3 for the River: R. M. Patterson's "Dangerous River"

This is the first in a series of twelve monthly posts in which I’ll reread my three favorite riverine travelogues – R. M. Patterson’s Dangerous River (1953), Jonathan Raban’s Old Glory (1981), and Tim Butcher’s Blood River (2007) – and compare them. Today, I’ll begin with a review of Dangerous River. 

This great book is an account of two exploratory trips that Patterson took on the South Nahanni River, Northwest Territories, Canada – one in 1927, the other in 1928-29. At that time, Patterson says, the South Nahanni had a daunting reputation: “The Nahanni, they said, was straight suicide. The river was fast and bad, and if a man ever did get through those canyons what would he find in that little known country of the Yukon divide?” Well, Patterson aimed to find out. The result is one of the most detailed, evocative, thrilling wilderness adventures I’ve ever read. 

The first trip is three months long, beginning mid-July, 1927, in Fort Simpson. Patterson poles his sixteen-foot Chestnut Prospector canoe up the Liard River to Nahanni Butte, where the South Nahanni comes in. Then for two weeks, he paddles, poles, and tracks his way up the treacherous South Nahanni through canyons of sheer cliffs, some of which are over three thousand feet high, to a spectacular waterfall, now known as Virginia Falls, nearly twice the height of Niagara. After viewing the Falls, he turns and heads back downriver. He spends a few days exploring a tributary called Flat River. He spends a few more at the campsite of Albert Faille, helping him build a log cabin. Then he continues on to Nahanni Butte and camps on an island in the Liard. From there, he travels to Fort Liard. By now it’s September. He continues up the Liard to the mouth of the Fort Nelson River, and follows that river all the way to Fort Nelson, where he sells his canoe. On September 19, he sets out on foot to hike to Fish Lake, but loses the trail and has to return to Fort Nelson. Six days later, he makes a second attempt, this time in the company of a pack train traveling to Sikanni Post. Now it’s October. He hikes from Sikanni Post to Fort St. John, on the Peace River. At Fort St. John, he catches a ride on a river freighter, heading for the town of Peace River, where he plans to take the train out.

It's a thrilling trip through country wild to the limits of the term. Patterson encounters waves, whirlpools, drift piles, sweepers, rapids, moose, eagles, thunder storms, and hordes of blood-thirsty mosquitoes. Here, for example, is his description of the twenty-mile stretch approaching the Falls:

Short canyons of red and yellow rock through which the river boils and races: rock strewn in dry summers of low water and with five- and six-foot waves in the riffles; powerful eddies that drive a loaded canoe upstream on a slack trackline too fast for a man on the shore, clambering frantically over the tumbled rocks, to keep pace with it; sharp rocks on to which the eddies or the waves from the big riffles drive the canoe, slicing its canvas; whirlpools, driftpiles, sheer cliffs with deep, racing water at their feet – all these are crowded close in those twenty miles as if to test the spirit of the voyageur to the breaking point.

And here’s his account of his attempt to navigate Hell’s Gate Rapid:

I tried that rapid three times, but the current in the canyon was stronger than I had thought, and I was not able to get speed enough on the canoe to drive it up on the crest of the riffle that barred the way. Twice the canoe climbed the ridge, close under the big waves, only to be flung across the river and driven down the canyon, almost touching the cliff on the portage side. At the third and last attempt the eddies worked in my favour: the canoe was climbing the hill of racing water with speed enough (I thought) to take it on and over, when suddenly a gust of wind blew down the river, the nose swung off course and the canoe slid down into the lower whirlpool. It started to spin and then was lifted on the upsurge of a huge boil from below. It was like the heave of one’s cabin bunk at night in some great Atlantic storm. Then the water fell away from beneath the canoe, and I caught a glimpse of the white waves of the rapid, a long way above, it seemed. The canoe rose once more and spun again, and then at last the paddle bit into solid water and drove the outfit out of the whirlpool and down the canyon for the last time, taking a sideways slap, in passing, from a stray eddy and shipping it green as a parting souvenir of a memorable visit.

