Heart So Hungry (33 page)

He was too tired to write any more. He laid the pen aside, laid his hand atop the book, spread his fingers across it. He would rest for a while and maybe write some more later. Or he would write tomorrow. But first he would sleep. Yes, sleep was so lovely. Such an easy thing. He thought he could sleep for a long time now. It was the easiest thing in the world to do, to go to that place where the pain disappeared, just to close his eyes and sleep …

Even after the image faded away and the rain stopped and it was again a bright, clear day in August 1905—when Mina was again standing in Ungava with Mr. Ford below the Hudson’s Bay Company house, with Mrs. Ford waiting on the bottom porch step—even then she could not bring herself to climb the last fifty yards to that house. She stood looking out across the mudflats, staring at the two canoes still beached out there, the two men sitting motionless in each canoe.

“Mrs. Hubbard?” Mr. Ford said, and touched her gently on the shoulder. “Shall we continue now? Mrs. Ford is so anxious to meet you, you know. She’s been watching for you every day. You will be the first white woman she’s seen in two long years.”

And something in Mr. Ford’s words, something in his voice, brought Mina back to reality. She realized suddenly, with the abruptness of a slap, why George and Joe and Job and Gilbert had not followed her up the hill, why they had not moved from the canoes.

Because she was white and they were not. And they were back in civilization now, at a white man’s post. They were her charges here, she was responsible for them. They did not own this place as they owned the wilderness. They could not act without her consent.

Her body flushed with shame. How could she have been so neglectful? Those four men had brought her here safely, triumphantly,
protecting her every step of the way, and she had walked away from them without a word. Laddie would never have been so selfish. He had been thinking of others to the very last, at the hour of his death, thinking only of his companions and their comfort.

“We were like Light and Darkness,” she later wrote, “and with the light gone how deep was the darkness. Once I had thought I stood up beside him, but in what a school had I learned that I only reached to his feet. And now all my effort, though it might achieve that which he would be glad and proud of, could never bring him back.

“I must go back to the men at once.”

She pulled away from Mr. Ford and strode down the hill, her muddy boots slapping the ground. “Mrs. Hubbard?” he called. “If there’s something you need from the canoe I’ll have the Eskimo boys bring it in!”

She gave no answer, did not look back. She marched toward the canoes, out across the mud, scattering the gulls. She came first to Job in the bow of the canoe and reached out and seized his hand in both of hers. “Thank you, Job, thank you so very much. For all you’ve done. I can never thank you enough.”

She did the same with Joe. Then Gilbert. Then George. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. “We will all walk up together,” she told them. “The final hike together. I’m so sorry I went ashore without you. Please forgive me, please. I would not even be here were it not for each of you.”

The men wanted her to walk in front of them but she refused. “That’s not the way it’s been, is it?” she asked. “You led me everywhere. And now you shall lead me home.”

It made her feel a little better to see how the men beamed, how proudly they strode across the mud, Job and Joe and Gilbert side by side and leading the way. George, as always, walked beside her. She moved close and took his hand. Immediately his eyes flared with panic and he tried to pull his hand from hers before Mr. Ford could see. But she held tight. “Don’t let go,” she told him.

“But missus … you don’t understand. It’s not like before. It could get me in trouble.”

With that she released him. “Then give me your arm. The mud is so slippery, anyone can understand that.”

She laid her hand on his arm and for a moment they walked like that, like a gentleman and his lady. But then he felt the pressure of her hand on his arm increasing, realized that she had slowed, was reluctant to go on.

“There’s nothing beyond this for me,” she said. She came to a stop. Her hand squeezed his arm. “Can’t we just turn around, George? Can’t we pretend we’ve never come this far?”

George gazed out into the bay. Gently he asked, “Is that why you did all this?”

“It’s so unfair. It isn’t right that I should succeed, and live, when he did not. He was so much better than I can ever hope to be.”

“In that case,” George told her, and laid his hand atop hers for just a moment, “maybe what’s best for you and me now is if we both try to be a little more like him.”

