Image: Ninth Lake Pictograph, Spanish River. Appropriated from: https://albinger.me/anishinaabe-pictographs/

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Leaving Metagama Station on the Canadian Pacific Railway we put out our canoes in a small stream a little east of the station and paddled  1 1/2 miles west parallel with the line of the railway, the creek winding its way through a marsh, between low ridges of pink granite. At about 1 1/2 miles from the station the creek expands into a small lake, from the west of which the creek runs and taming northeast crosses the railway near the depot camp of the Metagama Lumber Company.

We then paddled northeast about one mile across a lake to a short portage on the right, where we were able to draw our canoes up with a line from the shore. Here the rock is pink granite varying in texture from fine-grained to a pegmatitic variety. From this point we paddled northeast up stream, for about 4 miles, passing through three small expansions. Here a branch of the the Spanish River enters from the north, while what is called the Lost Channel turns southeast for 2 1/2 miles and joins the Mattagami Branch of the Spanish River, thus forming a large island. At a distance of 2 miles down this channel there is a 5 chain portage on the right over granite, the glacial striae here observed having a direction north 10 degrees east. A quarter mile below is a second portage 20 chains in length on the right, around a rapid; the river running between walls of granite 50 to 75 feet high, which leads to the Mattagami branch.

MATTAGAMI BRANCH. Turning north-north-east, we paddled through a lake for about three quarters of a mile to the dam of the lumber company, where a short portage on the left was necessary. From the dam our course was through two small expansions. There are ridges of sand and gravel on either side, but these give place to pink granite about two miles above the dam. The timber has been cut and a fire has been through this part recently so that the rock is exposed in many places. A paddle of nine miles north through a series of small expansions of the river, brought us to one of the Metagama Lumber Company's camps. The rock at this point is reddish grey gneiss.

Above this is Lake Mosquitowagemaw, which is quite narrow and about 4 miles long, on which the pine is now being cut. To the north of this are two small lakes which are bounded on each side by terraced ridges of sand. For the next three miles the river is very crooked, flowing between sandy banks; above this is a small lake. From this we paddled one quarter of a mile up a small creek, with very brown water, pushed through some reeds into a small clear water pond, at the north side of which is a 14 chain portage leading northward over a level, sandy plain to Perch Lake, which is about half a mile in length and contains beautifully clear water. From the north end of this lake a 30 chain portage leads to Blue Lake, about 1 1/2 miles in length, to the north of which is the height of land between Hudson Bay and St. Lawrance River waters.

J. L. ROWLETT PARSONS, B. A Geologist with Exploration Survey Party Number 3 to GEO. B. KIRKPATRICK, A Commissioner, &C. December 31, 1900

***

We never intended to cross the watershed. Our intent, as directed by Gray, was to seek the portage out of Perch Lake, the final lake on the East Branch of the Spanish River. We were to work our way across a series of small lakes and swampy ponds to join the headwaters of the Montreal River. From there, we would descend the Upper Montreal in a North-East direction, until the river makes its turn to the South. Since this was to be a short trip added on to the end of our original charge, and because Jimmy had warned us the headwater portages would likely be difficult, we had taken with us only basic survey and note-taking equipment and only the food provisions necessary for us to reach Fort Matachewan on the Montreal River. We would resupply at the Hudson Bay Post with enough dry beans, oil, and flour for our return voyage to Sudbury, the route being a retracing of our earlier downstream journey.

But something happened on the trail that day. Perhaps we mistook the portage to Blue Lake to be the trail we sought; perhaps our trust in Jimmy's uncanny sense of direction overtook our need for us to take our own bearings; perhaps we were simply overtired from another long day and wished to finally complete the upstream journey. Regardless, behind the landing where Jimmy pulled up his canoe there was a clearly marked trail and although it had not seen a great deal of recent use, we assumed it was the portage route that would begin our downstream trek home.

Determined to complete the series of carries before dusk (in September darkness came noticeably earlier with each passing day), we hoisted our packs and canoes and bore down on the trail Jimmy marked for us with axe blazes. The portage of thirty chains was overgrown with alder and ferns and difficult to follow. It eventually led us to a beautiful and clear lake Gray named Blue Lake. There was some discussion as to whether we should make camp on the tranquil lake that night, but since it was not yet four o'clock, and the lake barely one and a half miles long, Gray announced that we would strike out for the Montreal River and that night, we would fill our glasses in toast to the homeward journey. With a loud "Huzzah," we charged across the lake, paddling hard, the sun still on our backs.

