At long last, Jim reached Lévis, opposite the capital city of Quebec. Below him lay the great Saint Lawrence River, heaving with all manner of ice pans, jagged, topsy-turvy, some an acre across, heaped with the remnants of many collisions on their way down from Three Rivers and Montreal. Below him on the flat shore lay three or four trunks of hollowed pine. A couple of horses waited at a hitching rail where a scattering of travellers had tramped the snow flat.
Jim then looked up at his first sight of Quebec City. A clutter of houses lay on the slope below great cliffs that held the rest of the town. These were the very ramparts that brave General Wolfe had scaled with his British troops less than a hundred years ago when he defeated the French General, Montcalm. Jim had learned something of that battle from a military man who had given him a ride with his entourage the last fifty miles. A decisive battle, although that Seven Years War had not really ended until 1763, when the Treaty of Paris ceded Canada to the British.
History was not something his father had focussed on in his tutoring. Jim knew about the Revolutionary War of 1776 that brought his maternal grandfather, William Garrett, and other United Empire Loyalists up to the Gaspé Coast in 1784, where they had founded the settlement of New Carlisle. But most of the events of the past were hidden from him, because after all, when had any farmer time to indulge such fancies? Reading, writing, and arithmetic were what he learned, and that was quite enough.
Earlier on during the trip, he had watched the far shore seep into view across the mighty river. As that distant bank drew closer, he grew accustomed to the dark, fearsome waters between. He had walked, and hitched rides, two hundred or so miles along this south shore, but now he was finally staring the great river barrier in the face.
Several burly, heavily dressed men in hip-length boots sat on the edges of the great dugouts, for these now appeared to be canoes, twenty-five to thirty feet long, hollowed out of specially selected trunks. Did these men intend to manoeuvre them across that violent river? The black roiling surface would vanish and reappear as floes of all shapes, jagged and alarming, slammed against each other and then separated as the current crowded them together and swung them apart.
Terrifying images of the time he and his brother Joey had been out fishing through the ice near shore and an argument had developed. He had fallen and then broken through the ice crust. Down Jim went, the shock of the bitter cold water expelling all his breath — he choked and gulped a lung full. Frantically, he had clawed upward through the water, beat his fists on the jagged underside of the ice, found the opening, but almost immediately began losing consciousness.
His brother clutched him, grappled his coat, hoisted him up and out, then began to pump his lungs to expel the water. And there it was again before him, all that icy, black water. How on earth would anyone dare cross that?
His three other travelling companions began walking down and Jim found himself following. The burly canoe-men, or canotiers as they were called, rushed forward to solicit business: “Allons-y, let’s go, n’ayez pas peur!” The other travellers standing around appeared rightfully hesitant, and looked to these newcomers for guidance. That wide and fearsome river flowing between this shore and the desired Quebec City did look dismaying in the extreme. A terrible grinding and roaring issued from the floes crashing into each other, heaving up others like giant white turtles in a love-fest, backing off, bumping into others. He stared at the open, black wastes of water that kept closing into glistening plains.
Much as he wanted to get to Montreal, fear blocked all progress and brought him to a halt. I’ll never try that, Jim said to himself. Why not just keep to this side of the Saint Lawrence? I might bushwhack my way, though the only road lay along the north shore. But then, he remembered that Montreal lay on an island. The north coast probably offered a better crossing; so he realized, nothing for it but to try and cross here with the others.
As he reached the flat, his fear grew. But it would worsen the longer he waited so he decided quickly. “Let’s go.”
He asked how much fare they wanted, and seeing it was reasonable for the danger undertaken, he divested himself of his heavy pack. The biggest canotier grabbed it and threw it in the centre of his own shaped log, or canoe. At once, a half-dozen canotiers rushed to the other voyagers and grabbed their packs, whether they liked it or not. Soon, a good eight people had come to sit down in the hollowed trunk. Unstable on the flat ice, it rocked as each entered. They brought a horse rapidly forward, with growing excitement all around. When the last person, a woman, quite well dressed, got in near the bow, they hooked the single tree into the chain at the front of the log and the canotiers, two on each side, ran along as the horse dragged them towards the threatening black current, eddying and boiling a scarce fifty feet ahead. Jim scrunched his eyes shut, but the jolting ride made them fly open. No escape now.
Once the horse had got them up to speed, the lead canotier, “Je m’appelle Pierre,” unsnapped the harness with amazing dexterity and the canotiers on each side used the momentum to race the canoe toward the swirling water. Everyone tensed, not knowing what to expect as the black edge loomed closer; the well-dressed woman screamed. Not a lot of help to Jim, for sure.
Ahead, that threatening lip of ice might break under them at any second; Jim had an urge to leap out, and his gorge rose. Don’t vomit, he told himself, as Pierre shouted, “Venez monter!” and the two canotiers leapt in at the last second.
