On the headwaters of Peace River; a narrative of a thousand-mile canoe trip to a little-known range of the Canadian Rockies

Front matter

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Limestone Peak overlooking Quadacha Forks.

Preface

As a boy I fixed my heart on being a naturalist; I learned how to skin and stuff animals and birds; I read every book on natural history and wild life on which I could lay my hands. But at the university I entered the only life that was considered worthy of study was that of blind fish or of minute organisms whose wriggling forms could be seen only through a high-power microscope. I did some such zoology as this at the university biological station, but I specialized in history and gave up my original ambition.

For many years I was a student of books, a seeker after vain degrees conferred by pompous pedagogues in parti-colored gowns. Nay more, for a time I was a pedagogue myself in a great university beside the Hudson and lived in the land of the "Modern Cliff Dwellers," harassed by the roar of elevated trains and breathing the fetid air of the great metropolis of the western world. I delved into dry subjects in musty libraries, wrote books that I hoped would seem learned, and came to have the pale face and stooping shoulders of the professional pundit.

But the primeval instinct was not entirely extinguished. A month's fishing one golden autumn among the Thirty Thousand Islands that fringe the iron-bound coast of Lake Huron revived old and half-forgotten feelviii PREFACE

ings. My youthful love of horses and guns, of clear water and the open country, surged up once more hot and fierce; the thin veneer of supercivilization began to slough away. Thenceforward, except as a matter of business, I read little save the books of explorers, naturalists, and hunters, and many were the golden hours I spent with Gordon-Cumming, Stanley, doughty Sir Samuel Baker, Selous, Hornaday, White, and Roosevelt. With Peary I travelled every foot of his twenty years' weary journey to the pole; I went with Amundsen on both his Arctic quests; there was hardly a hunter or adventurer in any land or clime who was not my bosom friend and companion in wild experiences. Best of all I liked the penetrators of our own American northland. I crossed the Continent with Mackenzie and descended with him the great river that bears his name; with old Samuel Hearne I traversed snowy wastes to the Coppermine and shuddered with him at the massacre at Bloody Falls; with Whitney, the Tyrrells, Hanbury, Thompson Seton, and Warburton Pike I visited the Barren Grounds, was bitten by myriads of mosquitoes, saw the musk-ox and la Joule of the caribou, shivered in icy tents, famished in times of famine, feasted when flesh was abundant, and breathed the scent from the myriad of flowers in summer. Nor was I content with second-hand enjoyment alone. One fall I made a trip to the mountains about the headwaters of the Saskatchewan and Athabasca Rivers, and, though the trip had to be a short one and in some respects was disappointing, it served to whet my appetite. I had hardly returned from it before I began to look for-

PREFACE ix

ward to and then to plan a trip that should be a real trip, and that is how I happen to be writing this book.

It is no longer an easy task to find in North America a primeval wilderness — even a little one — in which to indulge a fondness for wandering in remote regions "beyond the farthest camping-ground and the last tin can." Labrador has been penetrated, the Barren Grounds have repeatedly been traversed, and Alaska has yielded up her geographical secrets to argonauts drawn thither by the lure of gold. For some years, however, my eyes were turned longingly toward a region that seemed to promise a persevering traveler an opportunity to set his foot where no other white man had been — at least no white man who had left a record of his journey.

Far up in northern British Columbia the mighty Peace River takes its rise, and after gathering to itself the waters of a vast area, breaks its way eastward through the barrier of the Rockies toward the Mackenzie and the Arctic Sea. The Peace is formed by the junction of two streams — the Parsnip flowing up from the south and the Finlay flowing down from the north. The main course of each of these streams is fairly well known, though the Finlay has rarely been ascended. Extended research enabled me to learn that in 1824 John Finlay, in the interest of the Northwest Fur Company, ascended the river that now bears his name to one of its sources in Thutade Lake; his journal of the trip was long preserved at Cumberland House but has now been lost. However, about a quarter of a century ago Mr. J. B. Tyrrell took notes from it, and through his courtesy I

