Stewart’s Journal
Snow-covered ground and trees. The photo is actually of the HBC brigade trail over the Coquihalla, under the snow (November 2015). Photo thanks to Kelley Cook, Hope Mountain Centre
This post is a continuation of James Green Stewart’s Journal, which records his journey northward from Carlton House to the shores of the Arctic Sea. The previous post recorded Stewart’s Journal as he made his way up the Churchill River and the Athabasca to Fort Chippewyan, on Athabasca Lake. His party reached Fort Chipewyan on Tuesday March 6, 1855, and began to build two canoes there. I know that Stewart had the brilliant idea of lining these two canoes with burlap, which made them tremendously heavy — but that story is in the future.
According to Stewart’s Journal, on March 13th, Stewart’s party “left Athabasca [Lake] with ten men and seven slaghs [sleighs] early this morning for Great Slave Lake. It is quick work to be so far on our road seeing that it is only about 4 1/2 months since Dr. [John] Rae landed in England. Camped below Peace River in a large island. Beautiful weather.”
Dr. John Rae was an HBC man who made numerous explorations in the north. On this occasion he had just returned to England with stories of the deaths of Sir John Franklin’s men told to him by Inuit men, and he had finally understood where the bodies of these English explorers might be found. Mind you, they have been dead for four years by now and there will be little remaining of the men themselves, but there might be other evidence of their presence. And that was the hope. Lady Franklin [Sir John’s wife] got in touch with the London Committee of the HBC, and Sir George Simpson involved himself in the search for the dead men or their papers and journals. Between them, Sir George and Chief Factor John Rae decided that Chief Trader James Anderson, who had replaced Rae at Fort Simpson, Mackenzie River district, was the man who should lead the search, as he was young and fit enough to lead the party of men north. Simpson also decided that James Green Stewart should be Anderson’s second-in-command, as he had made several amazing journeys through the north in adverse conditions when he worked for Robert Campbell, of Fort Selkirk fame.
So that is what happened. James Green Stewart worked his way north to Athabasca Lake, but he must also deliver Governor Simpson’s instructions to James Anderson. Until those instructions reached him, Anderson had no idea what was going to be demanded of him. And according to Stewart’s Journal, the sole reason for his journey north from Athabasca Lake at this time was to get Anderson’s instructions to him at Fort Simpson, north of Great Slave Lake.
So, according to Stewart’s journal, he and his men encamped that first night out on the banks of the Riviere des Roches, just south of the mouth of the Peace River. The Riviere des Roches is a narrow and island-clogged river that flows out of Athabasca Lake, heading north some thirty miles to its junction with the Peace — at which time the two rivers combine and are named the Slave River. And the turbulent Slave runs two hundred miles north to Great Slave Lake.
James Green Stewart’s Journal next records that:
Wednesday 14th [March] Started early and camped a little above the Isles des Pierre. [This is a different Isles des Pierre than the one on Great Slave Lake.] Fine clear weather. Wind north.
Thursday 15th. Made a very good day. Camped below the Cassette portage, the same fine weather. Wind SW.
These men are travelling down this river in March, and so they would be running their dogs and sleighs along the icy surface of the river. They would not notice the huge whirlpools at the mouth of the Peace River, and they might not be forced to pay a lot of attention to the five or so portages and rapids on the Slave River. The Cassette Portage is one of four portages and rapids on the Slave River, “the most remarkable of which are the Mountain and Pelican portages.” Today these sets of rapids make up the Smith Rapids, and the set is more than sixteen miles long and is made up of the series of four rapids — the Cassette; the Pelican, the Mountain Portage, and the Rapids of the Drowned. Stewart’s Journal continues:
Friday 16th [March]. Started early, passed Salt River. Smoked a pipe with Beaulieu and camped one pipe below Hoole’s Island. Wind N.W. and cold.
Saturday 17th. Camped in Buffalo River, cold with head wind and a little snow.
Sunday 18th. Started early. Met Fra [Francois] Beaulieu in the Prairie portage and camped at the end of it.
Monday 19th. Arrived at Slave Lake at 3.15 p.m. and found nobody at the Fort, we passed Mr. Ross at the mouth of Buffalo River. A most beautiful day. Our 7th from Athabasca.
The Beaulieu family lived on the Salt River, at this stage all sons or grandsons of Francois “Old Man” Beaulieu, the same Francois Beaulieu who had travelled west with Alexander McKenzie to Bella Coola in 1793. The one thing to know about this family that is important to this story is that Chief Trader James Anderson did not like them much at all. The “Mr. Ross” above is probably Bernard Rogan Ross. Almost certainly, in fact.
So Stewart’s Journal indicates that he and his party arrived at Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake, on March 19th, 1855, and they departed it again on Friday March 23, having sent the papers north to Fort Simpson and James Anderson. Those dispatches finally reached Fort Simpson on March 29, 1855, and they were a total surprise to Anderson.
In the meantime, however, Stewart’s journal indicates that James Green Stewart has already begun his journey south again, days before Anderson received his papers and the copy of Back’s Narrative. It is clear he did not deliver the papers north to Fort Simpson. So what did he do for for lazy days at Fort Resolution. Firstly, they had to rest the dogs. What else? Well, I am not telling you that here.
His journal continues:
Friday 23rd [March]. Left [Great] Slave Lake at 3 a.m. and camped at this end of the Rapid Portage. Blowing from S.W. with snow.
Saturday 24th. Started late, dined at the Grand Detou [Detour?] and encamped at Hoole’s Island. Fine cold weather.
