An Emergency Fire - Part 2 of 3 parts.

Read Part one first.
During our hike I had noticed round holes in the deep snow, in various sections of the river. They were no more than six inches across and very deep.

I was in the lead at the time and Jim had fallen behind as he was having troubles with his snowshoes. Every so often he would stop and re-adjust them
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While I waited from him to catch up I snowshoed over to another of the mystery holes. I was trying to think what kind of animal would make such a hole. It was a perfect hole all the way around and there were no tracks of any kind near it.

I decided to get a better look so I bent down to peer into the hole. All of a sudden the snow under my snowshoes dropped about two feet and into the river. As I fell forward I automatically put my hands out . They plunged into the deep snow and then hit something solid and I stopped falling.

It took a second or two to for the situation to sink in. My feet and snowshoes were on a large rock in the river. My hands were on another large snow covered rock and my body made a bridge from one rock to the other, while the river gurgled by below me. The tips of both snowshoes were in the running water and my knees were slowly sinking in as well, because the weight of my pack was pushing me down.

Jim by then had rush closer, still pulling the toboggan. I yelled at him to stay back as there was no point in him joining me. I realized I was not going to stay in this position much longer and the only way to get out was to step into the water and hope it was not too deep

When my knees were about six inches into the water I could feel the snowshoes slipping off the rock so I was going into the river one way or another. At some point I just stepped into the water and in about two strides I was back up again and on the snow covered ice. Jim claimed later, that my feet were pumping so fast he could hardly see me for the spray of water.

Fortunately the water was only a foot or so deep as it was a rocky rapids. Both snowshoes went in the river and before I had gone two feet, the water on them froze instantly and the weight made it almost impossible to move. I quickly slipped off my pack board and just dropped it in the snow. The snowshoes came off next.

I had to get the rawhide ties on my moccasins untied before they froze or I would be forced to cut them off.
As I worked away at the moccasins, I heard Jim calling, “What can I do to help? What should I do?”

I simply replied, “I need a fire and I need it fast. Clear a spot and get wood as quickly as you can.”

I was wearing special duck pants that were water proof so my knees did not get wet, but the water froze on them instantly. The pants at my knees were frozen stiff in a half-bent condition. I got the moccasins untied and then helped get the fire started. We always carried birch bark paper, dried grass, and small twigs in our toboggan box for just such an emergency. Jim brought that to me and I got the fire going and began to add some of the first pieces of small wood he had gathered. I continued to tend and increase the fire as he hauled more wood. We were very fortunate there were a lot of dead trees standing on the bank of the river.

Jim had dumped his backpack and left it with the toboggan on the river below. Once he had a good supply of wood he brought his equipment to the site of the fire. It did not take long before we had a good strong fire going. Jim’s used his snowshoes as shovels to move more snow back.

Once the heat from the fire started to take effect, we started to relax and discuss what had happened. It was all my fault for being too curious and I got caught. We were just lucky we did not venture too close to the other holes. We realized they each indicated where there was fast running water and no ice.

My feet did not get wet but I did change socks. When the moccasins had the ice melted off of them and they were all warmed up, I was able to put them back on. My mitts got a little wet on the outside and were covered in ice but my woolen mitts and hands did not get wet.

We got some coffee going and tried to wind down from all the excitement. Getting wet in the middle of winter was bad enough but getting wet at 50 below zero was very dangerous.

The biggest problem now was that each snowshoe was coated in ice. All the cat gut webbing as well as the wooden frames were thickly coated.. Each snowshoe weighed about twenty extra pounds. It was necessary to take the back of the hatchet and tap the snowshoes section by section against a log, until all the ice was knocked off. The cat gut webbing is strong but it could crack and break if abused. Damaged snowshoes would have been a serious problem.

After about an hour working on the snowshoes we were able to get our kit back together and loaded. We still had a few hours until dark and I wanted to get walking and get warmed up again before we stopped for the night.

Back on the trail Jim took the lead and I hauled the toboggan. He made a point of giving any holes in the snow a wide berth. I noticed that Jim was continuing to have trouble with his snowshoes. He would step aside to adjust the bindings, and would let me pass. If he were not careful, his foot would slip out of the binding and on his next step he would plunge one foot into the deep snow and fall.

I took the lead, even though I had the toboggan, as it made it easier for him to deal with his bindings. Before we stopped for the night it appeared that he had the problem solved, so we had eaten up a few more miles before it started to get dark.

We picked a good campsite that was sheltered from the wind and had lots of firewood nearby. We had used up our emergency fire starter so it took us a little longer to get the fire going. With a strong fire crackling nearby we used our snowshoes to clear a good site for the tent. In no time the tent was up and the sleeping bag were hanging from some sticks poked into the snow near the fire. A toasty sleeping bag was a must.

