Читать книгу Forest, Lake and Prairie. Twenty Years of Frontier Life in Western Canada—1842-62 онлайн

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Our Indians got out timber for the canal. Some of my first earnings I made in taking out timber to floor the canal.

Father became well acquainted with the Canal Company. Once a number of the directors with the superintendent came to Garden River in one of their tugs, and prevailed on father to join the party. He took me along.

Away we flew down the river, and when near the mouth on the American side, we met a yawl pulling up stream. Who should be in it but the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, Sir George Simpson. He stood up in his boat and hailed us, and told us that a big steamer named the Traveller was aground over between the islands. She had started to cross over to the Bruce Mines and come up the other channel. He said, "You will confer a great favor if you go over and give her all the help you can. She is loaded with passengers, and they are running great risks should a storm come on before she is got off."

Accordingly we went to the rescue, and as a messenger from Providence were we welcomed by the great ship. We launched a nice little log canoe that father had taken along, and he got into it and felt and sounded a way for us, for our small vessel drew almost as much water as the big one; but father piloted our tug close to the great vessel. Soon we had a big hawser hitched to the stern of the steamer.