The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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and we have come more than sixteen hundred miles already! We’re beginning to add now to our daily mileage, traveling this way day and night.”
“Well, even at this rate,” rejoined John, “I am not sure that I see how we will get out of this northern country inside of our three months’ schedule. If we don’t, we’ll have to pass the winter, won’t we?”
Jesse looked a little bit gloomy at this idea. To tell the truth, he, the youngest of the party, was at times just a little homesick. The country through which they passed seemed so stupendous, so awesome, as almost to oppress the spirits of those not used to it.
“Cheer up! Jess,” said Rob, clapping him on the shoulder. “There will be something happening now before long. We’re almost up to the Arctic Circle, and to-day, if I’m not mistaken, we run into the best scenery on the Mackenzie River, what they call the Ramparts. The captain was telling me about it yesterday.”
They did not, however, reach this portion of their voyage until very late in the evening, when they arrived at the head of that long and gentle bit of water called the Sans Sault Rapids. The river here was about a mile wide, but offered no bad chutes. The captain told them that it only took eight minutes to run through, but that the time coming up with the steamboat usually had averaged one and three-quarter hours.
The strange, luminous twilight of the sub-Artic day continued until midnight. It was, indeed, after eleven o’clock when the steamer struck that narrow shut-in of the Mackenzie River where the great flood, compressed between high and rocky shores, runs steadily and deep for a very considerable distance. Above the actual beginning of the narrower channel lay a great, deep pool, many hundreds of yards wide, while at the right hand of its lower extremity sprang up a bald white rock face of limestone.
So sharp was the bend of the great river here that at the turn it seemed as though the river itself had come to an end or had dropped out of sight. The walls on the left seemed perhaps a trifle higher, ranging in height from one hundred to a hundred and eighty feet, the crest in places broken into crenelated turrets.
“Well,” said Rob, “this is the celebrated run of the Ramparts. I must confess I am disappointed. I think the Yukon beats this in a great many places. They may tip this off as a big attraction for tourists, but it’s too far to come for the show, in my estimation.”
John, busy charting the channel on his map, nodded his head in affirmation. “How wide do you think it is here, Rob?” he asked, and Rob was obliged to ask some of the boat officials as to that. They told him that the river was from three hundred to five hundred yards wide at this place, and that there were two great bends in the six miles of the run between the shut-in walls.
“How far is it to the Arctic Circle, Uncle Dick?” demanded Jesse of their leader when finally he came on deck after finishing his work in his state-room.
The latter rubbed his chin for a time before he could reply. “Well,” said he, “I don’t know just where it is, but it’s somewhere on ahead of Fort Good Hope, and we’ll strike Fort Good Hope now just beyond the foot of the Ramparts. We’ll say that some time in the night we’ll pass the Circle.”
“Hurrah for that!” exclaimed Rob, and the other boys also became excited.
“What does the Circle look like?” asked Jesse, with much interest.
“Well,” replied his uncle, “I don’t think it looks like anything in particular. But I think we’ll feel the bump when we run over it in the night. I can assure you of that. Also I can assure you that, once you get above it, at the end of our northern journey, you’ll see a country different from any you have seen. You hardly realize, no doubt, the great extent of this tremendous run from the Rockies to the sea.”
Meantime the boat had been continuing its progress steadily. It required about forty-five minutes to complete the run of the bolder part of the shores known as the Ramparts. Once below, there was to be seen, even in the faint midnight light, the scattered buildings of that far-northern post known as Good Hope.
The boys, with all the rest of the passengers, went ashore here and prowled about the curious old place, examining with much interest the mission school, the church, and the garden. Rob was able to make a picture of the interior of the church, putting his camera on a pile of hymn-books and making a long-time exposure.
The post trader told him later something of the history of this curious building which for some time had stood here upon the utmost borders of civilization.
“You see all the decorations and frescoes of the church, just like those in a cathedral of the Old World,” said he. “It was all done by a young priest known as Brother Antel, now gone to his rest. The church was built thirty years ago by Bishop Clute, of Little Slave Lake, who brought up Brother Antel from that lower mission. The altar is considered an astonishing thing to be found here, almost directly under the Arctic Circle.”
They all stood with their hats off in this curious and interesting structure of the Far North, hardly being able to realize that they were now so far beyond the land where such things ordinarily are seen.
“The decorations are fine and the frescoes splendid,” said Jesse to John, as they passed outside the door, “but I don’t see why Father Antel has the angels playing on the mandolin. I didn’t know they had mandolins that long ago.”
“Never mind about that, Jesse,” said Rob, reprovingly. “You mustn’t make light of anything of the kind. You must remember that these Slavie Indians, who are the only people who come here for services, are most impressed by pictures which they can see and understand. I suppose it’s all right. At any rate, it’s an astonishing thing to find such a church away up here, even if it had angels listening to an H. B. phonograph.”
The boat remained at Good Hope all too short a time to suit them, because all our young travelers were anxious to go to the top of a certain hill, from which it was said they could have a view of the Midnight Sun, which had disappeared behind the ridge of the hills back of the fort itself. Indeed, one of the crew ascended this eminence, and claimed that he had made a photograph of the Midnight Sun. Certainly, all of the boys were able to testify that it was still light at four o’clock in the morning, for they had remained up that late, eagerly prowling around through the curious and interesting scenes of the far-northern trading-post.
So wearied were they by their long experience afoot on the previous day that on the morning of July 7th they slept a little later than usual, although their total hours of rest were no more than two or three. Uncle Dick was before them on the deck this time, and reproached them very much when they appeared.
“Well, young men,” said he, “did you feel any heavy jar, or hear a dull, sickening thud, some time about half an hour or an hour ago?”
“You don’t mean that we’ve passed the Circle, do you, Uncle Dick?” queried John.
“We certainly have. I don’t know just where it was. It’s seven-thirty o’clock now, and somewhere between here and Fort Good Hope we crossed the Arctic Circle!”
“I can’t believe it!” said Rob. “Why, look, the weather is perfectly fine, and there isn’t any ice to be seen. On the other hand, there are plenty of mosquitoes. What’s more, just back at Fort Good Hope we have seen that they can raise things in their gardens. I would never have believed these things about this northern country if I had not seen them myself.”
Through the soft, mild light of the sub-Arctic morning the great steamboat churned on her north-bound way. At ten o’clock they passed an Indian village which they were told was called Chicago — no doubt named by some of the Klondikers who were practically cast away here twenty years earlier. John put it down on his map under that name, as indeed it is charted in all the authentic maps of that upper region. They were told that a good number of Indians come here to make their winter hunt.
An uneventful day, during which the boat logged a great many miles in her steady progress, was passed, until at ten o’clock they tied up at the next to the last of the Hudson’s Bay posts on the Mackenzie River, known as Arctic Red River, located at sixty-seven