Jimmy found the portage trail out of the lake in a deep cleft that split a massive outcrop of pink rock into two. Here, the rock was exposed on either side of the trail and Parsons unpacked his microscope to examine a thin section, which he determined to be crushed granite. About seventy-five chains into the portage, the trail crossed a large depression; Parsons believed it to be a kettle hole. It was about two hundred acres in extent and we measured it to be seventy-five feet deep. If it were in fact a kettle hole, a feature created by the continued circular erosion of water and stones caught in an prehistoric whirlpool, the water flow would have needed to be a deluge of biblical magnitude, an entire continent's water rushing over the very place we stood. Admittedly, I had difficulty accepting this concept and privately, I chose not to believe Parsons' explanation of glacial runoff.  I wondered, silently, if perhaps this place held a more sacred significance. It certainly had a coldness to it,  a strange sensation like an absence of something, as opposed to a presence. I quickly dispelled any divergence into these mystical thoughts and listened as Parsons explained how, in the view of the science, the melting and retreating of ice sheets, and all the water the melting ice produced as the climate warmed, shaped every aspect of the land over which we had travelled these past four months. Throughout the trip, Parsons was continually pointing out places where the glaciers scoured a rock here, or deposited a boulder there, or eroded a channel in another place. Everything, it seemed, was attributed to the warming of the earth's temperature, fifteen thousand years ago.

Yet, earlier that day, we passed by a rock feature on the Ninth Lake in the chain of lakes on the East Branch of the Spanish that had nothing to do with glaciation. On a smooth rock face, just above the water level, were painted images, hand drawn in a deep red ochre, the tracks of an ancient finger. We had seen similar sites in the Temagami District on Diamond and Lady Evelyn Lakes, and while Gray noted the location of those sites on his map, he joked about the primitive looking stick figures and asked Jimmy if these were his cousins too. Jimmy pointed to a red, squiggly line crawling up the rock cliff and said, "Not this one." The image he pointed to resembled a long snake with a pair of horns. The snake stood like a guard on the left side of a gap in the rock and looked back at the earthly creatures depicted on the right side of the cleft—men, birds, moose and a variety of other stick images. Behind the snake were the creatures of the spirit world. Most notable was the painting of a little man, like a sprite or a fairy, arm outstretched and playfully jumping in delight of something. Gray and the others paddled ahead and I held back and marvelled at the paintings while Jimmy, who didn't smoke, pulled some tobacco from his pack and placed a small pile on the lake surface in front of the little jumping man. Not wanting to disturb what was a rare, serious moment for Jimmy, I silently observed from a distance and never asked the Indian about the meaning of those rock paintings.

Having previously witnessed Jimmy's deep respect for the pictograph sites in the Temagami lakes, I made a point of noting Jimmy's reaction to the Spanish River images. Here, he didn't leave a tobacco offering, he simply lowered his head. Out of respect, I too bowed my head and took in the spirit of the present moment.  Soon, I am listening to waves gently lapping against the rock wall, in the distance a raven squawks, a chickadee flutters among the small pines, green moss and cedar whiffs are in the air.

From the bow of my canoe, I heard Silvester pick up his paddle. I drew my boat closer to Jimmy's and quietly asked him about the meaning of the pictures. At first he said nothing, then, after looking like he was thinking about whether he should let me in on a secret, he mumbled something about a shaman. I couldn't decipher his words but I didn't want to pry further.

And that same evening, as we stood in the centre of the massive depression in the land, a dark crater whose sides blocked the setting sun, I felt the same quiet power of the land as I felt earlier on the water, when we were floating in front of the rock paintings. Perhaps I was overtired, but I sensed there was a spirit about this place, or, more accurately, a spirit missing from it.

At Gray's command we carried all the gear into a small clearing in the heart of this depression and waited as Jimmy circled the walls looking for the path out. Finally, after a number of revolutions around the enormous hole, we heard the hacking of axe on wood. The men gathered the packs and followed the sound of Jimmy's blazing into the forest. We proceeded across a level, sandy plain, very uncharacteristic of the topography we had encountered thus far in our journey. In the exact centre of the depression was a small clearing where nothing grew. Outside of the centre circle, the entire area, it seemed, had been burned over recently and the earth was covered in a thick growth of small, densely spaced jackpine that had sprung up from the fallen and burnt timber which covered the forest floor. Progress was slow and walking nearly impossible. When the light had all but faded, Gray pronounced that we return to the opening in the centre of the kettle hole and camp there for the night.

Gray barely spoke to the men that night. We huddled around the evening campfire for warmth but Gray remained distant from the men. Typically, he would be found sitting with the lads or sharing a story about a victory on the field, be it the defeat of an opponent in athletics, or the taking of game in a hunt, but this night he remained in his tent studying maps and making calculations. Jimmy sat with the men and laughed as he sipped tea between his missing teeth.

The night was cold and by morning a thick frost had settled into the crater. The lichen and moss  that lined the clearing was white and frozen and crunched under our boots. We had no water, other than what we carried with us on the portage, so we broke camp early without a meal and resumed the battle against the surrounding forest.

