When A.P. Low arrived here in 1884, there were about twenty-five Cree families living here and trading with the HBC — a total population of about 125 persons, with the newly introduced European diseases such as measles and tuberculosis running rampant throughout. His description gives a snapshot of the community of the time, and gives an indication of the number of Cree who by then had come to depend on imported food and had geared their summer travel to the needs of the Hudson's Bay Company.12
The change to the traditional migration cycles of the Cree as a result of the fur trade demands was clear from Low's description:
As there are no longer any deer [caribou] in the country, and small game such as rabbits and partridges, are scarce; if it were not for the provisions supplied by the Company, these Indians would be unable to live…In the summer, all the able-bodied men descend the Rupert River in large canoes to Rupert House, with the furs taken during the winter, and return with supplies for the ensuing year….13
In another report, he adds more descriptive detail:
As nearly all the women and children accompany the large canoes in their own small craft, very few persons remain about the post during the summer, and as a consequence parties from the outside find it impossible to obtain guides or other assistance there during that period. Those who remain live altogether on the fish caught from day to day, as only sufficient provisions are brought in to supply the post during the winter and to provide for the men engaged in transporting the furs to Rupert House.14
The Rupert House brigade between Rupert House and Lake Mistassini continued its yearly pilgrimage until 1926, when a railway line was completed to Oskelaneo. Canoes now went the much shorter route south to this railway community. However, communities farther inland, such as Neoskweskau and Nichicun, continued to be supplied by canoe until the mid-1940s. During A.P. Low's visits to Mistassini in 1884–85 and in 1892–93, the Rupert House brigades were in full swing. We can imagine the excitement on the day of departure. It is a day of celebration, and also a few tears, for the trip is a long one, the rivers turbulent, and not always did every canoeman return. However, the safety record of these expert canoemen is excellent. Rarely did accidents happen on the river. We found the downstream travel tough enough.
The departure of the Rupert Brigade from Mistissini when Low was at the community would have happened like this:
With the canoes loaded, everyone took their places and paddled away quickly, the boats racing each other to vie for the lead, the paddles rhythmically dipping into the water at a rate of fifty or even sixty strokes each minute. Once out of sight of the post, the head guide would signal a stop, take out the tobacco, and distribute to each man half a plug of the finest Hudson's Bay Imperial twist tobacco. Each canoe-man then filled his clay pipe and lit it, while the chief guide ceremoniously tossed tobacco into the river to placate the River spirits.
A number of wives and children accompanyied the brigade, either travelling in the big canoes, if the loads were not too heavy, or paddling smaller canoes. The women often returned on their own, travelling upstream!15
The real work began when it was time to head back upstream from Rupert House. The trip from Mistassini would take about ten to twelve days, but the trip back would take more than twice as long. Because the loads on the return trip would be so much heavier, each canoeman would make numerous trips over the portages, by now well-used and cleared, with a load of at least two hundred pounds. The paddling was difficult against the current, and often poles had to be used to make any headway. On Sundays, the canoemen were to sleep in, which means not getting up at four a.m., but awakening around six instead! The river route was well-known to the canoemen and their intimate knowledge of each rapid, portage and campsite made travel fast and efficient.
At the last camp before Mistassini Post, the paddlers dressed up in their best clothes, hoisted the HBC flag, and rounded the final bend at race speed. The old men and women and children who had remained at the post would rush to the waters edge to greet the returning brigade, to see what new goods came, to discover who got married and any other gossip from afar. This was the glue that holds a community, and a people, together. And the cycle continued, year after year.
“Nothing could be more strenuous than freighting on the Rupert River, but it is “…natural work, the very strenuousness of it is decidedly beneficial to his [the Cree canoemen] moral and physical well-being.”16Now that the brigades are gone, and hunting and trapping no longer as central to their lives, perhaps there is a space that needs to be filled to give meaning, purpose, pride and spiritual sustenance to the people who have made this land their home for over 6,000 years. Perhaps there is a similar lack of these hard-to-define needs for most of us, particularly our youth, growing up and living in our cities, overflowing with material wealth, but sometimes in need of spiritual sustenance.
Loading up the Otter at Lake Mistassini for the long flight to Lake Naococane. Seen from the air, the remoteness of a land untouched by civilization, the vastness of the bogs and burned forests made us wonder whether two 50-year-old civil servants with desk jobs were up to this trip.
When the first short, “hairy” Europeans came here, as noted earlier, they had a profound effect on the yearly rhythms and cycles of life for the Cree. The traders and missionaries brought in material goods, writing and a new brand of religion — profound changes to the indigenous people of the time. But still, the Cree remained a people tied closely to the land and the cycle of seasons. In the 1960s, the federal government, more than the fur traders and missionaries, became the biggest influence on their way of life. Cree children were sent away to school, and some of these children began to lose the Cree ways — language, beliefs and bush skills. But even more profound changes were to come when the next waves of white people came, surveyors and engineers with dreams of harnessing the rivers that tied this land together. But the impact of the “hydrolization” of James Bay County will be discussed later. Our plane has arrived.
We load our gear — the green Hellman 17.5' canoe and the three hard-to-lift canoe packs — onto a bright yellow and red Otter floating on the clear water of Lake Mistassini. Philip Petawabano, the owner and chief pilot for Waasheshkun Air, tells us it is one of the originals Otters made in 1947. He is a muscular man, with big biceps and broad shoulders, dressed in blue jeans and wearing a black T-shirt that reads “Mistassini Band Council.” Philip looks a little doubtfully at the thunderheads looming to the west as we taxi along the lake in front of the town. Don Haines comes with us for the flight. This Otter is a much bigger plane than we need, but the only one available. We have lots of room. “Ready,” says Philip. We give him the thumbs-up, the engine roars, and in a shorter time than we expected, we are airborne.
Our field research on Low's epic canoe journeys is about to begin, at long last. But first, let's look at the least-known aspect of Low's career — his sailing voyages along the coast of Hudson and James bays and an even more unusual field season spent in “Gay Paris.”
FOR A MAN WHOSE LIFE and career were marked by major but little known accomplishments, A.P. Low's sailing voyages are among his least known expeditions. For these trips, he abandoned the use of a canoe and used sailing boats to survey the east coast and islands of James Bay, the east coast of Hudson Bay, including the Nastapoka Islands, and the coast of Ungava Bay. These surveys were made in the days before radar, radio or accurate navigational charts of the region. His only aids were British Admiralty charts1 which dated from 1853, and which were notoriously inaccurate. Some prominent features were placed up to 40 miles out of their actual positions.
By the time Low had finished, he had surveyed close to 1,400 miles of shoreline, had spent two winters on the coast of Hudson Bay and had examined the coastal Nastapoka Islands for potential mines. While we of a later age have overlooked these exploits, at the time they attracted considerable