Patterson’s second trip in Nahanni country is even wilder. This time he’s joined by his friend and fellow-adventurer Gordon Matthews. May 24, 1928, Patterson, Matthews, and four dogs travel down the Liard in three Chestnut canoes lashed together, powered by a four-horsepower Johnson outboard. They go up the South Nahanni, which is in full flood (“an awe-inspiring spectacle”). They get as far as the Splits and the outboard smashes on a snag. They cache half their load. June 1, Patterson takes one of the canoes and continues on up the river; Matthews stays behind with the dogs. Three days later, Patterson finally conquers the Splits. He encounters two men, Starke and Stevens, who are trying to pilot their scow upriver. The three men strike a deal: in exchange for Patterson’s help, they’ll put his canoe and half his load on board the scow and carry it as far as the Hot Springs. After nine toiling days, they make it almost to the Hot Springs, but no farther. They haul the scow out of the river and put it up on blocks to wait for the river to drop. June 18, Patterson caches his load, heads back downriver, picks up the remainder of his equipment, brings it up to Starke’s camp and caches it with the rest of his things. Then he turns and heads downriver to Matthews’ camp. July 13, Patterson and Matthews are camped in the Lower Canyon. They explore the surrounding area. They shoot two rams. They continue their journey upriver. Now it’s August and the two men are in Deadmen’s Valley; they pick a site on the south bank, a little above the mouth of Prairie Creek, and build a cabin. From there, Patterson canoes upriver and explores the Flat River country on foot. He shoots a moose and catches an enormous Dolly Varden (“about the size of a young porpoise”). Now it’s September, Patterson is back with Matthews at the cabin. They get ready for winter, finishing the cabin, setting up a cook stove, cutting firewood, hunting. Matthews shoots a black bear. Patterson explores Ram Creek on foot. He stalks two Dall rams. September 20, first severe frost. Falling leaves. Patterson canoes downriver, hunting for game. September 29, first snow. October 12, ice in the Nahanni. Patterson and Matthews range the valley, on foot and by canoe, hunting. October 24, freeze-up of the Nahanni, end of canoeing. October 27, first day of winter. November, they start fur-trapping – weasels, foxes, mink, and marten. Patterson explores the Meilleur River Valley (“There was so much to see and one would never come this way again”). Temperatures are between forty and fifty below now. Back at the cabin, “there was always something to fiddle with”: moccasins to mend and sometimes snowshoes; a rifle or pistol to be cleaned; bannock or sourdough bread to bake and a stew of moose meat and partridges to be tended and seasoned; Patterson’s diary to be written up; torn parka to mend; knives and axes to sharpen; dog-harness to be stitched; traps to be filed and adjusted; and always the day’s catch of fur to be dealt with. As always, weather is key. Here’s what it was like on December 2:

In the small hours of December 2, the wind rose to a gale and swung into the northwest, and from there it blew all day long, a searing blast of cold out of a cloudless sky, drifting the snow down the river with a hissing, scratching sound like that of driven sand. I was home alone all day, cutting wood, fixing up some fur and sharpening axes and saws. The rim of the sun showed for a while at midday over the Bald Mountain, but its rays gave no warmth and soon camp lay again in the shadow. The raving wind was whipping the tall spruce around like fishing rods; it was somewhere between thirty and forty below, and the dogs, who usually spent their idle hours lying on mats of spruce beneath the overturned canoes, whimpered uneasily and sought the shelter of the dog house. The wind raged on through the night: in the odd lull one could hear the sharp reports of splitting trees and faintly, for it was across the wind, a fusillade of expanding ice from the delta of Prairie Creek. In the cabin, well-chinked though it was, the alarm clock froze up, and around the latch hole and the door jamb, and on every nail head of the door, there was gathered almost a quarter of an inch of rime.

