A Discovery of Strangers (34 page)

It was of you, Sir, that your talented son thought and spoke most in the latter days of his life, and when obliged by weakness to abandon everything else, he clung to his Prayerbook, from which the service was daily read with studious devotion.

He delighted also, morning and evening and throughout the day, in repeating the prayer of the Princess Elizabeth of France presented to him by a lady previous to the Expedition leaving London, which he repeated so often aloud that the words are perceptibly in my mind whenever I think of him, which is daily since he preceded me:

“What may befall me this day, O God, I know not. But I do know that nothing can happen to me which Thou hast not foreseen, ruled, willed and ordained from all eternity, and that suffices me. I adore Thy eternal and inscrutable designs, I accept all, I make unto Thee a sacrifice of all, with patience under suffering and with perfect submission.”

The prayer is longer, but you also will have the text — I cannot write more today, and am confident, Reverend Sir, that your son rejoices in Heaven’s blessedness.

Your sincere friend,
John Richardson

Wednesday, October 31st

I will try to continue, Sir, so that the narrative of our journey may possibly be recorded.

The cold was today severe, but I resolved to remove myself from the suffering in our desolate building and endeavour to kill some partridges, which run everywhere. They are so perfectly adapted to this extreme climate that one could easily commit the sin of envying them the beneficence they have received from the Creator.

I was, however, unable to steady my arm enough to dispatch one, being too dim-sighted with famine, but while I was endeavouring this, a large herd of reindeer, perhaps thirty or more, passed close before me, indeed, under my very gun as I supported it against the bole of a tree. I could not hold the gun straight, though I fired, and may have hit one, but was unable to pursue them when they fled; indeed I had not enough strength to ascertain whether any left a drop of blood behind, which I would have eaten from the snow.

Hepburn might have wounded one of so many had he been there, but he was hunting farther along the ridge. His sources
of strength are astonishing. When after the death of your son our track lay over some large stones, among which I often fell, he transported me over them and speedily kindled a fire or I must have perished on the spot. Today Hepburn saw not a single animal, not so much as a ptarmigan.

Such heavy disappointment.

The men of Lieutenant Franklin’s small party, whom we found with him when we entered the main house at Fort Enterprise, the greatest part of which had already been pulled down by them for firewood, were all even more wretchedly weak than ourselves. Lieutenant Franklin had endeavoured to feed them by raising reindeer skins from under the snow, where the Indians flung their worn bedding when they left with us the previous spring; these are for the most part rotten and thin, and he can bring in no more than two a day although the distance he drags them does not exceed twenty yards, but those that contain the hibernating larvae of the warble fly are most prized by us for food. The voyageurs Peltier and Samandré can no longer move from their blankets, their loss of flesh producing huge sores where their small weight rests, and our secondary Indian translator, Adam, is much distressed with oedematous swellings. I have now made several scarifications in his scrotum, abdomen and legs, which have eased him of a large quantity of water.

We sup on singed skins, a soup of pounded bone, which is so acrid as to excoriate the mouth, and a soft larva each for an amen. Moment by moment we pray that Mr. Back with St. Germain may locate the Indians very soon, who before God remain our last hope.

I must explain, Reverend Sir, that your son, though debilitated by perfect famine, did not expire of it. He was the finest
navigator among us, and in our march from the Northern Ocean after August 25, which soon became desperate because the untimely coming of winter had driven the reindeer, which were to have been our source of food, south before us, your son was always in second position with the compass, immediately behind the leader, a voyageur who every hour took turn and turn about with his fellows breaking trail through the snow. Such a position was necessary for him to keep us on the most direct route for Fort Enterprise crossing the featureless tundra, but you will understand that he exhausted himself following in that single track, and when he finally admitted that he could no longer continue in that position, and I took his place, he was already greatly weakened.

