The next stage was to go back up the rapids and pick up the two Indians on shore. The male Indian in our boat went up the slope and helped the older Indian get the drunken one onto his feet. It was quite a challenge for them to get him down the slope and into the boat without drowning us all. He was so unsteady on his feet that he had no balance.
Eventually we had all four aboard so that the six of us almost overloaded our boat. I t was a slow and careful run back to the camp where we dropped off the four Indians at their cabin. The large drunk Indian was the cause of the accident and the others were not very friendly or sympathetic with him in the slightest.
It was a glum and quiet boat ride back to the camp.
The fellow whose parents managed the camp knew everyone who was rescued and he spent some time with them later to find out what happened. The married couple spoke English very well but were shy with us so we had not pressed them for information while in the boat.
The couple were the ones who were paid to stay at the camp until the lake froze. The older man that stayed in the camp and the other older Indian we rescued first was also part of the original group. The drunken Indian’s name was Joe Indian. We confirmed later that that was truly the name he was known by.
When the couple went to get more supplies to last them through the freeze up the oldest Indian stayed behind at the camp to protect it. The other older Indian went to town with them. When they had obtained their supplies and were loading their boat, Joe Indian had shown up and demanded to be taken along with them. He had been drinking and was difficult to handle so they just let him come along too.
When they were almost at the camp he started complaining that they were going the wrong way and running the boat wrong. Just before they reached the rapids he stood up in the boat and tried to get to the motor. He lost his balance and when he fell his large weight on the side of the boat caused it to swamp and fill with water. All the groceries in the boat had made it unstable and did not help the situation.
When the boat overturned they were all thrown into the water. The couple manage to swim to the reef and get out of the freezing cold water. The current swept the other two, along with the boat to the south shore where they were able to grab some bushes and climb ashore.
No one had a watch but it was estimated that the accident occurred about 4 pm as it did not take very long before it started to get dark. The Indian we first met on the shore had a couple of bottles of rum with him in the boat and he manage to save them and get ashore with his pack sack. Nothing else was saved in the entire boat.
The two groups stood there soaking wet in the cold and twenty miles as the crow flies from home. They were not aware that our group was going to be at the cabin so they believed they were all alone. Just before dark they heard the motors from our boats as we returned from camping and they knew that we had to be staying at the camp as there was no other camps for many miles and they were all closed. The old Indian at the camp could not run a boat as he was too old.
The couple on the reef were trapped and would not last long standing in the water and being splashed by the rapids. The other man was too drunk to help even himself . The older Indian took it upon himself to go for help, but first he hid his pack with the two bottles of rum under the tree branches.
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By this time is was pitch dark and very difficult to see much. He had grabbed a paddle while in the water as he could not swim. He manage to go ashore with his paddle and kept it with him on his long walk. Because the shore line was very rough and uneven he was forced to walk many miles to reach the point where we picked him up. We realized that he had been walking for at least ten hours in the dark while soaking wet with nothing to eat.
They were very lucky there had been no wind or we would have never heard him calling for help. As it was ,he had been calling for a long time when we reached him. A cold wind would also have killed the pair on the reef in a short period of time.
We would have found them on the reef on our trip home on Sunday evening but by then they would have died. I was very surprised by the attitude of the couple we plucked off the reef. We had never met before but they got into the boat and acted as if we had simply picked them up at a bus stop. A white couple experiencing this situation would have been reduced to shear panic and collapsed when rescued. I was very impressed by their calmness and fortitude.
Later we learned that the reason the Indian we first saved was so mad when he saw the other Indian laying there drunk, was he realized the Joe Indian had found his pack with the two bottles of rum. He should have been cold sober after ten hours instead he was drunk again. He managed to drink them both while his friend walked ten hours to save them all.
That day we finished our hunt, packed up and headed for home with our loaded boats and six deer. The temperature dropped on the ride back to the Indian Reserve and all the bays and quiet waters had already frozen over. That night the temperature plunged and by morning the lakes were all frozen over and only the fast moving waters in the current remained open.
Had we stayed another day we would not have got home with out great difficulty. If we had not rescued them when we did, the four Indians would have died before anyone knew they had lost the boat and were marooned without food or shelter.
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