Speed was essential on our return trip to Fort Chipewyan – 100 miles downstream – because ice had already started to form on the river, and if it got much worse, we would have to wait till “Freeze-up” and go by dog train. So we got the owner of the Kicker to attach it to our Canoe & start it up.
It surely was an invention of the Devil.
It would go for a few minutes and then stop. I cranked and cranked until my hands were raw, my finger nails broken and my heart nearly broken too.
Finally, in a cloud of smoke – it died – so we left it on shore at a Trappers Cabin and paddled the rest of the way to Fort Chipewyan – arriving there only just ahead of the Freeze-up, in fact, a few days later and we would have had to wait for a
