The Government of the Province having determined upon a policy of opening up and exploiting the resources of New Ontario, with a view of increasing the industrial wealth and population of the Province as a whole, it became necessary to take stock of the various kinds of natural wealth which existed there in order to ascertain of what they consisted and in what quantities, their situation and location and their possibility of development. When this information was had the people would know the value of their heritage, and would be able to approve with intelligence the expenditure of whatever money was necessary to render available the latent wealth of that enormous region, and the Government would be informed as to the sections which would best repay immediate development, and from what points now accessible by rail, railways or colonization roads should be built to open up the territory for settlement, lumbering and mining.

E. J. Davis, Commissioner of Crown Lands, Province of Ontario. Introduction to the Report of the Survey and Exploration of Northern Ontario, 1900. Department of Crown Lands, Toronto, 1901

***

The entire expedition was doomed from the very beginning. At least that was the position taken by the opposition Conservatives in the Ontario Legislature. There had been all kind of talk about it in The Globe, how it would waste forty thousand dollars of taxpayer money and how the real reason behind the expedition was only to make the Provincial Liberals look good, an expensive publicity stunt designed to give Ross' government credit for ushering in the new century. There was also talk of this being an attempt for the Toronto entrepreneurs to take economic control of New Ontario away from the Ottawa and Montreal merchant elites who, with the support of their federal government cronies in Ottawa, had enjoyed the profits from the fur and timber trades thus far without competition. From my point of view, none of that mattered. All I knew was I had never before seen such a tremendous logistical undertaking. And that hit me when I first boarded the train in North Bay to join Party Number Three of the Exploration and Survey of Northern Ontario. It was the Tenth of June, 1900.

The grey smoke from the steam engine appeared, billowing above the rock cuts, long before I could hear the clanging of the machine. I couldn't help but be amazed by the newness of it all: black steel, polished chrome, sleek and efficient. It had the very smell of newness. The optimism of human progress was shared by the others standing at the North Bay station that afternoon: parents with children in tote had come down to the station to see the train. Even though locomotives were now rolling through the town every third day, it was still an event worthy of a family stroll to the North Bay station. I had come from Ottawa the day before on the Canadian Pacific Railway and was waiting to connect with Expedition Number Three, screeching in on the Grand Trunk Railroad track from Toronto. To think, these tracks now connected the two oceans of this Dominion of Canada, of all the lakes and rivers and mountains and forests that were now accessible to men of fortitude and determination. Of the riches and the adventure that awaited. Of the hope.

The men of government shared this vision. It seemed no expense was spared. Ten expeditions were mounted that summer to explore, survey, and report on an area larger than Western Europe—sixty million acres, a thousand miles from the Ottawa River in the East to the Manitoba border in the West. Each expedition team consisted of four surveyors, including a timber and mineral specialist, plus whatever support crews they needed to carry out the exploration. A fleet of brand new Peterborough canvas canoes was commissioned for the project, and each group received the shipment of these fine craft to their departure point. Our party consisted of five canoes. Each boat would be paddled by a canoeman hired for the season. That was my job, along with the task of recording and journaling the daily events of the expedition; most canoemen had no aptitude with letters, having lived their lives in the wilds, paddling and portaging furs and supplies between trading posts. My youth, on the other hand, was spent on the rivers and in the lumber camps of the Madawaska River in the Ottawa Valley, where my friend Michael Dignam and I had the summer employment of paddling, tobacco, rum, whisky and whatever other provisions were not part of the official camp supplies, upriver to the loggers who remained in the bush once the river drives were over. Mr. Griffith, who owned the General Store, had a nice little business going. For me, it meant I could leave the farm chores to my brothers and make a decent percentage of the sale. Each fall I would return to my schooling, then later to Queen's University.

My acceptance to this exploratory endeavour was fortuitous, more the result of a connection of a professor at Queen's than my aptitude as either a canoeman or a journalist. My blessings were counted as the train rolled to a stop at the North Bay station, the door of the baggage car opened and five brand new canoes, blood-red and shiny, were lined along the boxcar floor. Stacked between and around the boats were canvas packs, poles, paddles, tarps, duffles and a great heap of measurement instruments. And standing behind them, arms folded across his chest, stood the expedition leader, George R. Gray.

The first thing I noticed about George Gray was his arm. It was a hot, sunny afternoon and I could only imagine the baggage car would be stifling, so it should have been reasonable to expect this man would have discarded his jacket. But Gray, as we would soon all call him, was wearing nothing above his trousers other than a thin, tight-fitting sleeveless athletic top, his chest bulging, his exposed bicep was rippled and curled as he reached his arm down to me. Here was a man in the finest athletic form. He stood five foot, ten inches and was as solid as the bedrock upon which we would soon sleep. His hair was parted in the centre and combed back, and a stylish, thin moustache completed the look. The stories I had heard and the reports which preceded the man were not exaggerations. Above me on the baggage car stood an exceptional specimen of a man, George Reginald Gray: World Champion Putter of Shot, Record Holder, Renowned Outdoorsman, Leader.

Gray's grip was like a vice when he clasped my hand, gave a firm shake and pulled me upward. I scrambled to find my footing on the step lest my arm be pulled from its socket, and with his traction, I was soon standing facing the man.

"John Cotter. Welcome to the team, John. Best we get you working right away, lad."

His voice had a distinctive Scottish drawl, typical of the Southern part of Ontario, but unusual sounding to those of us from the Ottawa Valley. I'm a mix of French and Irish, but Catholic lads like me had to learn to tolerate the Protestant classes if we wanted to attend their schools or work in their mills. From what I had heard, Gray was highly regarded as a manager in the timber trade and employed hundreds of men in the various mills and camps he oversaw, most of whom would have been Poles or Irish or French. He must have had a high degree of tolerance himself. He also had quickly concluded that I was the one assigned to be his recorder and canoeman, likely due to the worn style of my rucksack. His hand still squeezing mine, he looked me up and down, then stared straight into my eyes. "Yes, Ollie did well to recommend you, young man. You'll do fine."

With that, he released his grasp, slid the pack strap from my shoulder and tossed it into the farthest canoe like it was filled with bed feathers. "How about that being your chariot, John? Will that do you?"

I looked at the freshly painted canvas of the canoe. I had never seen a craft so spotless, so symmetrical and perfect. Our canoes back home were a cross between a rowing dory and an Indian canoe, rough planks held together with whatever was available to keep them afloat, and relying on the swelling of the wood to seal the cracks. In front of me were five canoes of the Indian style, but not made from bark; they were built from cedar planks and covered with a painted canvas cloth. The vessels were small and light enough to be carried over a portage by a single man, yet large enough for two men to paddle and port hundreds of pounds of gear. I had never steered an Indian craft before, regarding them as unstable and unpredictable, but I would soon learn, I figured.

"Yes, Sir. I think it shall suit me fine."