It hurt so much to nod, to smile, to admit that George was right. It would all hurt from now on, every step and every breath. But she would do it. She would walk up that hill, she would greet Mrs. Ford. She would live and do what needed to be done, but she would never forget. And she would march to the front like a soldier.

Dillon Wallace’s expedition, the final leg, 1905–06

A
FTER TWELVE WEEKS ON THE TRAIL
, Wallace finally encountered the Labrador Indians. A small hunting party of four men and a boy waved from a hillside one afternoon, calling Wallace and Easton ashore. Wallace shared his tobacco and tea with the men,
who then invited the two white explorers, by way of gesticulation and arm-pulling, to visit the Indians’ hunting camp three miles downstream. They were delighted to do so.

The entire population of the camp turned out to greet the white men. Their tent was pitched between the Indians’ two deerskin wigwams, the camp stove was lit, and soon eleven Indians crowded inside the little tent with Wallace and Easton, where more tea and tobacco were served.

Although the two groups could understand almost nothing of each other’s language, Wallace was made to understand that this was a band of Montagnais. Once or twice each year they travelled to the Hudson’s Bay post at Davis Inlet to trade their furs for ammunition, clothing and other necessities. Unlike the Indians Mina Hubbard had encountered, this band had been coming across small herds of caribou with some regularity. Hindquarters and other cuts were now hanging all over the camp, being dried for winter use.

Wallace and Easton remained with the Indians until the following afternoon. Before departing they were warned to be on the lookout for dangerous rapids and waterfalls ahead. For two days after coming onto a “big, big river,” the Indians told them, travelling would be good. Beyond that,
“Shepoo natchi, shepoo natchi.”
No translation was needed other than the look of fear in the Indians’ eyes.

The entire camp assembled along the shore to see the pair on their way. It was the Indians’ custom to pitch small stones at departing visitors; to be struck by a stone was supposed to ensure good fortune. Wallace and Easton sailed away unscathed.

Even so, their luck held a while longer. The next day Wallace dropped two caribou with two shots from his .33 Winchester, from a distance he calculated at three hundred and fifty yards. With more meat than they could carry, he and Easton spent the next four days curing the venison and caching a portion of it in case they might need, for whatever reason, to turn back. Along with their remaining
pemmican and other rations, they now had provisions for eight weeks or so, and felt confident that their days of privation were behind them.

They spent another day travelling, and easily discovered the portage trail the Montagnais had told them to look for. But here their sudden change of diet caught up with them. Having overindulged on fresh venison for several meals in a row, both men became almost too ill to travel.

They pressed on despite their gastrointestinal agonies, even running several rapids during a blinding snowstorm. When visibility became so poor that the man in the stern of the canoe could not even see the man seated in front, they decided that further travel would be foolhardy. For two days they were snowbound on the rocky shore. The wind drove waves against the boulders with such force that the spray flew thirty feet into the air. By the second day of their forced encampment, the ground was covered by a half-foot of snow and the rocks along the shore were encased in ice.

On the morning of September 29 Wallace thought he detected a subsidence in the force of the wind. “If we don’t move now,” he told Easton, “before the river freezes up, we might have to leave the canoe behind for good.” It proved to be a near-fatal decision.

As the men paddled downriver, the spray coming off the water froze in their beards and moustaches and numbed their faces. Their clothes were heavy with ice, as were their paddles and all exposed surfaces of the canoe. Before they knew it, they were in the midst of a stretch of white water. But because their speed was good and the course ahead seemed clear, they did not pause to reconsider the situation.

Moments later the canoe struck a submerged rock and swung broadside in the fierce current. They did not even have time to call out to one another before they were thrown into the icy water. Wallace was immediately pulled down, fully submerged and dragged along the river bottom, scraping between the rocks. Lungs
burning, he was able finally to plant his feet on a rock and push to the surface in a relatively clear stretch of water. Some twenty feet away, the capsized canoe floated toward him. Easton was attached to the side of it, struggling to free himself, his jacket caught on a bolt.

As Wallace swam toward him, Easton worked his hunting knife free and managed to cut himself loose. But their hands were so numb that neither man could get a grip on the slippery canoe, and no matter how deeply they gasped they could not pull a full breath into their lungs. Their legs seemed distant and useless, dead with cold, and their brains could not hold a thought for more than a few seconds.