Also, the
tripe de roche
that we scraped from the rocks, unpalatable and feeble as it was, became our main source of food, and was nauseous to all, but caused him the greater pain of bowels. After a time it was necessary to eat our extra skin footwear, but then we had none to put on at night, and those we wore wet from the day’s exertions froze on our feet as we slept.

No language that I can use will convey a just idea of that painful journey. I shall merely mention that in traversing the tundra we had to coast four lakes and cross three huge rivers never before seen, and when after nine days we managed to cross the Coppermine River at the double rapids, every reserve of strength your son had was gone. He could no longer walk and there was no one who could carry him. We would not leave him alone while the rest continued, as we permitted the voyageurs to do when they weakened. We finally crossed the river on October 4, and on October 7 Hepburn and I remained with your son while Lieutenant Franklin and the rest of our party continued towards Fort Enterprise as best they could. A day later Mr. Back,
with the translator St. Germain and several strong Canadians, struck out ahead to seek help of the Indians. To date we know nothing of the progress of Mr. Back’s party, but we do know that eight men have been left behind.

This includes the Mohawk Indian voyageur, Michel Terohaute. It was he who killed your son Robert, who did not die of famine. Michel shot him, and he was instantly, painlessly gone.

I can offer no consolation to you for such an inexpressible loss. But my prayer is directed to Him Who alone is able to pour balm on the broken heart, for I have every confidence that your son is in His presence in Whom we will all and for ever rejoice. I shall endeavour to continue this narrative, as I am able.

Sunday, November 4th

Towards evening on November 1 Joseph Peltier became quite speechless, and passed away without a sound during the night.

François Samandré, whose strength throughout the day appeared to be greater, as if he were terrified at the fate of his companion, grew very low and lived only until the morning.

We have removed the deceased as far as we can from the fireplace, but are incapable of laying them outside the house, and spend what strength we have bringing in wood we remove from the nearest walls of the storehouse, which barely suffices to keep the fire going.

Hepburn’s limbs have now begun to swell, and the incisions in Adam’s legs have been renewed. Lieutenant Franklin found one more reindeer skin today, but unfortunately without larvae.

The weather is comparatively mild. The view down Winter River as beheld from the house, at all times beautiful, was uncommonly so today.

I must conclude in haste, no help has come. We have heard nothing from Mr. Back, but know that ten of our twenty Expedition members no longer live.

Lieutenant Franklin assures me that on October 9 last, when the Canadians Bélanger and Perrault were unable to continue with his party and turned back with Michel to rejoin us because of weakness, it was Bélanger who carried the rifle and ammunition. But Michel alone came to us with the note from Lieutenant Franklin, carrying the rifle, and seemed surprised that both Perrault and Bélanger were mentioned in it as being with him. He insisted, angrily, that he had not seen either, nor had they come with him.

To us Michel appeared then to be, despite Lieutenant Franklin’s note concerning his weakness, very strong and he went out great distances to hunt every day, though it appeared he shot nothing. He once fed us the flesh of a wolf that had, he said, been killed by the stroke of a deer’s horn. We believed his story then, but afterwards became convinced from circumstances, the detail of which you may be spared, that what he brought us, and used privately for himself when he went away for several days at a time, must have been some portion of the two lost men. He may have murdered them, or found their bodies in the snow, but Lieutenant Franklin conjectures that Michel having first destroyed Bélanger to obtain the rifle, completed his crime by Perrault’s death to screen himself from detection.

His subsequent conduct showed that he was certainly capable of committing such a deed.

I can only hurry on with memories too painful, and with strength too far gone, and trust that somehow through God’s grace these words may reach you with some small comfort of fact. The fire in the fireplace built so well the previous year from clay and stones by your talented son throws a most grateful heat, but we are too weak to keep it fed and suffer much from cold, though we wear every particle of clothing we have left, indeed have not removed any in two months.

Your son died instantly. After our morning devotions on Sunday, October 20, Hepburn and I were at some distance, endeavouring to gather wood, while your son was sitting up in his blankets near the fire. I heard him speak loudly several times, as in admonishment, to Michel, who was readying his outfit to advance on the Fort with Hepburn. Then I was startled to hear the report of a gun.

