Voyageur by Robert Twigger

Author:Robert Twigger [Twigger, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780297863885
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2010-06-02T22:00:00+00:00

Directions in a very similar vein then follow for an entire page, until:

South by East three miles. Here we arrived at the forks of the river; the Eastern branch appearing to be not more than half the size of the Western one. We pursued the latter, in a course South-West by West six miles, and landed on the first of November at the place which was designed to be my winter residence.

He had arrived at Fort Forks, a few miles upstream from Peace River town. Our destination.

Mackenzie’s journals were a bestseller in 1801. They were even polished and improved by William Coombe, a ghost writer who finished the book in King’s Bench debtors’ prison. Even Coombe couldn’t jazz up compass directions though – it is hard to see a modern editor countenancing page after page of such directions, and a third of the book is probably compass directions. It reminded me of a similar list I made of my ‘explorations’ aged eight, across the gull-spotted fields behind my parents’ house. I assiduously read off and recorded compass directions in my notebook, because it looked pleasing and because I had recently learned about compasses. Nowhere does the autodidact in Mackenzie, supremely confident in other areas, come through as strongly as in this visible pride in his navigation. Yet, with only a basic grasp of the subject, he crossed an entire continent.

Our own journey to Peace River town was not to be as eventless or easy as that of the great Mackenzie. On the thirty-ninth day on the river things started badly when I tumbled waist-deep wading through some rapids. The summer sun had by now departed and suddenly it was cold each morning, sometimes with frost instead of dew on the tent. All the insects were gone – around 15 August they just decided to pack it in, overnight.

Instead of hiding under mosquito nets we now shivered in our sleeping bags each night. No one wanted to get wet any more, certainly not before lunchtime, since now our quick-dry trousers stayed wet and chilly.

We were towing a lot now, great five-kilometre-long tows around endless huge curves. The novelty of making easy kilometres had worn off and you’d be shivering after just an hour sitting in the boat. Things only became lively when we had to cross between islands. There was always a fast current between them and we couldn’t always decide the best route. That day Joe was irritable and Barney belligerent; neither of them agreed with my route. Eventually we settled on a course but Joe wouldn’t speak to me. This continued all day until we landed on a long sandy island. Joe’s resentment boiled over into another series of recriminatory discussions masquerading as being about choosing a campsite.

I’d had enough. ‘You know what, Joe? You’re just a moody little git.’

If there was one thing Joe hated that was being called (a) moody, (b) little and (c) a git. OK, three things. I had blown being exemplary. I was for it.

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