More of Duncan Macdonald’s adventures on Wanapitei River
My last column began the story of a timber cruising expedition that Duncan Macdonald of Parry Sound made into Northern Ontario in 1880, accompanied by two Native paddlers and packers, Isiah Aissance and Anson Jacob. I left them camped at the mouth of the French River about to begin their ascent, by birch bark canoe, of the winding Wanapitei River.
An early start on Monday, May 31 put them up to the second portage on the Wanapitei by evening, and the following day, by stint of “poling, paddling and towing up against a strong current,” they made it beyond the latitude of Sudbury. Although Sudbury did not then exist, it is evident they got that far because Macdonald made note of crossing “Ridout’s C.P.R. trial line about a mile below the falls.” (In 1880, of course, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald’s transcontinental railway was still not far advanced beyond the “national dream” stage, but I’m assuming Ridout’s route was the one the track eventually followed, and it bridges the Wanapitei half a dozen miles due east of Sudbury).
Beyond this point, progress becomes difficult to follow. In large part Macdonald identified physical features using the names applied by Natives and fur traders, many of which never made it onto any map. But three days paddling from the French River saw the party camped near where “Salter’s line,” a recently surveyed baseline, intersected the river. The chopped-out survey line told Macdonald that he had now reached the southerly edge of the first of several widely scattered timber berths, each one apparently a square measuring six miles to a side, that he was commissioned to examine. Next day, he struck off on foot to assess the commercial prospects of “Berth 52.”
“I tramped through the much lauded [probably by surveyor Salter] pine grove. I then turned north and got into the main body of the pine, some fine heavy timber, and on the rock ridges faulty. Black knots and punk. I crossed through an old [Indian] Sugar Bush and large pine in a valley with a beaver dam. Good pine along the creek. Beyond that north and west small scrubby pine. Burnt ridges. Saw nothing-fur or feather.”
In this kind of work Macdonald was at his best, traversing difficult terrain all day, and by the evening campfire giving free rein to his fine penmanship as he committed his observations and opinions to paper. On this expedition he kept three separate records: a slim vest-pocket diary in which he jotted down the day’s highlights, the more detailed ledger-size journal I am mainly working from for this story, and field notes relating to timber quality, quantity and distribution which would have gone to whoever hired him for the job, and thus have become separated from his personal papers.
On Friday, June 4 the party embarked on a long portage west, out of the Wanapitei watershed, camping that night wet and somewhat downhearted. “Anson has the blues,” wrote Macdonald, and “a sulky Indian and biting flies with a soaking rainstorm outside in a burnt country is not cheerful.” Next day, they crossed the height-of-land into waters leading south to Whitefish Lake, west of Sudbury, and although they again had to camp “wet to the pelt,” the day did not pass without an enlightening moment or two. While making the difficult crossing, “We found a bark canoe cached on an island, and an Indian Letter,” and “I shot an Owl, and Isiah potted two drummers [ruffed grouse].”
In this watershed Macdonald “tramped to a finish” two more timber berths, in the course of which, “I met a squaw, a baby and a small boy on the Portage, the first human beings we have met since we parted with Starkey and Tom [at the French River mouth].”
Evidently they had arrived in a centre of human activity, for later the same day Macdonald also encountered a Mr. MacKay who was “teaching the young Savages” thereabouts, and still later, he called on the manager of a Hudson’s Bay Company post. The same day, they also caught pickerel, no doubt a welcome change from the bass, pike and one large “maskolunge” yielded by earlier fishing efforts.
Thursday, June 10 saw the party tackling a second height-of-land, one that put them into the watershed of the Spanish River. The portage route took Macdonald through part of another timber berth, territory which supported a stand of “fine heavy pine” which, however, had recently been killed by fire. A climb to the top of a bald mountain allowed him to assess the rest of the berth without having to traverse it on foot. However, on the minus side, “Isiah broke our fly oil bottle, now we are in for it.”
Next day, “we struck down [the cast branch of] the Spanish River, splendid running down with the current” toward the next objective, Berth 492, noting somewhere along the way “a Lone Indian grave on the river bank.”
Bowing perhaps to a need for a day of rest more so than to Macdonald’s Presbyterian principles, the trio spent Sunday, June 13 camped on a portage near the junction of the east and west branches of the Spanish River, 12 or 15 miles north of present day Espanola. But the day, which began with a heavy thunderstorm, offered little to relieve drudgery and refresh spirits. “All is dull and still in this gloomy pinery,” wrote Macdonald. The flies remained “wicked,” and so he “went to work and made some pine tar to make up some fly oil.” Even the local wildlife had next to nothing to contribute in the way of amusement. “I heard one solitary red squirrel chattering and saw one duck flying down the river. We killed four snakes.”
To be continued.
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