When I arrived, I found your dear son lying lifeless, a ball having, it appeared, entered at his forehead. I was at first horror-struck, that in a fit of despondency he had hurried himself into the presence of his Almighty Judge, by an act of his own hand. But the conduct of Michel soon excited other suspicions, which were confirmed, when upon examination, I discovered that the shot had entered the back part of the head and passed out at the forehead, and that the muzzle of the gun had been applied so close as to set fire to the nightcap behind. The fired rifle, which was of the longest, could not have been placed in a position to inflict such a wound, except by a second party. Michel now held a shorter gun in his hand, and upon my enquiry, replied that Mr. Hood had called him into the tent to clean the short gun, and that while his back was turned the long gun had gone off.

Hepburn had now arrived and Michel moved with the short gun between us, declaring himself incapable of committing any act as would endanger Mr. Hood, the gun must have gone off accidentally. Hepburn tried to speak, but Michel turned angrily towards him and demanded if he accused him of murder. He was very strong and held the loaded gun, it was unsafe for us to say anything to each other on the subject in his presence, as he understood English well enough.

I am, however, perfectly convinced that he committed the desperate act. He had insisted we must try to reach Fort Enterprise, but knew we would never leave your son behind as long as he was alive.

The loss of such a distinguished officer of such varied talents and application, to say nothing of the bosom friend he became to me, I cannot express to you. Daily we had expected the worst, and yet we never did despair. Had my poor friend been spared to revisit his native land, his variety of talent in scientific observations, together with his maps and drawings, which have been the admiration of everyone who has seen them, must have rendered him a distinguished ornament to his profession, and I should look back to this period, where we never spoke but with cheerfulness, with unalloyed delight.

The Bible was lying open beside the body, as if it had fallen from his hand, and it is certain he was reading it at the instant of his death.
Blessed are they that die in the Lord, for their works follow after them
. Amen.

We wrapped and removed the body into a clump of willows behind the tent and, returning to the fire, read the funeral service in addition to the evening prayers, and also some of the forms of prayer to be used at sea, as were appropriate, for truly
our eternal Lord has here spread out and compassed these lands like “the waters with bounds until day and night come to an end.” We passed the night in the tent together without rest, everyone being on his guard.

Reverend Sir, the sailor Hepburn and I were in great perplexity. We were ill and very nearly destroyed by famine, our friend whom we had nursed for weeks as best we could now lay murdered, we were convinced of it, though we could not communicate beyond glances, by the man who purported to have returned to save us and who now for the first time addressed us with such a tone of superiority and blatant behaviour as evinced he considered us completely in his power. He kept himself always armed and between us, and would allow us no conversation, giving vent to various expressions of hatred towards white people, some of whom he said had killed and eaten his uncle and two brothers on the Ottawa River as they had devoured Mohawks for two hundred years. Such dreadful stories of course abound in the Canadas where he originated, though we have heard very few here in the north, indeed it seems the natives here abominate such abhorrent customs. In our weakness we could not by any device escape him, and knew he would attempt to destroy us at the first opportunity that offered, and that all that restrained him from doing so immediately was his ignorance of the way to the Fort.

We could not therefore mourn your son properly as befits a beloved brother in Christ. We determined on trying for the Fort, and left that horrid place the following day. Four days later we at last sighted the Dogrib Rock, though it was no more than fifteen miles, and it was here that Michel left us for the first moment alone, saying he wished to gather some
tripe de roche
. Hepburn instantly confirmed me in the opinion about
the circumstances of poor Hood’s murder, and that there was no safety for us except in Michel’s death, and I was thoroughly convinced of the necessity of such a dreadful act. Immediately upon Michel’s coming up, I put an end to his life by shooting him through the head with a small pistol I carried concealed throughout the Expedition.