The final twenty-five chains proved to be the most difficult trial of the entire summer's journey. We hacked a path wide enough for a man to walk over the charred and fallen logs. It took a full day of struggle to escape from that place, like we were heroes of mythology, returning from the depths of Hades. Everyone was covered in soot from the burn, the ash from the fire adhered to the pine and spruce gum that covered our hands and faces when we hacked away the new growth. Our pants were torn, our shirts ripped open. Despite the sweat we generated from our labours, the air remained frigid and the fog of our breath lingered in the air.

Finally, when sky was visible through the trees, we thanked Jimmy for leading us out of the darkness and washed and drank from the lake. The water, we noticed, was darker and much colder than Blue Lake. It was only later, after we returned to fetch the canoes and set out again on the water, did we discover the current of the tiny river moved in our desired direction. We named the lake Dividing Lake, for we knew we had crossed a watershed. We did not understand, until much later, the watershed we crossed was not simply traversing the drainage from the Spanish River into the Montreal River, in fact, it was what divided the world between South and North, the civil and the wild, between present and past.

It was Gray who first noticed we were heading down the wrong river. From the moment we dipped our paddles into Dividing Lake, a dark cloud seemed to loom over us and we lost sight of the sun for many days. The advantage of knowing our position in relation to the sun was lost in the grey sky and we needed to rely on the compass for our bearings. Since we knew the Montreal River ran in a northwardly direction before it turned south near Fort Mattachewan, it was reasonable to assume we were on our intended course on the West Branch of the Montreal River. Plus, no one doubted Jimmy's ability to find our way through the bush—except Gray.

"Jimmy," Gray asked, "why do you think the water is so dark on this creek, where the water in the Montreal River is not nearly this stained?"

"Because John threw the leftover tea in the lake. Water changes when you dump stuff in it, you know?" Jimmy laughed.

And later, when we paddled in the shallow swifts below a small set of rapids, a large sturgeon darted away from the lead canoe, broke the surface and jumped clear out of the water. We had never seen a sturgeon in the rivers, let alone rolling through the air.

"Jimmy, is it not unusual to see sturgeon in the Montreal River, and this far upstream? And why is it jumping?"

Jimmy laughed. "Because it's happy."

But after three days of paddling northward in the tannic water, hopping from headwater pond to small lake to a long lake to a wide, slow river, along shorelines which became increasingly covered in grey clay, where the only time we saw exposed bedrock or boulders was at the waterfall, we all began to question our exact whereabouts.

Gray pulled the men together at the top of a large waterfall. We had followed a deep channel through the boulder field to reach the portage. The rocks here were undoubtedly moved by man or creature to create a canoe path through the shallows and the access the trailhead. This was not the work of a white man.

"Boys, I think we all know where we are heading here. These waterfalls confirm my suspicion: we are on the Mattagami Branch of the Moose River, lads. Jimmy has led us to the wrong river."

I looked over at Jimmy who was unloading packs from his canoe, preparing to portage the falls. He was laughing, as usual.

"But here's the thing lads: we had planned to reach Fort Mattachewan by tomorrow at the latest, and have two day's extra provisions. I know we lost a lot of time on the height of land portage, but still, if we were to retrace our steps, find the proper trail to the Montreal River and get to Mattachewan, we are looking at a week, at least. The game is plentiful here, but it takes time to hunt and fish, which will only further delay our progress. We still have to make it back to Sudbury, and freeze up isn't that far off."

The men stood looking at the ground or glancing back upriver or to the portage trail, waiting for Gray to announce the next step.

"I believe Fort Mattagami to be three or four day's paddle from where I think we are. Maybe less if the river remains this navigable. I say we push for the Hudson Bay post there and see if we can resupply."

The men remained silent but nodded in agreement.

"I know the fur brigades have portages between Fort Mattachewan and the Mattagami River. Maybe at Fort Mattagami we can find someone reliable to guide us back to the Montreal River."

Parsons and Silvester looked up at Gray with surprise. DeMorest turned to watch Jimmy, who was still out of earshot.

Of all the minor mishaps and setbacks during our season together, this was the first time Gray was clearly angered by one of the men. His stoic, "toughen-up boys" mantra or spinning the man's fault to become a life lesson was what we expected, not the open criticism of a member of our expedition team, the one for whom most of us had come to have the utmost respect. Gray was putting the blame for our misstep squarely on the shoulders of the elder Native. I believe the other men shared the chill I felt when we heard Gray say those words. Something would not be right if we continued without Jimmy.

While the men remained kicking the ground of the portage trail, Jimmy had already hoisted two packs onto his back, and with one hand pulling down on the leather tumpline and the other using a paddle like a walking stick, he brushed past us and headed down the trail in the direction of Fort Mattagami. Seeing this, the men followed his lead and began preparing for the portage.