Eldon Gallant, husband of Eleanor Bursey Gallant, wrote this account of his adventure by snowmobile from St. Augustine, Québec to Goose Bay, Labrador and return. While the Montagnais made this journey on foot, snow machines made the journey possible for more people and Eldon wanted to be the first to accomplish it.
This is Eldon's story, in his own words. It is a tribute to his love of the outdoors and though he died six years ago now, his story now has a life of its own. I hope he would be pleased.
In late February 1989, Terry McKinnon and I decided we would travel by snowmobile from St. Augustine to Goose Bay, Labrador. This journey was never before done by snowmobile. It was estimated to be approximately a 250 mile cross country journey, and we planned to travel over frozen lakes and rivers as much as possible.
At that time we did not feel confident enough to attempt this journey on our own, so we began searching for two more people from our village to come along with us. Many of the people we asked would have liked to have made the trip with us, but refused at the time for one reason or another. It was preferable that the person or persons interested would have some experience with the wilderness.
We later approached Clayton Pilgrim, an experienced bush pilot, who had flown over this territory many times, we asked him if he would be interested in this snowmobile journey, clayton said yes without even hesitating, he told us that he had thought about making this trip for a long time, but he didn't think he could find anyone that would be silly enough to attempt this trip with him.
At this point we decided that we would attempt to make this journey, the three of us, we still hoped to find one more person, but we began preparations for the journey anyway.
The first step in preparing for this trip was to gather land charts containing as much detail as possible so it would make it easier for us to study them and decide our route before leaving. After making the study of the charts we realized that there would be two areas of our journey that would be tough for us so we felt that we would need more information on these areas.
The first area was a section between the mouth of Little North West River and Francis Pond, which was approximately 30 miles, this section had one fall in the river and we knew we would have to travel over land with very few points such as ponds and rivers to identify ourselves with the charts.
We received information from Douglas Fequet on this section knowing that he was very familiar with the area, Douglas told us that himself and Kenneth Maurice had planned a trip to this area and that they would accompany us from Partridge Gulch to Francis Pond, we took him up on the offer knowing that it would be of great help to us.
The second area that we were concerned about was the Kenamu River, which was our route through the Mealy Mountains to Lake Melville, the charts indicated that there were a lot of rapids on this river, Lee Parsons, a resident of Goose Bay, referred us to Horst Goudie, a trapper, who had trapped this river for 50 years. Mr. Goudie told us that we would probably pick up his trail on the river, and if we did we were to be careful, because on occasion he had to change parts of his trail due to ice breaking away in the rapids, he did assure us that the water was not deep in these rapids but we would have to be careful not to get ourselves or our equipment wet.
In further preparation for our trip we discovered that with the food and supplies that we had to carry, we would not be able to carry enough gasoline with us to last the entire trip, Clayton and I then decided that we would carry 100 gallons of gasoline that was donated by Garage Gallant, into Clayton's Ponds and Mountie Pond. We estimated this to be our halfway point. While flying we would also have the opportunity to observe the route that we planned to take.
We were now ready to gather the supplies that we would need in order to complete this journey, listed here are the supplies needed: Gasoline, charts, compass, rackets, axes, tent, stove, first-aid kit, food, rain clothes, waterproof matches, rope, sleeping bags, cooking gear, ice fishing gear, gun and snowmobile parts, the Hudson Bay Company donated $150.00 worth of food for this trip, and Garage Gallant provided us with spare parts for our snowmobiles.
Sunday March 19th, 1989 we were finally all prepared to leave. We departed from St. Augustine at 3:00 p.m., and arrived to Partridge Gulch at 7:50 p.m., Douglas Fequet and Kenneth Maurice were waiting there to accompany us as far as Francis Pond. We spent the first night at Garry Lessard's cabin.
Partridge Gulch, Lessard cabin
Monday March 20th at 8:30 a.m. We left Garry Lessard's cabin and started towards Abraham Lessard's cabin, which was situated below the falls in North West River. It was a sunny but cold day, and after arriving to Abraham Lessard's cabin we spent the entire day getting our snowmobiles and supplies up over the falls. Feeling rather exhausted we then returned to Garry Lessard's cabin to spend another night. We arrived back to the cabin at 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday March 21st we left the cabin at 9:15 a.m., it was a sunny but extremely cold day. At 10:15 a.m. we were back to where we had left our supplies the previous day. We began to portage our way up hill with our supplies. We worked until 5:00 p.m. and only managed to gain 10 miles.
The weather had changed in the afternoon, it became milder and there were a few snow flurries. We set up camp for the night in a wooded area, unable to identify exactly where we were on the chart.
