Athabasca River North
This image of a York Boat being rowed is used with the permission of the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, and is image N9246. The image is of a York Boat being rowed on Split Lake, and the photograph was taken by R.A. Talbot.
The year is 1843, and it is now the beginning of August. Augustus Richard Peers has now reached Clearwater River (sometimes called the Little Athabasca), and is ready to make his way downriver toward the Athabasca River, which will bring him North to Fort Chipewyan on Athabasca Lake.
As you will know from the description of the boats, they are travelling from Portage La Loche to Fort Simpson in York Boats. As early as 1820-21, George Simpson had decided that York Boats should be used North of Portage La Loche. He had spent the winter of 1820-21 at Fort Wedderburn, Athabasca Lake. Then over the fall and winter of 1822-23, as governor, he travelled back to the Athabasca district, having been transported to the foot of Portage La Loche in a York Boat. This was the boat he had carried over the Portage, and he tested it in the Athabasca district until the lake froze in October. That didn’t stop him travelling, of course. Instead of York Boat he used snowshoes and dog-sleds. He arrived at Fort Resolution, Great Slave Lake, on December 13, 1822, surprising Robert McVicar, the gentlemen in charge. Then he returned to Fort Chipewyan, before visiting Dunvegan and the Peace River posts in February 1823. From there he crossed the land portage to Lesser Slave Lake, and once on the Upper Athabasca River explored the posts on that section of the river. He also ordered Fort Assiniboine to be built where it was later found by John Work and Peter Skene Ogden (in the Two Canoes thread.) Finally, he crossed by the Athabasca Portage to Edmonton House, on the North Saskatchewan, and explored the posts on the upper river, before heading east to Norway House for the 1823 meeting. He was a busy man!
“The business [at Rendezvous Lake, Portage La Loche] having been satisfactorily terminated,” Augustus Peers began this section of his manuscript,
we once more crossed to the north end of the carrying ground and on the third of August we embarked and commenced the descent of the Clearwater River, on our way to winter quarters. We numbered five boats. Shortly after leaving the portage Mr. [Chief Factor John Lee] Lewes’s boat in descending a small rapid grounded on a stone and it was with difficulty she was launched again–however no accident happened as she struck on the keel. During the day three short portages were crossed, viz. The White Mud, Big Stone, and Pine Portage. The goods being all carried across, the men ran the light boats down to the lower end of the rapids and re-loading, we continued our descent. The scenery about these rapids is very grand. Next in succession is is Portage le Bon, so termed by the voyageurs from the level nature of the ground which, although of little consequence to a person walking light, is of the utmost importance to the crews who have to surmount every difficulty, and it often happens that their path is strewed with fallen trees and other impediment and the ground so boggy that they sink deep in the mire at every step, with their burdens on their backs.
I like the detail that Augustus Peers puts in his manuscript. I can take these details and add them to the other story of Governor Simpson’s travels. Simpson says his party camped on the Clearwater River at Pine Portage. Now I can say something like “On May 29, two more portages–Big Stone and The White Mud–brought them upriver to Portage La Loche, which they reached at….” I like details: this makes me happy! To continue:
On this portage [Portage le Bon], as it was in the evening and there was no possibility of getting the cargoes all over in time to continue the course that day, we pitched our tents at the other end where we found large quantities of delicious poirs [Saskatoon berries]. In the Athabasca River, which we were now on, are several salt and sulphur springs, the water being impregnated with the latter in many places. A freeman who frequents the neighbourhood furnishes us annually a number of bags of salt from here for the use of the Athabasca and McKenzie’s River District. The salt produced is of the purest quality and of good taste, the springs are a short distance inland from the river and I much regretted not being able to visit them. Where such a quantity is readily procured there must be a very large deposit. These springs are much frequented by herds of buffalo etc.