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am able to publish them in an appendix. In 1873 Captain W. F. Butler ascended the Peace and went up the Finlay about fifteen miles to a western tributary, the Omineca; fought his way up this stream some distance; and later published a short account of the region in his book entitled The Wild Northland. In the sixties and at intervals thereafter a few prospectors panned some of the lower Finlay bars for gold. For many years there has been a tiny Hudson's Bay trading-post about sixty miles up-stream, and to this post the Indians of the region resort to sell their furs. In. 1893 the Canadian Geographical Survey sent out a party, headed by R. G. McConnell, which ascended the Finlay to the Fishing Lakes above the Long Canyon, and McConnell drew a map of the river and wrote a description of the region from a geological point of view. A few years later would-be Klondikers attempted to use the river as a link on their way to the Yukon country and experienced many hardships from cold and hunger and narrowly escaped a conflict with the Indians.

In short, though Finlay River had never been "written up" in a popular way, its main course was well enough known, and I had no great difficulty in ascertaining a number of facts about it. I learned, for example, that most of the western tributaries had all been more or less explored by prospectors, for it was from these western streams that the precious gold-dust came. But to the eastward of the Finlay is a great stretch of the Rocky Mountains — the stretch lying south of the Liard River and north of Laurier Pass — that had never

PREFACE xi

been explored; and there existed rumors, started bytrappers who had sought pelts along the border-land, that hidden away in the ranges there were "peaks taller than Mount Robson."

The latest attempt to enter this region had been made in 191 2 by Mr. Frederick K. Vreeland in the interests of the United States Biological Survey. Mr. Vreeland and his party went into the country with pack-horses from Hudson's Hope on Peace River, penetrated slightly north of Laurier Pass, killed specimens of caribou and mountain-sheep, and were turned back by the weather, rough country, and down timber. Mr. Vreeland presented some of the results of this journey in an address before the American Geographical Society.

I believed that it would be interesting to attempt to enter the unexplored country. It seemed safe to assume that one would be likely to find game there; the trip thither and back was certain to be worth while; and merely to renew my acquaintance with the Canadian Rockies would be a pleasure beyond price.

The proposed trip appeared the more feasible because the recent completion of two railroads had rendered the region I wished to visit more accessible. In a few months I would be able — if all went well — to make a journey that only recently would have occupied the greater part of a year. From Edmonton, my outfitting-place, I must travel far to the west, then far to the north, then far to the east, and then far to the south back to the starting-point. Thanks to the new Grand Trunk Pacific, I could do the four hundred miles of the westward swing in less xii PREFACE

than a^day and a night, while the just-finished railroad to Peace River Crossing would enable me to cover in the same manner more than three hundred miles of the return.

Ultimately I decided to make the venture. I had no hope or expectation of exhaustively exploring the region, or of making any great addition to the fund of geographical knowledge. Experiences were what I was seeking. If I could make the long trip successfully, have a bit of hunting and fishing, and determine somewhat generally the character of the unexplored mountain region, I should feel satisfied.

I set out for the remote Northwest alone.

Paul Leland Haworth.

Eastover, West Newton, Indiana, March, 191 7.

Contents

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CHAPTER

Chapter I The Middle Passage

I REACHED Winnipeg early one July morning after the most unpleasant railway journey it had ever been my misfortune to experience. Practically the whole of the United States was sweltering under a hot wave of almost unprecedented severity, and it was not until my train neared the Canadian border that a cool breeze from the north began to afford relief. A night spent in a St. Paul hotel had been the hottest I ever suffered, but my stay in that city was somewhat recompensed by a long conversation with a charming- old gentleman who had settled there in the '50's, when St. Paul was a village and Minneapolis unthought of, and who had many interesting anecdotes of the early days, and of his friend "Jim" Hill. I also recall, with an enthusiasm that even the memory of the heat is unable to dim, a gorgeous blood-red sunset on Lake Pepin seen from the car window.

