“It rained throughout the night, but at half past three we were ready to embark, when I offered to conduct the old man where he had supposed we should meet his friends, but he declined the proposition. I therefore directed a few pounds of pemmican to be left with him, for his immediate support, and took leave of him and the place, which I named Canoe Island.”
The blind old man has chosen to stay put on the island and wait for his people to find him rather than take a ride with MacKenzie in the new canoe.
“During our stay there we had been most cruelly tormented by flies, particularly the sand-fly, which I am disposed to consider as the most tormenting insect of its size in nature. I was also compelled to put the people upon short allowance, and confine them to two meals a day, a regulation peculiarly offensive to a Canadian voyager. One of these meals was composed of the dried rows of fish, pounded, and boiled in water, thickened with a small quantity of flour, and fattened with a bit of grian (sic). These articles, being brought to the consistency of an hasty pudding, produced a substantial and not unpleasant dish.”
Sounds yummy.
“During our abode in Canoe Island, the water sank three perpendicular feet. I now gave the men a dram each, which could not but be considered, at this time, as a very comfortable treat. They were, indeed, in high spirits, when they perceived the superior excellence of the new vessel, and reflected that it was the work of their own hands.”
I would have thought it a little early in the day for rum. Is he celebrating the completion of the new canoe, or is he just trying to make up with the men for putting them on short rations?
“At eleven we arrived at the rapids...We were not more than two hours getting up this difficult part of the river, including the time employed in repairing a hole which had been broken in the canoe, by the negligence of the steersman.”
Three hours on the new canoe and already a hole in it.
“We saw several fish leap out of the water, which appeared to be of the salmon kind. The old man, indeed, had informed us that this was the season when the large fish begin to come up the river...We landed at eight in the evening; and suffered indescribable inconveniences from the flies.”
Picture 2. Chinook Salmon in Fraser River. (Image: Clearwater Times)
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