Volume 11, 1958 - The Arctic Circle - Home

VOL XI No.3 THE ARCTIC CIRCULAR 44
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Leaving Fort Simpson. we next passed Fort Wrigley,
and came to the mouth of the Gravel River, about twenty-five
miles above Fort Norman. Here we left the Mackenzie and
began tracking our boat up this small, swift river on the 12th of
July, 1898. We soon found that pUlling large boats up a swift
river was a man-sized job, and that our many pleasant days of
easy floating downstream were a thing of the past. This river
was well-named the Gravel River, being broken up in many places
into several channels flowing between gravel bars and islands, and
in places it was miles wide, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Just why this very appropriate natural name "Gravel River" has
now been changed to "Keele River" is hard to understand.
We spent the remainder of the summer hauling our
big scows upstream. At times some humerous and nearly tragic
things happened. Where the channels were much broken up, we
would get up to the head of one island we were on and catch the
lower end of one across the channel. Once we missed, and so had
to do it all over again. so we adopted the plan of two of us crossing
over in the dinghy to be ready to catch the bow line from the big
boat when the bowman threw it. The gravel banks of the islands
were usually from three to six feet high and straight up, and a man
leaping ashore from a boat was qUite likely to go into the river if
the edge of the bank crumbled with his weight. On one such
occasion, two of us crossed over in the dinghy and stood ready to
catch the bow line. The bowman threw the rope, but unfortunately
for him he dropped a coil, which caught around his ankle. We
caught the end of the line and held C'!1 ,but he, poor fellow, was
dragged into the water as the boat swung away from the bank.
Unable to release himself, he held on desperately to the rope with
both hands, but fortunately we managed to drag man and boat to the
bank, and hauled him out.
During the warm weather it had been easy to dry out
our wet clothes overnight ready for the next day, but as fall weather
approached we had to get into wet clothes in the morning, which
was very disagreeable. Miraculously neither of us caught cold.