Wednesday March 22nd 8:00 a.m., leaving behind our supplies we went in search of a good trail to Francis Pond. There were snow flurries and the snow was very deep, making it difficult for us, and as I mentioned earlier it was a heavily wooded area. At 11:00 a.m. without succeeding to find a good trail we returned to the campsite. The same day Douglas Fequet, Kenneth Maurice and Clayton Pilgrim left the campsite at 1:00 p.m. to try again, by this time the snow was really coming down. They returned at 3:00 p.m. with good news, they had found a good trail.
Thursday March 23rd, it was another, cold but sunny day, it was to be our last stretch to Francis Pond. With supplies packed we were ready to leave at 9:15 a.m. We arrived to Francis Pond, where we had lunch at 12:00 p.m. After having lunch, it was now 1:45 p.m. and Douglas and Kenneth were now ready to go back and we were ready to continue our journey. At 3:15 we arrived at Mountie Pond, picked up some gasoline and left at 4:00 p.m. We ran into an obstacle, there was a falls in the brook that we were traveling on. It was decided that we would set up camp and conquer this problem in the morning.
Friday March 24th, we got on the go very early because we had to cut a portage over the falls. The weather was much the same as Thursday, fairly cold but sunny. At 9:15 a.m. we had the portage cut, gathered supplies, and we were now ready to leave. Traveling through woods, marshes and small ponds, we cross two Indian portages, and we had to cut two portages. By 5:00 p.m. we were ready to set up camp on a small pond, which we decided to call Terry's Pond. We covered about 10 miles today. There were times today when we had to beat trail by foot with snowshoes, the snow was too deep for our snowmobiles.
Saturday March 25th it was sunny and milder than the previous days. At 8:30 a.m. our supplies were gathered and we were ready to leave. We stopped around 11:00 a.m. to repair the handlebars on Terry's snowmobile and the springs on Clayton's snowmobile. It was approximately an hour delay. It had started to snow around 11:00 a.m., so there were times the snow was very deep. We arrived at Ronald's Pond at 4:30 p.m. and decided to leave some supplies there in order to get to Clayton's Pond before dark.
At 6:45 p.m. We were at Clayton's Pond, there was some shoveling to be done. The tent was covered with snow and ice, and the roof looked like it was about to cave in, this tent belonged to Jerome Mestenapeo, he had hunted around this area the previous fall, we spent the night there.
Mestenapeo's tent on Clayton's Pond
Sunday March 26th, Easter Sunday, it was mild and sunny, but there were snow flurries throughout the day. Terry and I returned to Ronald's Pond to pick up the supplies we left behind the day before. Clayton stayed back to cook our Easter dinner, which was bologna. In the afternoon the three of us went searching for a good trail from Clayton's Pond to Little Drunken River. We found a good trail, returned to camp early and relaxed the rest of the day knowing that we were about halfway and the trail for the next few days would be fairly easy.
Monday March 27th, it was again mild and sunny and light snow flurries late that evening. At 8:30 a.m. we left with all of our supplies, and traveled on Joir River to a small stream which brought us to Marshland. We had to use a compass to travel this Marshland, it was difficult for us to identify our position with land charts because the small ponds indicated on the charts did not show up. Everything looks alike when it is covered with snow. At 6:45 p.m. we set up camp for the night on a small pond with very few trees to shelter us. We were unable to positively identify our location on the chart.
Tuesday March 28th, a cloudy day with strong northerly winds. At 8:30 again this morning we were on our way, at 1:30 p.m. we reached a small round pond, this was headwaters of Little Drunken River, it was all down from this point on. We stopped to change a boogie wheel spring on my snowmobile, and at 5:30 we stopped again to set up camp for the night. The campsite was approximately 5 miles from Little Drunken River. By this time the weather had cleared but it was getting colder, the area which we had traveled the past few days showed no indication of anyone ever passing there before.
Headwaters, Little Drunken River
Near Little Drunken River,
night time temperature near -50 Celsius
Wednesday March 29th it was sunny but very cold, this was to be the coldest morning of the trip. We left the cabin at 8:30 with all supplies and arrived at Little Drunken River at 10:00 a.m. We followed the river as much as possible but by times we had to drive over hills because the river was too rough. We found some tracks shortly after we got on the River but were unable to follow them because they were covered by snow in places but it was still of some help to us.
At 1:30 p.m. we arrived at Henry Rich's cabin, situated at the mouth of Little Drunken River. We left the cabin at 2:00 p.m. to take the Kenamu River tracks which were also difficult to follow for the snow had covered them. We traveled very slow because we were not sure of ourselves and we didn't want to get into trouble. At 7:10 p.m. we arrived at Lake Melville feeling good about being so close to our destination. By this time the weather was getting extremely cold, with strong northerly winds. We arrived in Goose Bay 8:20 p.m., we felt very happy to have completed the trip, Clayton had his face badly frozen, and the temperature in Goose Bay at that time was -38 Celsius.
Part 3: the return trip to St. Augustine...next