On December 19, Matthews hits the trail for Fort Simpson, almost two hundred miles away, traveling by dogsled. But he encounters open water in the Lower Canyon and has to turn back. December 24, he tries again, this time hauling a canoe with him. He tries crossing the open water in the canoe, but it upsets, dumping him and the dogs into the icy water. He gets a fire going, thaws himself out, and goes on. Meanwhile, back at the cabin, Patterson tends the traplines. On January 4, he shoots a wolverine. January 21, he hikes up to the head of the valley, right up to Second Canyon Mountain. The temperatures are now close to sixty below. January 23, he makes wolverine soup. Matthews hasn’t returned. Patterson decides that if he’s not back by January 30, he’ll go searching for him. February 1, no sign of Matthews. Patterson straps on his snowshoes, shoulders his pack, and heads downriver. It’s quite a trek! Deep snow, open water, camping outdoors in thirty-five-below weather, a risky crossing on a fragile ice bridge. Patterson stays with Jack la Flair at his cabin for a couple of days, and then goes on. Now he’s on the Liard; a storm hits. The wind rises to a screaming blast. He spends the night at Joseph Marie Cote’s cabin. “Come in, come in,” Joe says. “This is no fit day for a sacré wolf to travel.” Next day, he goes on. “Snowshoe sickness” appears in his right ankle. Snow continues to fall; the wind is savage. While crossing the river, he stubs his snowshoe on a point of ice and falls over, wrenching his left knee. He looks for a place to camp, finds an old abandoned cabin. He crawls inside and makes a fire. During the night the roof nearly caves in. The cabin walls repeatedly catch fire. The next day he hobbles on, head down, into the searing wind, covering his face with his big gauntlet mitts. But his ankle soreness flares up again. He can barely move. He looks for cover. Climbing up the river bank, he sees tents – a hunting party of Slave Indians. They take him in and warm him up and give him a tent of his own for the night. He strikes a deal with one of the young Indians, who is going next day to Fort Simpson with an empty dogsled, to go with him and to throw his packsack into his cariole. Early next morning, they hit the trail. The temperature is forty-five below and the wind is still the same icy blast. The day, for Patterson, is “a hell of stabbing pain and awkward movement.” He writes, “My world, as seen through a curtain of frosted eyelashes, was a vast, white emptiness through which a dog team and an Indian were running at a steady jog. They had always been there, and they always would be there – there was no end to it.” Suddenly, the dogs break out of the straight and go floundering through the snow towards the west bank. Patterson and the Indian follow. There in the bush is a cabin. In a tree nearby, there’s a rifle hanging. Patterson recognizes it – Matthews’ Mauser – and just as he does, Matthews himself comes out of the cabin, running towards him. 

My summary traces the sequence of events, but it utterly fails to convey the most pleasurable aspect of Patterson’s narrative – his glorious specificity. Here, for example, is his description of crossing the river at the Splits:

I must have crossed about fifteen feet above the big waves for I heard the wash of one just behind me. But there was no time to look: the loaded canoe was handling like a lump of lead, and I had to reach land somewhere above the three-hundred-yard-long driftpile under which part of the river seemed to draw into some hidden channel behind. The canoe hit the steep shingle bank with a crash and started to slide downstream: the driftpile was only about twenty yards away. I swung the canoe’s nose tight in to shore and then rose up and jumped with the trackline in my left hand, throwing away the paddle, which fell with a clatter on the stones. The force of my jump shot the canoe out into the current, and the jerk came on the line as I rolled over on the shingle, trying for a foothold. The heavy canoe caught the full sweep of the Nahanni and skidded me on my tail end over the stones towards the river, too frightened even to swear. But some bygone flood had half buried an old spruce root deep in the tightly cemented shingle and, struggling and fighting, I fetched up against that with both feet – and the trackline held and I drew the canoe in to shore, five yards and no more above the hungry, sucking driftpile. I made the canoe fast to the root while I went to get the paddle: then I tracked upstream towards the camp where I said goodbye to Faille nine months ago.

That is one example, among dozens, of Patterson’s extraordinary skill at description. In future posts, I’ll consider other aspects of his art, e.g., his sense of place, love of nature, use of detail. But first I want to introduce the second book in my trio – Jonathan Raban’s splendid Old Glory. That will be the subject of my next post in this series.