Half a century ago the westward trip from Winnipeg, then Fort Garry, across the Great Plains was one of unique interest, and was likely to be attended with numerous adventures. There were picturesque halfbreeds, creaking Red River carts, shaggy buffaloes, pronghorned antelopes, wild Crees and Blackfeet; and the journey occupied months. To^-day the trip takes a day and a night, and after it has been made once it is likely to.prove a bit monotonous. When settled, the Canadian plains become as tame and unexciting as the Kansas prairies, and wheat and oat fields now ripple where Poundmaker and other befeathered chieftains once built their corrals and slaughtered the buffaloes by thousands. It is progress, civilization, perhaps, but the change half saddens me, for I am not one of those who want to see the whole world transformed into marketgardens, or staked off into town lots. Where, pray tell me, will our descendants two or three generations removed go to find their wilderness .?

The monotony of the trip across the plains in the present instance was greatly relieved by evidences that the country was at war. Winnipeg was full of soldiers from Camp Hughes, farther west; there were model trenches dug in one of the public squares; dead walls were crowded with exhortations to French Canadians, Highlanders, Scandinavians, Americans, and even Icelanders to "do their bit" for "King and Country"; while every train bore scores of men in uniform. On the sleeping-car that carried me westward I made the acquaintance in the smoking-compartment of one such, whom I shall call "Scotty." Scotty was a discharged veteran of the immortal " Princess Pats," and previously had seen service among the kopjes against the Boers. His short, stubby body bore the scars of four wounds

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE 5

received in fighting the Germans, and he had lost two fingers of one hand, and half of a foot. He told some exciting stories of his military experiences, but, being somewhat ''lit up,'* seemed prouder of his exploits in beating the prohibition laws of Manitoba than of his deeds on the battle-field. He also explained with glee how he was hoodwinking the doctors in order to obtain extra big allowances from the government, and shamelessly declared that he meant to get all he ** could out of it." He made it his boast that he was never able to keep money, and told with gusto of how he had once had nine hundred dollars in a bank, had drawn it out, and had run through it in three days. A Winnipeg business man who listened to his story ventured to urge, in a fatherly way, that he ought to save his money and settle down, but Scotty declared with great determination that he meant to die without a cent.

Alas for a hero !

Altogether different in character was another survivor of the same regiment, an employee in the Hudson's Bay Company's store at Edmonton. He was a tall, erect man of perhaps thirty-five, quiet and little inclined to talk of the war. By questioning him I ascertained that he had lost the sight of one eye in battle, and his description of the hell of fire that virtually destroyed his regiment did not differ materially from Scotty's.

"Did you feel that you gave as good as you received ?" I asked him.

"There were several times when we had good shooting," he said, his face lighting up reminiscently.

** Twice they came on in mass formation, and we simply piled them up in heaps. We considered these opportunities a recompense for what we suffered.'*

The story of the Princess Pats is one of the most heroic in the annals of war, and will forever be treasured in Canadian history. Enlisted largely from among men with previous military experience in actual warfare, it was early at the front, and bore without flinching punishment that few organizations have ever endured. I talked with a returned veterinary surgeon who told me that once he saw the regiment when it could put only 78 men in line, and there are stories to the effect that at times it was even weaker.

The Grand Trunk Pacific, on which I was travelling, runs diagonally from Winnipeg to Edmonton through comparatively new country, and one saw from the carwindows occasional evidences of wild life. Now and then coveys of prairie-chickens rose from beside the track, while the presence of many hawks indicated that the chickens did not always enjoy peace and safety even during the closed season. The number of hawks one sees upon these plains is, indeed, discouragingly large from the point of view of the preservation of small game, and serves to explain why, now and then, in the fall especially, some of the States in the Mississippi Valley are full of hawks, both big and little. Fortunately, hawks are not an unmixed evil, as they destroy great numbers of prairie-dogs, mice, and other vermin.

