are embarked on a 2500-mile journey, the longest water route on the continent, down which floats each year the food, clothing, and frugal supplies of a country as big as Europe.
The river is running five miles an hour and there is no need of the oars. The steersman is our admiration, as with that clumsy stern-sweep he dodges rocks, runs riffles, and makes bends. The scow is made of green wood, and its resilience stands it in good stead as, like a snake, it writhes through tight channels or over ugly bits of water. Everybody is in good humour; we are dreamers dreaming greatly. Why should we not be happy? Mrs. Harding is homeward-bound, Mr. Brabant on a new rung of the fur ladder of preferment, Inspector Pelletier and his associates starting on a quest of their own seeking. Sitting low among the "pieces" of the police boat, with only his head visible in the sunset glow, Dr. Sussex builds air-castles of that eleemosynary hospital of his on the Arctic Circle. The cook is whistling from the cook-boat. Five years ago he graduated from a business college, but the preparation of bannock and sow-belly appeals to the blood more insistently than trial balances and the petty cash book. As for ourselves, the Kid's smile is almost audible as she runs a loving hand over the oilskin cover of the camera. A favourite expression of mine in the latitudes below when the world smiled was, "Oh, I'm glad I'm alive and white!" On this exclamation I start now, but stop at the word "white." North of Athabasca Landing white gives place to a tint more tawny.