As anyone who lives in the North knows, this is the Beaulieu family, sons of Francois “Old Man” Beaulieu who accompanied Alexander Mackenzie to the Pacific Coast in 1793. I too am descended from a Beaulieu man, but we are not related to this family. Peers’ manuscript continues as he arrives at Fort Chipewyan, not Fort Athabasca:
On the tenth we entered Athabasca Lake and after coasting along its southwest shoreline arrived at Fort Athabasca, where we remained part of the day. In the spring and autumn when the wildfowl are passing this lake teems with them and such is the cackling and gabbling they make the inhabitants of the fort are sometimes prevented from sleeping. The people receive a small quantity of ammunition and feed themselves without drawing on the resources of the fort. Even the women will sometimes shoulder a gun and forage for themselves. Although it was not then the proper season for the fowl when I passed through this lake, nevertheless there were vast flights of geese and ducks of every sort along the sedgy shore and we shot several as they flew within range. I am sorry that my time was not my own; with a quantity of ammunition and a canoe I would have been content to pass a month there alone. There is no doubt that vast numbers of geese and ducks might here be captured in a similar way as that adopted in the Fens of Lincolnshire, with nets and decoys. Colonel Hawker of sporting celebrity would find here ample employment for his long swivel guns.
I recently learned about Augustus Peers and his family. He and his brother, Henry Newsham Peers of Fort Victoria, are descended from a well-to-do family who settled at Alveston, in Warwickshire, in 1540. The first of the known family was Robert Peers, a brother of William Peers, Prior of Worcester, and better known by the name Moore. The family became well-known in the district and later allied itself by marriage with some of the leading families in the county of Warwick. If you want to know more about this family and its genealogy, the records are published in volume 2 of the Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, and you find it on the Internet Archives. Have fun! The article is in two parts: page 84-88, and 104-106. Henry Newsham Peers was a young and lively gentleman, but Augustus Richard Peers was not, as you will discover when the book is published. And perhaps this helps to explain why he was the way he was.
But onward! He is heading North down the Riviere des Rochers and the Slave River, and both of these places, below, are on the Slave.
Below Athabasca we passed a succession of portages and rapids, the most remarkable of which are the Mountain and Pelican Portages. At the former the scenery is very picturesque. The river here has a considerable fall over a ledge of rocks to avoid, which the boats are hauled over the hill and launched again below the fall. I was told that a young Indian with his sister wile hunting ducks in the river above the fall in a canoe were drawn into the current, and in spite of their exertions they were drawn to the verge of the cascade, and the next moment disappeared in the boiling flood never to be found again.
At the Pelican–so called from the number of those birds to be seen sitting on the rocks in the midst of the rapids–the cargoes are merely discharged and boats run down the rapids. At one part, near the foot of this rapid the water is continually rising and falling forming a hole or whirlpool several feet deep. It sometimes happens that a boat will arrive at the place when the water is at the lowest, when it will make a headlong plunge into the hole, smothering the crews with spray as the waves break over her bows. Those, however, who are fortunate to arrive when the pool is full ride smoothly over it and escape scathless.
It is a very exciting sight to watch a boat running a dangerous rapid. The utmost skill of the steersman is then required to prevent the boat from being dashed to pieces against the hidden rocks. Now you will see her rushing with resistless force towards a rock against which the water foams and boils. Its destruction seems inevitable, when a well-timed and vigorous stroke from the sweep-oar sends out her head, glancing the rock, and the next moment she arrives in safety in the less turbulent water below.
It would be folly in one unacquainted with the dangers to attempt to run a difficult rapid, and as we had some steersman in our brigade who had not sufficient faith in their skill, the guide ran their boats for them. These last named rapids are close together and the river is here very wide, the rapids extending nearly across the channel which is strewed with numerous rocks on which the “desert birds” sit in listless security. This is bout the most northerly flight of the pelican; indeed I was surprised to see them in this part of the country. They do not appear to be of such a large size as those I had seen from a warmer clime. The feathers are eagerly sought after by the women as they are superior to goose feathers for the purpose of embroidery.