Many of the small lakes bore coveys of ducks, some of them not yet able to fly, while now and again the

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE 5

traveller beheld a musquash, that is, a muskrat, swimming through the water, usually with a bunch of grass or straw in his mouth. Some of the muskrat houses on these lakes are as large as many beaver lodges I have seen. A few of the lakes are so heavily impregnated with alkali that they are avoided not only by animals, but also by the ducks and other water-fowl.

If time had permitted I should have liked to stop for a day or two at Wainwright to visit the great Canadian wild-animal park. We saw the park from a distance, but could distinguish no animals. The park now contains the largest herd of American buffaloes in the world, about two thousand, to say nothing of moose, antelope, and other animals. The buffaloes represent, in the main at least, the celebrated Pablo herd, which the United States parsimoniously permitted to be sold to Canada and sent beyond our borders.

Our train finally reached Edmonton at ten o'clock in the evening, and, as this was to be my last chance at the *' flesh-pots" for many weeks, I put up at a new palatial hotel erected by one of the railroad companies. When I sallied out next morning I found a different Edmonton from that with which I had become acquainted six years before. Then it was the "jumpingoff place" for the North and West, and most clerks had some personal knowledge of what any one Intending a trip into the bush needed; now it differed little from other towns, and the clerks were like all other clerks, and had little knowledge of canoes, tents, or guns — of anything but prices, which were high.

As one beholds the miles and miles of paved streets and splendid buildings, it seems incredible that, even in my own lifetime, Edmonton was merely a fur post beneath whose palisaded walls wild Crees and Blackfeet waylaid and scalped each other.

In view of the fact that the trip by water would be more than a thousand miles long, that some of the streams were shallow, that many rapids must be run and frequent portages made, I had already decided that I must have a light, canvas-covered canoe about eighteen feet long, and capable of carrying two men and a considerable load. In correspondence earlier in the year I had been assured that the supply of canoes in Edmonton was unlimited; great, therefore, was my disgust when I learned that there was not in the whole city a canvas-covered canoe, of the usual type, more than sixteen feet long. I had about decided to take an ordinary basswood Peterborough when I heard of a company down on the Saskatchewan that had, according to the story, an overstock of canvas canoes. Much elated, I hurried down the long, steep hill to the river, to find that the craft in question were really Chestnut sponson canoes, seventeen feet long. Now it had never been my intention to take a sponson canoe on the trip, but the man in charge was insistent that I should look one of the boats over, and I did so. She was a stanch, beautiful little craft, weighing about ninety pounds, capable of carrying six or seven hundred pounds and two men, a bit too low in the sides for rough water, but safe and sure to float in case she ever should fill. She was not just what I wanted; I realized

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE 7

that with all our stuff aboard she would ride pretty low, but I knew a way of keeping out the swells, and she seemed to come the nearest my requirements of anything available, so I took her.

Most of my provisions and other stuff I bought at the Hudson's Bay store, which in Edmonton is merely a big department store that does not differ greatly from similar stores in other cities. I picked up a few articles elsewhere, and had brought others from the States. As we were going on a trip where every ounce would count, and where everything used must be carried along, I had given the subject considerable care. The completed outfit, besides the canoe, included the following articles:

One Winchester .401 automatic rifle, equipped with Lyman sights. I had owned this gun for six years, and was familiar with its advantages and weaknesses. Like all rifles. It is more suitable for some kinds of work than for others, but, on the whole, it is a good weapon in the hands of one who understands it. For small game I had brought with me an old Remington .32 rim-fire rifle and a hundred long cartridges. I had had this rifle many years, and had killed a great variety of game with it. To my mind a weapon of this sort is better for small game than a .22, as it does not tear too much of a hole, will shoot farther, and can be used, at a pinch, on large game.

