C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

ISOTHE LADIES, THE GWICH'IN, AND THE RATwould curl up in the stern to enjoy a nap. It was hard to keep awake in the afternoonsunshine, half blinded by the glare from the water and suffering from thesense of having eaten too much lunch, for we fed on tinned meat or Canadianboiled dinner ready mixed in the tin, and rice or treacle and doughnuts. Once,when a pleasant little breeze was blowing, we rigged up one of our groundsheetson a stick and sailed for a while, Gwen steering while I held the sail rope andobeyed orders.On the morning of the fourth day we began to keep an anxious lookout forOld Crow. The river had become very wide and the current extremely strong andwe felt that in our little canoe we were like a cork borne down on the water andcompletely in its power. I began to visualize, all too vividly, the moment when weshould sight Old Crow and have to turn and head the canoe upriver beforeattempting to land and to wonder how we should ever perform this manoeuvrewithout getting swept away, broadside-on, and capsized. To add to our worriesthe river was now full of large islands and of those backwaters that in the Northare always known as "sloughs," the word being pronounced "slews." We could notalways hug the right bank on which Old Crow was situated, for in passing islandswe had to take whichever side offered the safest water and it would be quitepossible to pass down on the left side of one of them and miss Old Crow altogether.We had tried to keep a rough reckoning of the distance that we had comefrom Shingle Rock, but we never knew exactly how fast we were travelling. DavidLow's reckoning of our mileage coincided more or less with our own; when wequestioned her, the old Indian woman had pointed to Gwen's wrist watch andsaid that we should reach Old Crow on this day when the sun was overhead. Also,we had checked the time of our passing by a certain Willow Island described byLazarus. I went through all these reckonings again and again, it was past I2 andour spirits sank to zero. Clouds rolled up and we lunched on the left bank,hoping to see Old Crow round the next bend, yet fearing disappointment andalmost afraid to put the matter to the proof. Mter lunch, we paddled on and onthrough a maze of islands and then we passed one slough after another. Could itbe that Old Crow was set back from the main river, out of sight in a backwater?Had we missed it? We became more and more desperate. Even Gwen had nogrunting words of optimism with which to face the situation. The hours went by.Once more, we looked at our wretched map. Once more we counted the milesand days and hours. Then we began to make up our minds to the worst: 70 milesmore, alone, before we came to Rampart House which was inhabited. Dangerous