See what you can learn from these old journals and manuscripts? And these rapids? They are the Smith Rapids, which extend over sixteen miles and are made up of a series of four rapids–the Cassette, Pelican, Mountain, and Rapids of the Drowned. Augustus Peers’ manuscript continues:
We shortly arrived at Great Slave Lake, but as the weather was too boisterous with a head wind we were compelled to put ashore on a low willow island, where we passed the day. While the men were gathering fire wood from a pile of drift-wood, they unconsciously disturbed a wasp’s nest which adhered to the under side of a log, and in an instant we had the whole colony about our ears and several of the men were stung. I took the nest as a curiosity, but afterwards made gun wadding of it, for which purpose it was well adapted, being soft, tough, and elastic.
Next morning the wind was still adverse, but as there seemed no likelihood of its shifting, and as Fort Resolution was not far off, we resolved to make a push for it, and accordingly embarked and after a very fatiguing pull of a few hours along the shore of the lake we reached the fort.
The country at this part of the lake is low and uninteresting. Fort Resolution is resorted to by the Slave and Mountain Indians, who bring large quantities of dried moose-deer meat, and excellent whitefish and trout are caught in abundance in the lake. Potatoes, barley, and some of the more hardy vegetables are grown here during the short summer.
We were now drawing near the winter quarters and were the more anxious to be off, so after partaking of a fish dinner we put off, and as the wind fell we made a good distance before night. The next day proved to be beautifully calm and even warm, although the sun was rapidly decreasing his daily course. It was still daylight when we encamped on the rocky margin of the lake, and while our evening’s repast was preparing, Mr. Lewes and I provided our next breakfast from a bevy of young gulls which were hovering and playing in the shallows.
I had often read in the days of my youth of Great Slave Lake, never dreaming I was destined to visit it. It is a vast sheet of water, indented by deep bays and dotted by numerous islands, some of which are dreary and desolate. To such a depth does it freeze in winter that the ice is found in exposed places, when the snow has blow off, to be six and seven feet in thickness. At the time of its setting fast in the fall the young ice is constantly driven about by the ever changing winds and is piled up, mound on mound, to a height of several feet, forming vast ridges. Winter travelling on it is very dangerous as the wind is liable to rise at any moment, driving the frozen snow in clouds before it. The travellers only chance of safety is to throw himself down till the storm subsides and the weather clears us to allow him to continue his course, guided by distant points of land and other objects.
We considered ourselves very fortunate in crossing the lake without experiencing any delay from head winds, and on the eighteenth we entered the magnificent Mackenzie, and encamped on the bank of one of its tributaries which flowed in from the left….On the twentieth of August we came in sight of Fort Simpson, which, as the Mackenzie is here very wide and straight is seen from a distance of four or five miles. The voyageurs hailed the sight of the fort with rapture, and although many of them had many a weary mile to travel to some of the distant outposts, they plied the oar vigorously and in an hour or so we arrived at the landing under a high bank on which stood a flag staff, from which floated in the breeze a large red flag.
Fort Simpson, the head post of Mackenzie’s River District is prettily situated on an island at the confluence of the Liard and Mackenzie Rivers. The Mackenzie is here a mile broad from sore to shore and as the bank on which the fort sits is very high, a commanding view is obtained of the mighty river and surrounding country.
We have reached Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie River–the headquarters of the Mackenzie River district, which included the Liard River and the Yukon district, where Robert Campbell, of Fort Selkirk, was not yet established in 1843. Although Campbell often took charge of Fort Simpson in John Lee Lewes’s absence, he did not do it this year. He was at Frances Lake over the summer of 1843, and he explored over the hills to the Pelly River, and downriver to the junction of the Pelly with the Yukon. Here he would build Fort Selkirk, but not for a few years yet.
You might want to return to the first post in this series, which you will find here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/augustus-peers-journal/
When the next post is published, it will appear here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/whatever-i-call-it/