One 3A Graflex camera. This also was an old companion, and with it I had done some fair work, not because I am a good photographer, but because I had an excellent machine. My mistake on this trip was to underestimate its capacities. Such a camera is, of course, rather heavy for mountain work, its weight being about four and a half pounds. The leather case that the manufacturers furnish for it leaves much to be desired as a means of protection against either shocks or water, and at home I had made a box out of some clear poplar boards, and had covered it with canvas and fitted it with carrying straps. This box proved a great success, and served to lift a heavy load of anxiety off my mind, for the camera was really the most essential article of the trip. The box also furnished a handy receptacle for numerous other small articles. Most of the films were in water-tight tins.

One 7>^ x yj^ forester tent of balloon-silk, weight about four and a half pounds. These tents are open in front, but I took along a spare piece of canvas, which was useful as a tarpaulin and was available to keep out rain when the wind was uncertain and shifting. The tent was a bit small, but there was room for two in it and also for a couple of pack-sacks. For protection against mosquitoes I took along plenty of cheese-cloth. Ordinary mosquito-netting is unsatisfactory, as the mesh is made too large.

A cooking outfit that would "nest" and a Hudson's Bay axe. I left the buying of a small axe until I got to Prince George, and then had to be content with a hatchet, as there were no good small axes in stock.

A Bristol fishing-rod, with plenty of spoons, flies, and other tackle. This rod had seen much active service, in particular against the hardy bass and muskallonge of Georgian Bay and French River.

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In the way of bedding I took a canvas ground-cloth, a Hght blanket, a heavy blanket, and plenty of big blanket pins for use in improvising a sleeping-bag. In the way of clothing I had an alleged water-proof suit of a much-advertised brand. The coat proved helpful in wet weather, though far from being capable of turning a big rain, but the trousers were almost worthless, as they rustle too much to hunt in, will not keep out the water from wet bush, and wear in holes in a few days of real work. However, I had along another pair of ordinary khaki to hunt in. I also had plenty of woollen underclothing, two heavy woollen shirts, and a sweater. For footwear I had a pair of ordinary street shoes and a pair of excellent shoepacks. I intended to lay in at Fort Grahame a supply of moccasins for hunting purposes.

The food supply was ample and varied. As most of the trip would be by canoe, I took along more heavy canned stuff, particularly canned fruit and tomatoes, than I would otherwise have done. At the other end of the scale, as regards weight, I had brought from the States a considerable quantity of dehydrated stuff for use particularly in the mountains. The most worthless thing I took was an immense can of ground mustard, which I bought by weight, "sight unseen," without realizing how much I was getting. At the end of the trip the can was still intact, and I joyfully gave it to a friend. From the States I had brought a number of water-proof bags and several empty friction-top tins of varying sizes, and they proved invaluable for keeping the food dry and in good condition.

The real starting-point was the little station of Hansard, on the upper Eraser beyond the Rockies, 1,235 miles northwest of Winnipeg, 442 miles west of Edmonton, and 46 miles east of Prince George (formerly Fort George). The canoe and the rest of the stuff, except my personal baggage and a few other articles that I took with me, were to follow on the next Friday's train. As for myself, I donned my hunting-clothes, left my others at the hotel, and boarded the Wednesday night train for Prince George, intending to engage a man for the trip at that place and return to Hansard on Saturday in time to receive my stuff when it was unloaded. This arrangement was rendered necessary by reason of the fact that Hansard was a mere stop in an unsettled country, and had no agent.

Chapter II The Portal

When I awoke and looked out of the car-window next morning, I found that we had passed out of the settled prairie and were running through a wild and sombre region of fen and muskeg, overgrown with columnar spruce and lodge-pole pine. In places rushing fires had swept over the land, leaving blasted trunks standing amid the blackened stumps and prostrate bodies of comrades half consumed. The sun had just begun dimly to lighten the world, and to the far northwestward appeared a long row of what at first I was certain were jagged mountains, but which ultimately proved to be merely masses of low clouds.

