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

IntroductionXX:XIIIParson, "I will go but first I have to be paid $14.00 a day." Jack Parson said,"When those two women come, we will talk about it. In the meantime, getanother man to go with you." That's when my brother-in-law, Lazarus, askedme to go on this trip with him. I couldn't say no to my brother-in-law. I toldhim that I would go with him. When the steamboat came, the two womenarrived. They talked over the pay and the trip and everything was alright withthem. They had lots of food for the long journey; also an 18 foot canoe.When these two ladies arrived in Aklavik, one of them had hurt her leg. Herfather told her to stay behind but she insisted that she was going, too. The nextday we got ready. At that time, the HBC had a gas boat. They rented this boatto take us to where we were to start by land. We camped where we landed. Earlythe next morning, we started for the mountains following this canoe river. Itwas during the rainy weather and there was lots of water-the river was swift. Wecouldn't use track lines because of high water. I sat at the head of the canoewith my brother-in-law, Lazarus, at the stern of the canoe. One of the womenwho had hurt her leg sat in the canoe with us, the other walked along the shore.In some places, the water was very strong and the canoe would nearly swingwith us and sometimes I would feel scared. Sometimes my brother-in-lawwould yell out to me to jump ashore. I would hesitate before I made the jump.Later, he would still laugh at me about this. The water was very cold, but on wewent towards Loon Lake-the mosquitoes were awful. There was no such thingas mosquito dope-we only used mosquito head nets.Further on through Fish Creek we travelled, then came to a portage to Loon[Summit] Lake. We had to pass about five portages which were long, about onemile for each portage. We packing everything, making relays and packing thecanoe. Finally we reached the lake. My brother-in-law said, "I passed the worstpart, from here we will be travelling downstream." When we got to the creek,the water was very low but we made it through alright. We later canoed intoWhite Stone River. We passed La Pierre House and landed at Saintclair Rockbelow La Pierre House. We made camp there. This is where my brother-inlawand I started back and the two women continued on their journey. Earlythe next morning the two ladies gave us all the food we needed for our journeyback and they paid us, too. We watched them start off and my brother-in-law,Lazarus, and I started back, too-a longjourney home. I am not sure about thedistance, but I think it is over eighty miles from Saintclair Rock to the other