Volume 11, 1958 - The Arctic Circle - Home

VOL XI No.3 THE ARCTIC CIRCULAR 43
Providence. Now, being well on in the month of June, the
continuous daylight enabled us to run day and night. Close by
this Hudson's Bay post was a large Catholic mission and convent,
and word had been left with the Factor to ask the first doctor who
came by to call, as one of the Sisters was sick, so the doctor
with our party made the call. I went along with him, and while he
was treating the patient, I looked over the garden, and was surprised
to see such a lovely, well-kept garden so far north. All kinds of
vegetables and flowers were growing luxuriantly. The following
day we started down the great Mackenzie River, and thought it
the best we had seen.
Our next stop was Fort Simpson, the Hudson's Bay post
where the Chief Factor, Mr. Camsell lived. This post is on a high
gravel bank at the mouth of the Liard River. At this point, another
party of gold seekers were ready to start up the Liard River,
consisting of several strapping young fellows and one old prospector
who said he came along to show the young fellows how to do it. I
will always remember seeing them starting up the river, the young
fellows on the tracking line and the old man on the boat handling
the sweep and calling out in his shaky old voice, "Good-bye, boys,
it's only the old-timers will get throughI " The upper reaches of the
Liard River are very tough going, and 1 heard later from others who
went that way that this party broke up, and the old man died there.
Here at Simpson we first heard of the Gravel River,
flowing into the Mackenzie from the west about two hundred miles
farther down, where the Indians who travelled along it hunting said
there was plenty of gold in the gravel bars and that the divide at the
head was the Yukon watershed. This story was corroborated by the
Factor. After talking it over, we decided to leave the Mackenzie
River and go up this river (instead of going on down to the Peel
River which had been our original plan), prospect along the bars,
and eventually cross over the divide to the Yukon and down to
Dawson, if meanwhile we failed to find gold in sufficient quantity
to warrant starting a new camp.