They were off, paddling furiously; Jim had never seen such energy. The canoe gathered speed through the black water, and Jim began to relax slightly, until he saw a large ice floe coming at them. It would tip them into the river. He couldn’t swim. He gripped the rough edges of the log — what now?
The great flat ice-pan struck the bow, but then simply turned the canoe downstream. A second time Jim’s fear rose. A cheerful order from Pierre urged his men to back-paddle, and after Herculean strokes, they managed to swing the prow upstream and now aimed for a spot above Quebec City.
Paddling against the current, they dodged the ice floes in their unwieldy craft, but each minor crisis brought on new torture. Jim had never dreamed he’d find himself in a situation so fraught with terror. Heading upstream, the craft lost ground as dangerous chunks of ice swept past, but it managed to edge ever closer to the opposite shore. Clearly, the canotiers found it exhilarating, although the other passengers were just as terrified as Jim, gripping the rough edges in white-faced anxiety.
As they were paddling furiously around a large pan, Jim pointed. Another flat floe, forty or fifty feet across, headed downstream directly for them. Would it not crush them? Pierre shouted loud exhortations in French. Jim grabbed up the extra paddle again and threw himself into stroking, for even the canotiers showed apprehension. Jim could well imagine what would happen when the ice-pan jammed them against the other one.
And so it did, with a great grinding crash, striking their craft with immense force so that Jim was sure the trunk would break in two, dropping them into the icy depths. But he stifled the urge to cry out. The canotiers on the right leapt onto that floe and tried to haul their massive canoe out onto it. But no, it was jammed solid, and cracking. They would all be done for.
James said a prayer: at least he’d have died trying to fulfill his dream of getting to the big city — a worthy end. Pierre leapt out on the upstream floe, and also tried to lift the canoe out. No luck.
“Débarquez tout le monde!” he cried.
Everyone out? How? Onto the lip of this ice? Was Pierre crazy? It would crack. “We’ll all drown!” someone yelled.
“Non, non — vite, vite!” came the reply.
Better do as he was told! Gritting his teeth, Jim clambered out with another canotier and three passengers. Right away, the shelf cracked.
Yelling, they all grabbed at their craft and dove back into the hollowed pine, which so far was holding up. One elderly man didn’t make it and fell backwards. Jim froze, heart beating. As the man was almost sucked under by the current, two canotiers leapt across and grabbed his coat at the last second, managed to haul him out, sopping with ice-laden water, and flopped him back into the canoe.
Now what, Jim thought? Stay in the boat while it splits apart?
“L’autre côté,” Pierre prompted, and clenching his teeth, Jim lurched out. A portly peasant woman reached, arms out, and Jim pulled her across the gap, though in a moment she fell on the slippery ice. But the shelf held. He helped her up and one after another, the others struggled onto this firmer floe.
Then every canotier and a few of the passengers tried lifting and pulling the log amid exclamations of encouragement and delight from Pierre. Finally, they got the canoe beached up onto this ice floe, itself moving inexorably downstream.
“Allez!” Pierre called, and the canotiers managed to pull the canoe toward the next ominous patch of black water, the passengers trudging behind, faster this time, with the woman who fetched up last hurrying as best she could, slipping and falling on the bare patches of ice.
One more black stretch left.
How would they handle that? The canoe had surely sprung leaks. Once they all got back in, would it sink? And dunk them into the black below as food for fish? But a few feet from the edge, Pierre commanded them back in, except Jim who he needed for help. Jim, caught up in the furor, could do nothing but obey, and stood ready to push the canoe out into the black water, though he felt sure it would mean the end of everyone. Being last, he’d wait to see if it were seaworthy. Other passengers were thoroughly panicked.
With a great shove, the canotiers heaved the canoe forward over the edge of the ice floe, which of course broke under its weight. Nothing for it but to leap in, each man for himself, scrambling for space, just in time.
The dugout sprouted water but held.
“Paddle for your lives,” Pierre shouted in French and paddle they did, for down that current came another frightening fleet of jagged bergs, any one of which would definitely finish them off.
After a time of furious exertion, all panting desperately, the canoe drew close to the shelf ice on the opposite shore. A horse and two men were racing down toward them on the opposite bank. One man threw a line to Pierre, who quickly fastened it through the prow’s ring. The man swivelled his horse which dug in its hooves and heaved the canoe with everyone aboard onto the cracking ice shelf at the shore.
So they had arrived. Safe.
Jim took a few minutes to collect himself. He’d never faced anything like that before. As his panting subsided, he began to feel almost proud of himself for what he had achieved, in the face, yes, he now admitted it, of almost continuing panic. But he knew that two hundred long and potentially more dangerous miles lay ahead on his route to the gleaming town of Montreal.