It was cloudy but calm, and Michikamau
was like a pond. How I wondered what fortune would be ours in the
voyage on this big water. The canoes seemed so tiny here. I
called the men at 6.30 A.M., and at nine we were ready to start.
Before leaving, Job blazed two trees at the landing, and in one he
placed a big flat stone on which I wrote with a piece of flint Joe
brought me,
HUBBARD EXPEDITION,
ARRIVED HERE, AUGUST 2ND 1905.
Underneath it I wrote the names of all the party. Then we embarked
and it was "All aboard for George River!" our next objective point.
Our way led among the islands through water which seemed to promise
good fishing. We put out the trolls, and waited hopefully to see
what might be the prospect for testing the namaycush (great lake
trout) of Michikamau for lunch. We had not long to wait. Soon I
saw Joe in the other canoe hauling in his line, and a few minutes
after there was a tug at mine. I got a nice little one. I had my
line out a second time for just a short while when there was a
harder tug on it, and I knew I had a big one. We had no gaff, and
Job said we had better go ashore to land him. We did, and I was
just pulling him up the beach when he gave one mighty leap and was
gone. When my line came in I found the heavy wire which held the
hooks had been straightened out, and he had gone off with them in
his mouth. Joe's fish was a big one, about fifteen pounds, the men
thought. Job said mine was bigger.
We had lunch on an island that day. The men boiled the whole of
the big fish, except a little that they fried for me. George ate
the head boiled, which be says is the best part. It was all
delicious. I cleaned my little one carefully, and placing some
willow boughs about it, laid it in the shade until we should be
starting. Then after all my care we went away and forgot it. On
the island we found the whitened antlers and skull of a young
caribou stag. Joe cut off one of the points, and I used it after
that to wind my trolling line.
During the afternoon there was more wind, and the lake grew
rougher. It was fine to see the way the men managed the canoes.
Sometimes we seemed almost to lose ourselves in the trough of the
big waves, but there was not a dipper of water taken in. There was
a head wind and hard paddling for a time, but towards evening it
grew calmer, and the lake became very beautiful. In the distance
we saw several large masses of floating ice, and lying far away in
the west were many islands. The sky above was almost covered with
big, soft, silver clouds and as the sun sank gradually towards the
horizon the lake was like a great field of light. Once we stopped
to listen to the loons calling [Great Northern Divers]. They were
somewhere out on the glittering water, and far apart. We could not
see them, but there were four, and one wild call answering another
rang out into the great silence. It was weird and beautiful beyond
words; the big, shining lake with its distant blue islands; the sky
with its wonderful clouds and colour; two little canoes so deep in
the wilderness, and those wild, reverberant voices coming up from
invisible beings away in the "long light" which lay across the
water. We listened for a long time, then it ceased.
We camped early that night south of the bay on the farther side of
which the hills reached out to the west, narrowing the lake to
about seven miles. The bay was between four and five miles wide,
and it was too late to risk crossing it that night. George said if
it were still calm in the morning they would take just a bite and a
cup of tea, and start. We could have breakfast on the other shore.
During the night a north wind sprang up, and though soon calm again
the lake was stirred up, and all the rest of the night and the
early morning we could hear the waves rolling in on the beach.
From dawn the men were out, now and again, to see if it were fit to
start, but it was 10 A.M. before we were on the water. On one of
the islands where we landed during the morning we found the first
"bake-apple" berries. They were as large as the top of my thumb,
and reddened a little. Though still hard they already tasted like
apples. We lunched on an island near the north shore of the bay.
While at our meal the wind changed and was fair for us, so we
started, hoping to make the most of it. Crossing through a shallow
which separated what had looked like a long point from the hills,
we came out to the narrower part of the lake. Here the hills on
the east shore were seen to recede from the lake, stretching away a
little east of north, while between, the country was flat and
boggy. A short distance further on we landed to put up sails. A
ptarmigan and her little family were running about among the
bushes, and the men gave chase, coming back shortly afterwards with
the mother bird and her little ones.
Towards evening we put out our trolls, and I caught one big brook
trout, one little namaycush, and a big one a twenty-pounder. This
time he did not get away, though I strongly suspect this may have
been because Job landed him.