Sunday 25th. Breakfasted with Beaulieu. Took an Indian lad with us to take an Express to Lac a la Crosse, and camped below the Cassette Rapid. Beautiful weather.
Monday 26th. Started at the usual time and camped three reaches above the Isles des Pierre. Rather warm today, dogs knocking up, and no wonder having come so far in so short a time, not to mention their coming from Carlton House.
Wednesday 28th. Arrived at Athabasca all well, six days from Slave Lake.
So he reached Fort Chipewyan six days after he left Great Slave Lake, and his dogs were exhausted. And they have travelled all the way from Carlton House! And he had taken ten men on this excursion north to Fort Resolution to deliver papers and a copy of Back’s Narrative to the gentlemen at Fort Resolution, leaving them to send the papers north to James Anderson at Fort Simpson.
As we know, Anderson left Fort Simpson on his journey south to Fort Resolution, Great Slave Lake, on Monday 29th of May, 1855, when the ice finally left the river. It was a late, slow spring that delayed their expedition north for some time. You will see the beginning of James Anderson’s journey south from Fort Simpson in this post, https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/james-andersons-journey/
But let us continue James Green Stewart’s Journal of his time at Athabasca and his journey north to Fort Resolution, this time travelling in the canoes he had built at Fort Chipewyan. The late spring had also delayed his start, as we see:
Saturday, 26th May, 1855. Left Athabasca in two Canoes accompanied by Mr. [James] Lockhart en route to [Great] Slave Lake. We are afloat at last and started on our journey to the Arctic Sea. Blowing hard from N.W. and already the trees are now beginning to bud.
Sunday 27th. Started at 1/2 past 3 a.m. and camped at the lower end of the Cassette. Cloudy and warm with a little southerly wind now and then. Mosquitoes thick.
You will remember that the Cassette is one of the four rapids of the Smith Rapids, on Slave River. Now that he is travelling upriver on the water he cannot ignore these rapids. The river was braided, running through channels between rocky islands, with dangers hidden until the last minute under the water. I’ve told you that this stretch of rapid filled river ran 16 miles in total. The first rapid was the Cassette, of which an earlier explorer, Alexander Mackenzie, said, they entered “a small river or Channel which is occasioned by Islands. In half an hours time we came to the Carriers place [portage]. Its 380 paces and good except at the further End. We had some difficulty loading there being a quantity of ice not yet thawed.” Further along there was another part to the Cassette Portage that Mackenzie called Portage D’Embarrass [logjam], made necessary because driftwood filled the small channel. From this portage to the next was 1 1/2 miles.
The Pelican Portage was four miles down the river from the Cassette. To pass over this portage, the men carried the loads over the portage and the boats were run downriver. At the foot of the rapid there was a deep pool where the water is rapidly rose and fell, and so boat might fall into the hole and everyone is splashed with river water, or it might skate over the hole “scathless,” as Augustus Peers said.
The Mountain portage was next, and in his book Alexander Mackenzie had said that “the landing is very steep and quite close to the fall. All Hands were for some time handling the loading and Canoe up the Hill.” It sound as if the boat was unloaded and the packs carried over a hill. The boats were also hauled over the height of land. Why? In this rapid, at least, and the one that follows, the rapids and rocks went all the way across the river, and these difficult portages were the only way across the rapids.
Last but not least is the Rapids of the Drowned, which was nine miles long. “The Portage is very bad and 535 paces long,” Alexander Mackenzie said. “Our Canoes light passed on the Outside of an Island opposite, made a portage of not more than the length of a Canoe. In rapids on the other side of the River, there were 5 men drowned and a Canoe and some pieces going to the Great Slave Lake fall 1786 under the charge of Mr. C[uthbert] Grant [the elder] (which occasioned this place to be called the Portage des Noyes.)
Let us continue with Stewart’s journal.
Monday 28th [May]. Passed all the Portages in [Elbow?] River. Rained a little in the afternoon. Camped at Salt River.
Tuesday 29th. Wind North all day and cold. Started early after embarking Beaulieu son and family who is engaged as Interpreter for Fond du Lac [bottom of the lake] and [illegible] Yellow Knife guide for [Great] Fish River who I had told to meet us in the Spring.
Wednesday 30th. Arrived at Fort Resolution and found the ice in the Lake as hard as in Winter. Mr. Anderson has not yet arrived nor has Mr. [Bernard Rogan] Ross got our canoe even made, through the wood is nearly ready and about all the bark which it is difficult to procure.
So, that is the end of James Green Stewart’s journal for a while at least, as he writes nothing more until June 22nd, when the party departed Fort Resolution. James Anderson had reached Fort Resolution on Wednesday June 20, after a difficult and dangerous journey up the Mackenzie River and across the lake. But by the time that Anderson reached Fort Resolution there were three canoes completed, although the Fort Resolution one (the canoe they are describing above, I presume) is not well made at all and was, in the end, left behind.
So in the next post, I will begin with the crossing of Great Slave Lake to the north, in James Green Stewart’s words. We already have James Anderson’s journal, and it will be fun to compare the two. One good thing about having both journals is that they both had words that I could not read. By comparing the two, I was able to replace the illegible words with the actual words or names that would have been used. So, for me, comparing the two journals was an important part of the work, even though little of James Green Stewart’s journal appears in the book. What there is, however, you will enjoy.
As you may know, this book will be published in January 2027. #ThreeJourneysNorth
If you want to go back to the first James Green Stewart post in this series, go here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/james-green-stewart/
So, when I write the next post in this series, you can find it here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/whatever-i-call-it/
Copyright, Nancy Marguerite Anderson, 2026. All rights reserved.