We were passing through a region that had old associations for me, and I kept a keen outlook for familiar scenes. Six years before I had ridden to the town of Wolf Creek on the first construction-train that had ever run through to Edson, and later I had started from Edson with a pack-train for a trip to the Brazeau country and Mount Dalhousie. Then Wolf Creek had for some months been the end-of-steel, and was a place of considerable importance. In the preceding winter hundreds of town lots had been sold to hopeful Eastern investors, and the place had been a Mecca for mosquitoes,

II son, eight miles farther west, had become track's-end; Wolf Creek's boom was "busted," and Wolf Creek's population was moving on.

"What is the price of real estate in this burg?" I asked a storekeeper who was about to join the emigration.

"I gave three hundred and fifty dollars for this lot," he said with a grin. "Seeing it's you, you may have it for fifty dollars."

"Seeing it's I, I suppose one sawbuck would buy it," I returned.

And he grinned again.

When Wolf Creek presently came in sight I found my expectations realized. The first beams of the morning sun shining through the waste of spruce showed that of all the huts, shacks, and Waldorf Astorias hardly one log remained upon another; the only building that continued intact was a tiny white church set well back from the road, and half hidden by a copse of young jack-pine. Even it had neither worshippers nor mourners, for Wolf Creek was now neither a habitation nor even a name. The only living thing visible was a crow perched like an image carved in jet upon the blackened top of a blasted pine.

The fate of Wolf Creek is typical of scores of other little towns upon new railroads. If one were to search among the ruins of such towns, he would find the neglected graves of those who fell in aiding the march of the iron horse to the Pacific. Many who perished thus were victims of the carelessness of others, for rarely, in this age of the world, has a great undertaking been conducted with so little attention to health and sanitation as was the building of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Filth and garbage collected undisturbed; flies made their deadly rounds, and many of the camps were simply rotten with typhoid and other diseases. Women who braved the hardships suffered most of all. When the hard times came, following the completion of the road, men were wont to say: "Things are dull indeed. Why, we aren't even burying any more women !"

The region beyond Wolf Creek also called up memories, for it was there that on my previous trip I had first caught sight of the Canadian Rockies. With Jimmy Paul, a Cree half-breed, I was riding a cayuse from Wolf Creek to Edson, when from the top of a divide I beheld the tooth-like summits of a mighty range. Far off they were, fifty miles at least to the nearest, but very close they looked, towering up beyond the green sea of foot-hills. It was a clear afternoon, and one could see peaks southward beyond Banff and far northward up in the Smoky River country — four hundred miles of snow-capped mountains in a single mighty sweep.

When the train reached Edson I looked the place over with as much interest as I had Wolf Creek. When I had been there before, Edson was to be a great city. A square mile of muskeg — a peculiarly villainous kind of swamp — had been surveyed into lots and placed on the Eastern markets when I passed through westward; another square mile was being surveyed when I returned. Lots were sold in large numbers in Eastern

Canada, the United States, Europe, and even South America, and the price of some of the choicest was several thousand dollars. But the construction gangs passed on, and with them departed Edson's prosperity and all except a few hundred of its population.

A few miles beyond Edson we crossed the long trestle bridge over the McLeod at the "Big Eddy," the point where six years before our pack-train had turned off the right of way toward the Brazeau country. Presently we were among the foot-hills, and were running along but far above the turbid Athabasca, which even here is a considerable river. Soon we entered the confines of Jasper Park and passed through the gateway guarded by Boule Roche Mountain and Roche a Perdrix, with the mighty cliff of Roche Miette not far beyond. In places the Athabasca broadens into Alpine lakes, Brule Lake and Jasper Lake. Near Brule Lake bubbles the Miette Hot Springs, of which much will be heard in years to come. I watched the changing scene with rapt interest. It seemed as if this were my kingdom, and that after long years of absence I was once more entering in !