Somehow Easton found the presence of mind to take hold of the canoe’s tracking line. He clamped it between his teeth and swam toward shore. Wallace swam alongside the canoe, one hand kept underwater to hold in place the packs still trapped under the thwarts. In the meantime all the lighter packs and paddles were floating downstream. The heaviest packs—none of them tied down—had sunk irretrievably.

For most of thirty minutes Wallace and Easton struggled to get the canoe ashore. When they reached solid ground, their legs would barely hold them up. Still, they managed to heave the canoe over on dry land and drain out the water.

“F-fire,” Wallace stuttered. A full minute had seemed to pass between the time his brain conceived of the word and his mouth could express it. He and Easton both hobbled along the shoreline searching for wood, but not a stick was to be found. Reluctantly they dragged the canoe back into the water, climbed in and, using their frozen hands as oars, paddled an eighth of a mile to a wooded shoreline behind a little bay. By now all colour had drained from Easton’s face. His windburned and sunburned skin was deathly white.

While Easton feebly tried to gather wood, plucking uselessly at low-hanging branches, Wallace attempted to find the waterproof matchbox in his trouser pocket. But his hand would not work right
and he could not get his fingers to slide into his pocket. He could not think what to do. Convulsing in shivers, brain and body rattling, he loosened his belt, unbuckled his trousers. Finally, after much manoeuvring, he was able to work a hand down into the ice-stiff pocket. He brought out the matchbox, fumbled to get it open, struggled to pick out a match. Only by holding his hand very close to his face and squinting through the ice on his lashes could he tell whether a match was clutched between his fingers.

When at last he had secured one, he struck it across the bottom of the box. But the box was wet and the match broke in half. He struggled again to get another match between his finger and thumb.

Wallace looked up then at Easton, who had stopped plucking at branches and was standing not far away, swaying back and forth, his face pale and waxy, eyes blank. “Run!” Wallace shouted at him. He did not recognize his own voice; it sounded choked, distant and strange. “Run, Easton! Run!”

They both tried to run, but their legs collapsed and they fell side by side. Wallace staggered and lurched climbing to his feet, took a few steps back toward Easton and fell over. Now he crawled to Easton, who lay there groping blindly with his hands, staring into space, seeing nothing.

Wallace knew that only a fire could save them. Again he fumbled with the matchbox, got hold of a match, tried to light it and failed. Again and again he tried, until only three matches remained. Three matches, he told himself. Three matches and then death.

The first of the three flared, but his fingers could not hold onto it, and he dropped it in the snow. It hissed out. The second match lit too, and before he could drop this one he carefully laid it on a handful of dry moss at the base of a tree. The moss smoked and then caught fire. As quickly as he could, Wallace gathered up every twig within reach and laid them on the flames. When the fire seemed strong enough he reached for a larger piece of dead wood. Then another. Another. The blaze grew and warmed his face and
hands. He hobbled to his feet again, stumbling about among the trees, and dragged one dry limb after another back to the fire. The wood crackled and spat. Easton, crawling on his hands and knees, dragged himself close to it. Wallace piled on more and more wood, his body warming as the blaze grew. Finally he laughed out loud.

Later, when he wrote about the incident, Wallace observed that their firearms had all been lost in the river, “our clothing, nearly all our food, our axes and our paddles, and even the means of making new paddles were gone, but for the present we were safe. Life, no matter how uncertain, is sweet, and I laughed with the very joy of living.”

The remainder of the expedition proved not much easier. After nearly losing their lives to hypothermia, Wallace and Easton were able to thaw out by the fire, but their situation was bleak indeed. They eventually managed to recover their paddles and a few other supplies that had floated downstream to an eddy, but their guns, axes, all cooking utensils, plus 350 unexposed photographic films were lost forever. Among the items salvaged were their blankets, clothing, tent, a supply of matches, tea, caribou tallow and fifty pounds of pemmican. They had no choice but to press on and hope that the current would carry them out of this hell.