We set off the next morning even more hopeful that this large stream would allow us to reach Big Lake without having to drag or portage any more.
After three hours, however, the canoes started scraping and bumping across the rocky stream bed, until
We eventually ran out of water several km (couple of miles) away from Big Lake. We were all becoming a bit frustrated. Whose idea was this, anyway, to start our trip on the opposite side of the mountain from the Coppermine River? Oh well, maybe tomorrow would bring better paddling conditions, without the need to drag or portage.
Lunch the next day! No water in sight. As soon as we began going upstream in the morning we ran out of water. We decided that it would be easier to not bother with a dry river bed, and simply head straight across the tundra to Big Lake. Kathleen and I first took up canoeing because backpacking at our age had become too hard. We now found ourselves backpacking with a canoe, and wondered where we had gone wrong.
After six days, we finally reached Big Lake, only about halfway to our hoped-for destination of Point Lake. In August of 1820, Franklin reached Winter Lake, and intended to proceed to, and return from, the Arctic Coast that summer. Akaitcho, his guide, argued against this plan, and told Franklin that 40 days would be required to reach the Coast. The first 11 days would be through country with no wood. Most importantly, Akaitcho told Franklin that there would be no caribou to hunt, as winter was soon approaching.
Franklin, however, remained confident, and replied, we informed him (Akaitcho) that we were provided with instruments by which we could tell the state of air and water and we did not imagine the winter to be so near as he supposed.
As we huddled in our wind-bound, cold camp nearly two centuries later, Kathleen read the response of Akaitcho.
Well, I have said everything I can to dissuade you from going on. It seems you wish to sacrifice your own lives as well as the Indians who might attend you. However, if after all I have said you are determined, some of my young men shall join your party, because it shall not be said that we allowed you to die alone having brought you hither. But from the moment they embark in the canoes, I and my relatives will lament them as dead.
Fortunately for Franklin, he accepted Akaitcho’s advice, and postponed his trip to the following spring. If not, it is likely that all 20 men who reached the arctic coast in 1821 would have died. As it was, only nine men survived the trip.