Day 21
Excerpts from the daily journals of Alexander MacKenzie on his Voyage to the Pacific, via the Peace River.
“The rain was so violent throughout the whole of this day, that we did not venture to proceed. As we had almost expended the contents of a rum keg, and this being a day which allowed of no active employment, I amused myself with the experiment of enclosing a letter in it, and dispatching it down the river to take its fate.”
Picture 1.
Picture 1 shows (reproduction) North-West Company liquor kegs. They held 10 gallons each of rum, brandy, port, high wine etc. As this particular journey is a mission of discovery rather than a trade mission, the only spirit he refers to in his journal is “rum”, so I assume that his rum kegs would have been marked accordingly. I think they carried 4 or 5 of these kegs on this journey.
So far they have been on the river for 3 weeks. 10 men, 10 gallons. That works out to approx. 1 cup per day, per man.
“I accordingly introduced a written account of all our hardships, etc., carefully enclosed in bark, into the small barrel by the bung-hole, which being carefully secured, I consigned this epistolatory cargo to the mercy of the current.”
I’d sure like to know if that “message in a rum keg” was ever found...
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