We were like Light and Darkness
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; and leaving Mr. and Mrs. Ford I
slipped down the hill again, and out along the little stream across
the cove. They came to meet me when they saw me coming and Heaven
alone knows how inadequate were the words with which I tried to
thank them. We came up the hill together now, and soon the tents
were pitched out among the willows. As I watched them from the
post window busy about their new camping ground, it was with a
feeling of genuine loneliness that I realised that I should not
again be one of the little party.
Later came the reckoning, which may be summed up as follows: -
_Length of Journey_: - 576 miles from post to post (with 30 miles
additional to Ungava Bay covered later in the post yacht Lily).
_Time_: - June 27th to August 27th. Forty-three days of actual
travelling, eighteen days in camp.
_Provisions_: - 750 lbs. to begin with, 392 lbs. of which was flour.
Surplus, including gifts to Nascaupee Indians, 150 lbs., 105 lbs.
of which was flour, making the average amount consumed by each
member of the party, 57 1/2 lbs.
_Results_: - The pioneer maps of the Nascaupee and George Rivers,
that of the Nascaupee showing Seal Lake and Lake Michikamau to be
in the same drainage basin and which geographers had supposed were
two distinct rivers, the Northwest and the Nascaupee, to be one and
the same, the outlet of Lake Michikamau carrying its waters through
Seal Lake and thence to Lake Melville; with some notes by the way
on the topography, geology, flora and fauna of the country
traversed.
It is not generally borne in mind by those who have been interested
in Mr. Hubbard and his last venture, that he did not plan his
outfit for the trip which they made. The failure to find the open
waterway to Lake Michikamau, which has already been discussed, made
the journey almost one long portage to the great lake. But even
so, if the season of unprecedented severity in which my husband
made his journey, could have been exchanged for the more normal one
in which I made mine, he would still have returned safe and
triumphant, when there would have been only praises for his
courage, fortitude and skill in overcoming the difficulties which
lie across the way of those who would search out the hidden and
untrod ways.