Working around the fire and cooking our meal allowed the ice on my knees to melt and soon they were dry. It was agreed that we would take turns sleeping while the other person kept a good sized fire going through the long night. We took turns each couple of hours. We slept in our clothes as it was too cold to take even our parkas off.          End of Part 2 - See part 3.

　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

Brokenhead River Trek - Part 1of 3.

In mid January of 1952, we left Winnipeg early on a cold dark morning and headed for Beausejour, Manitoba. We were well on our way before the sun was up. My father was driving and I was in the front with him. Jim was in the back with a lot of our gear, and the rest was in the trunk.

When we reach Beausejour, we drove to the east side of town and stopped on a bridge over the Brokenhead River. This was to be our starting point on our overnight snowshoe trip up the river. Our goal was Ross, Manitoba, about 35 miles away. The snow was at least two feet deep over the landscape and the snowplows had piled up the snow high on the banks of the road. River is marked in yellow on the map.

We were anxious to get an early start and the sun was just coming up when we jumped out of the car and went around to the trunk to unload. We hardly got started when my father noticed that part of Jim’s nose and his cheeks had started turning white and were obviously freezing. He convinced us to all jump back in the car which was still running. We had no thermometer so we had no idea of the temperature.

As Jim got the blood flowing to his face, my father tried to talk us out of our hike. I had not noticed the cold but I was concerned about Jim, so we let him make the decision. He said he still wanted to go, and he would make sure his face was better protected with his scarf.

When he felt his face was warm enough, we all jumped out again and soon had our packs on our backs and the toboggan loaded. I agreed to break trail and Jim was to follow with the toboggan. Once we were down off the bridge and onto the deep snow of the river, we took off.

I started off at a good clip to get us warmed up. The snow was soft and deep, so that we were sinking into the snow at least a foot deep with every step. Everything in view, from river bank to river bank was soft white snow. We were at least six to eight feet lower than the banks so the trees along the river gave us considerable protection from the wind.

It did not take long before I was forced to slow down as the snow was just too deep for any sustained fast movement. The area we were traveling through was mixed farmland and the farms were far and few between. We saw no farm buildings and there were no tracks of any kind.

At first we took turns breaking trail while the other pulled the toboggan. Our snowshoe tracks made the toboggan easy to pull, as it stayed in the tracks in the packed snow. Once we warmed up we did not notice the cold.

The snow was so deep we could not see or hear any running water. It had been a cold winter so we were confident that the river had a thick coat of ice. Every couple of hours we would stop to take a break and check our gear. We had no trouble with our packs which were actually army pack boards with equipment strapped to them. The tent was tied to the toboggan and a wooden box containing the camping gear was tied at the rear.
　
　
As we hiked along we chewed on dried fruit. We carried sandwiches to eat when we got hungry as we did not plan to stop for lunch. The goal was to get as many miles behind us the first day before we stopped for the night.

About midday our legs were starting to get tired and we decided to take a break. We left the toboggan on the river and walked up the bank, almost to the top. We then undid our snowshoes and fell over backwards part way down the bank. This got our feet and legs uphill from our bodies and helped with our leg circulation. Just before we dropped backwards into the deep snow we noticed some farm building about five hundred feet away but there was no sign of any activity.

As we lay there munching on our dried fruit we were talking about our progress and our plans to make camp just before it got dark. We would pick a sheltered spot with lots of dead wood, and we had to get it gathered before it got dark.

It was about this time we started to hear a dog barking and realized it was coming towards us from the farm. Soon we had the dog standing at the top of the river bank looking down upon us and barking very excitedly. We tried to calm him down and called to him but he was too worked up, so we just ignored him. It was not a big dog so it had struggled through deep snow to reach the bank, but would come no further.

We were laughing at the excited dog when suddenly the big farmer came into view. At first he was shocked and actually thought we had been in some kind of accident. His first question was, “What happened? What are you doing there?”

It took us a few moments to explain that we were fine and that we were on an overnight snowshoe hike from Beausejour to Ross, Manitoba.

His next question was, “Why?”

“Because we always wanted to make a snowshoe hike and stay out overnight in the winter,” I replied.
His next comment was almost shouted at us, “Are you crazy? Don’t you know it is 50 F. below zero!”

He was obviously not as well dressed as we were and was getting colder by the minute. He turned and stomped off with his dog, through the deep snow muttering something about us being crazy as hell.
We certainly felt colder after he left.

As soon as he was gone we spun around on the hill, put on our snowshoes and plodded down to the toboggan. Once again we were back on the trail, eating up the miles and feeling much warmer.

End of Part one - See Part two.